You didn’t need to, but you decided to show up on HN to clearly articulate your strategy, so I applaud you for this.
> Our strategy has been to solve the challenges needed to operate driverless robotaxis on a well-equipped vehicle, then aggressively drive the cost down.
There are broadly two ways to achieve your desired outcome of aggressively lower costs:
1. use money raised from VCs to subsidize the final cost of the product, or;
2. use money earned from customers as a natural consequence of growing demand for your product, in spite of strong competition from established OEMs, to fund your expansion.
Historically, the former has a lower likelihood of success relative to the latter and that’s because the former is really just a cash transfer from VCs to consumers. The latter is how Apple and Tesla have been able to grow into what they are today.
The reason the 2nd kind is so effective is that, when executed correctly, it often leads to a vicious cycle: your growth will lead to steadily increasing order volumes with your suppliers. This will in turn lead to sourcing for more suppliers to keep up with your growth. At a certain point, a supplier will feel confident that you are here for the long haul, causing them to take on more risk by pouring additional capital into their business to expand capacity. This will improve their ability to accommodate your current and future needs quickly, cheaply or both.
In other words, reality is multidimensional. It is rare for an individual company to aggressively drive down the costs of its product single-handedly, unless that company is ready to assume an enormous amount of risk currently being borne by its ecosystem of partners and suppliers.