$100B is not that much when you compare it to the value self-driving cars will create. There are over 1 billion cars on the road which need humans to drive them. How much are they used? I don't know. Let's say one ride per day. When cars turn into a service business, the "driver" will be software. What will be paid to the driver? Let's say $1 per ride. That is 1B * $1 * 365 = $365B per year. Give that a p/e ratio of…
Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
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Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#22This article is kind of a wrapper for the linked bloomberg article, which is more interesting IMO. Driving of cars is a massive cooperative game with high stakes, and autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans. Fully autonomous cars would be sick, but IMO you'd need massive infrastructure changes (realistically restricted to cities/urbanized areas) i…
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#23This article is kind of a wrapper for the linked bloomberg article, which is more interesting IMO. Driving of cars is a massive cooperative game with high stakes, and autonomous cars essentially need AGI in order to play to a degree that is safer than a human with other humans. Fully autonomous cars would be sick, but IMO you'd need massive infrastructure changes (realistically restricted to cities/urbanized areas) i…
Why should we change city infrastructure to work with less than AGI driven cars? It sounds instead like yes, AV companies are over selling what they can do and they should be restricted to things like highways and the like where the easier, less complex driving environment already exists. Cities are by far the most complex relative to every other driving environment, in fact there is a good argument that, in cities,…
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#24$100B is not that much when you compare it to the value self-driving cars will create. There are over 1 billion cars on the road which need humans to drive them. How much are they used? I don't know. Let's say one ride per day. When cars turn into a service business, the "driver" will be software. What will be paid to the driver? Let's say $1 per ride. That is 1B * $1 * 365 = $365B per year. Give that a p/e ratio of…
$365B in value is probably a serious undercall. The only reason to complain here is if only $100B has been put in to the venture so far.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#25The mining site thing is probably where things should have begun, or highway driving only, but the question is, could a company have motivated ML and programming experts with such a humble starting point? Or was the hole-in-one approach required to build a team that could get anywhere at all?
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#26$100B is not that much when you compare it to the value self-driving cars will create. There are over 1 billion cars on the road which need humans to drive them. How much are they used? I don't know. Let's say one ride per day. When cars turn into a service business, the "driver" will be software. What will be paid to the driver? Let's say $1 per ride. That is 1B * $1 * 365 = $365B per year. Give that a p/e ratio of…
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I always imagined the future of self driving cars wouldn't lie in cities (except maybe some main ringroads or arterial roalds) but in highways. Just tell the computer to go to highway X exit Y, and from there the driver can drive the last few miles. Basically geofencing known 'sane' locations, which cuts down on the boring bits of driving significantly.
That's just trying to solve a simpler problem. It wasn't what we were promised!
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#28Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#29We are talking tens of trillions in value unlocked around the world.
Re: Even after $100B, self-driving cars are going nowhere
#30So? Okay, we're not there yet with autonomous vehicles, and have spend tons of money on it. But the tech we have now didn't exist a decade ago. Give it another decade.
Until LiDAR becomes more cheaper and these cars CAN drive themselves safely at night without supervision in any state at scale and as advertised like a robotaxi, then you're looking into multiple decades of these research prototypes being 'useful'.
So far, that $100BN is a VC scam until proven otherwise.