Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 692 posts

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#11

Post by rgovostes »

mingus88 wrote: post #10
com2kid wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives. The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would have to pay for the service or something. GM might have the technology but they are completely bungling the strategy. Sadly this is believable, I've asked to check out things like remote start and control of heating/cooling, and the sales…

Based on my anecdotal experience, another issue is that salespeople are not trained on the tech I worked on a feature for new vehicles and the company failed in part because buyers simply didn’t know those features were part of the vehicle. Dealers never set it up for the buyer and it wasn’t something many people would think to do on their own A salesperson isn’t going to jeopardize an easy sale by bungling some fanc…

I don't want to be a jerk but the salesperson couldn't pronounce "autonomous" which tells me they aren't being trained in selling the feature at all. I can't even remember him referring to it by the marketing name.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#12

Post by schiffern »

rgovostes wrote: post #8
schiffern wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google/Waymo ... Amazon/Zoox ... Uber/Yandex ... GM Super Cruise ... Ford BluesClues Conspicuously absent is The Car+AI Company That Shall Not Be Named. That's the one the press release is referring to, I guarantee it.

Just edited to add it in. Wikipedia says they're not going into production until 2027 though, and unlike the others I don't think they're operating in any markets.

GM SuperCruise and Ford BluesClues are comparable products, so I don't know why you'd exclude Tesla's product as not "operating in any markets."

Other companies have neat AV demos (some that they even make people pay for), but fundamentally they can't and won't scale.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#13

Post by ra7 »

GM believed Kyle Vogt when he was hyping up their tech by having small, meaningless deployments in a dozen cities and promising $1B revenue by 2025. Then they had that incident and GM found out exactly how far behind Waymo they are. Waymo is now giving 175k rides every week and expanding to new markets every year. No other robotaxi company in the entire country giving rides to the public.

Now they've gone back to what I think GM's original plan was for acquiring Cruise — using their tech for passenger cars. Selling cars is GM's bread and butter. This wasn't going to end any other way.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#14

Post by chrchr »

rgovostes wrote: post #3

> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…

It makes you wonder how much more effective U.S. auto makers might be without the regulation that requires them to sell through dealerships.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#15

Post by rgovostes »

schiffern wrote: post #12
rgovostes wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just edited to add it in. Wikipedia says they're not going into production until 2027 though, and unlike the others I don't think they're operating in any markets.

GM SuperCruise and Ford BluesClues are comparable products, so I don't know why you'd exclude Tesla's product as not "operating in any markets." Other companies have neat AV demos (some that they even make people pay for), but fundamentally they can't and won't scale.

I am not sure I have all the facts straight but: Super Cruise and BlueCruise are features available on GM and Ford passenger cars, respectively. They aren't taxi services. I tried to make the distinction between companies participating in the "increasingly competitive robotaxi market" versus just the ones that have some level of autonomous driving capability; tweaked comment.

GM was majority stakeholder in Cruise, which was gearing up to a ride hailing service. Cruise's cars have instruments like LiDAR on the roof, unlike Super Cruise-equipped cars.

Ford wrote about an "initial launch of a commercial self-driving service in 2021" but I don't think it materialized. A photo of their robotaxi bears the logo of Argo AI, a startup that shut down in 2022.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#16

Post by throwaway48476 »

ra7 wrote: post #13

GM believed Kyle Vogt when he was hyping up their tech by having small, meaningless deployments in a dozen cities and promising $1B revenue by 2025. Then they had that incident and GM found out exactly how far behind Waymo they are. Waymo is now giving 175k rides every week and expanding to new markets every year. No other robotaxi company in the entire country giving rides to the public. Now they've gone back to wha…

So stupid. If something has proved to be possible then you as number 2 can hire people from 1 to replicate it. China is built on this principle.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#17

Post by throwaway48476 »

rgovostes wrote: post #3

> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…

There is still interest in autonomous driving, just not assisted driving where the marketing did not match the reality.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#18

Post by throwaway48476 »

chrchr wrote: post #14
rgovostes wrote: post #3

> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…

It makes you wonder how much more effective U.S. auto makers might be without the regulation that requires them to sell through dealerships.

Dealerships have massively consolidated too, they have larger profits than automakers. It's absurd.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#20

Post by jamiequint »

ra7 wrote: post #13

GM believed Kyle Vogt when he was hyping up their tech by having small, meaningless deployments in a dozen cities and promising $1B revenue by 2025. Then they had that incident and GM found out exactly how far behind Waymo they are. Waymo is now giving 175k rides every week and expanding to new markets every year. No other robotaxi company in the entire country giving rides to the public. Now they've gone back to wha…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN