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Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

bloomberg.com

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Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#171

Post by IshKebab »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #96
simianwords wrote: post #24

why is Tesla much higher? I thought Tesla's market cap was because of the self driving feature.

Waymo needs $16B to build what Tesla already has: manufacturing capacity. Without that, there are only so many cars they can put on the road. They've proven they can do the rides. But they haven't proven they can do it cost effectively. To scale up and start making a profit, they'll need to start building/buying lots of Waymo cars. That's not going to be cheap or fast. That's going to involve a lot of capital expense…

Making a driverless car "driver" is clearly much harder than manufacturing cars though. Many companies manufacture cars and have done for decades. On the other hand Waymo is the only company that has actual driverless cars on the road. It took them a very long time. Tesla have been trying for a very long time too and still have a long way to go.

So IMO Waymo has something far more valuable than Tesla. (Obviously the market isn't rational though so I wouldn't necessarily invest based on that.)

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#172

Post by [deleted] »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #80
nvch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, this is the major selling point to own a car. I may drive a few times a week, and taxis might be much cheaper, but no way I'm going to deal with human taxi drivers if I have a choice.

This seems weird to me, maybe it's a generational thing. Is it really that bad to share a car with someone? You don't have to talk to them the whole time.

[deleted]

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#173

Post by IshKebab »

kccqzy wrote: post #167
lapetitejort wrote: post #122

I do not think driverless will solve the main transportation problem we are dealing with as a society: we are giving up more space for cars, space that humans cannot use. We build more highways, widen roads, increase speed limits, and expect humans to stay out of this space. I live in a 100+ year old neighborhood. The roads were built for horse and buggy and streetcars. Now I have to beg to cross the road. My neighbo…

No one here should realistically think that Waymo can solve the main transportation problem. It will just (partially) replace Uber, Lyft, and taxis. And it will have a better passenger experience and it will also be safer. It’s obvious that cars, autonomous or not, can’t replace rail, bicycles, and walking.

I think it could solve a lot of transportation problems though. In theory if driverless vehicles were ubiquitous you'd have no on-street parking, no commercial transport in the day (do it all at night), much less traffic (just wait until your slot; maybe with peak time pricing), fewer delays due to crashes, etc.

When nobody drives manually you could even do things like getting rid of traffic lights.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#174

Post by christkv »

biztos wrote: post #160
lazarus01 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis and Ubers, no Waymo yet. I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber. On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the driver and learn something new about humanity or myself. I really enjoy these interactio…

I’m surprised they don’t have opt-in LLM-based “chatty mode” where you can talk to the AI personality of your choice while riding. Obviously shouldn’t be the same AI that’s deciding whether to run over the child or crash into the oncoming train. [edit: riding not driving]

Jhonny Cab from Total Recall

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#175

Post by throwmeaway820 »

kolbe wrote: post #28
dotBen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very capital intensive operation given the amount of vehicles that need to be carried on the balance sheet. There are many reasons why a conglomerate like Alphabet doesn't want to hold all of that directly on the balance sheet, which is why Waymo is run as a subsidiary with its own sources of capital. When I was at Uber 10 plus years ago and we were ideating autonomous vehicles. The general consensus was that…

Alphabet is providing $13bn of the $16bn raise. What are you talking about? Do you really think that $3bn matters in the slightest?

three billion here, three billion there, pretty soon it begins to add up to real money

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#176

Post by dyauspitr »

lazarus01 wrote: post #60
jFriedensreich wrote: post #35

No product had such a fast transition from novelty to "omg i never want to interact with a human again". I feel about 100% less stressed and happier using a waymo or riding motorbike or bicycle next to a waymo than with human drivers. I hope this next phase will bring availability and prices down. We need this in europe.

Im fortunate to live in an area dense with traditional taxis and Ubers, no Waymo yet. I rarely take taxis, the exception is when I have to haul my gear to the studio for a jam session. I always take a taxi, because it’s cheaper and faster than using an app to call an uber. On 80% of the trips, I end up having a nice chat with the driver and learn something new about humanity or myself. I really enjoy these interactio…

I think there will still be delivery services where you need someone to go into the restaurant and then up to the customers door. That’s going to stick around unless we get to a point where the restaurant is responsible to load up the Waymo and the customer is responsible for getting it out which probably won’t happen anytime soon. The whole delivery market was also mostly created overnight from something that didn’t exist before.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#177

Post by zimzam »

tanseydavid wrote: post #165
amccollum wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard tax deduction for car travel is $0.70 / mile in the US, which accounts for things like insurance, gas, maintenance, and depreciation. So $500 / month is around 700 miles, which probably around 90% of US drivers surpass.

There is no tax deduction (in the US) for vehicle use that is non-business related.

Correct, the person you are responding to is using it as a benchmark for the all-in cost of driving a vehicle on a per-mile basis.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#178

Post by dyauspitr »

nananana9 wrote: post #84
dmd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, yes, and someone think of the gong farmers and pole men.

That's a pretty dismissive attitude for ~100 million professional drivers worldwide, making a living doing actual useful work on a forum where the vast majority of users do not do any useful work.

Artificially protecting jobs by holding back technology is terrible form. At best it’s short term before the economics become an order of magnitude cheap and at worst it’s hamstringing your economy so you’re left behind.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#179

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

nananana9 wrote: post #84
dmd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God, yes, and someone think of the gong farmers and pole men.

That's a pretty dismissive attitude for ~100 million professional drivers worldwide, making a living doing actual useful work on a forum where the vast majority of users do not do any useful work.

Well, the point is that if we reach a point in which a robot can do it better and cheaper, it's no longer useful work.

Re: Waymo seeking about $16B near $110B valuation

#180

Post by naveen99 »

pu_pe wrote: post #52

It seems like a fair valuation to me. I can see a path for them to approach or surpass Uber's revenue (~$50B) in the future, and I think their technology and brand are actual moats in comparison to all other driverless systems out there.

Left pocket valuing the right pocket.
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