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GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

cnbc.com

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

#251

Post by jcgrillo »

zrobotics wrote: post #223
dangus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to GM, Tesla basically had to be a brand new auto company and work through a whole bunch of legal loopholes and battles just to have their direct sales model. GM and the rest of the legacy automakers are essentially bound to the dealership system and the dealerships represent a much larger lobbying base than the automakers themselves. We are seeing this play out with VW’s attempt to direct-sell Scout vehic…

I could do a undergrad essay on how the dealership model is bad for the manufacturers, which would boil down to how Indian motorcycles failed (which was also due to mismanagement). However, the VW scouts are an absolute abomination that should be cleansed from the earth. They aren't going to be any good as an off-road vehicle, the approach/departure angles are horrible. They will also be way too heavy, just as a func…

Simple and rugged will beat "sophisticated" every day of the week. Underpowered is an asset because you don't break shit. Simple is an asset because you can keep it running. Steering box NLA? No problem fit one from a different vehicle. Axles? NBD just need some U-bolts, maybe some custom linkages, and any other solid axle of similar dimensions will do. Trying to make cars into some kind of disposable appliance is incredibly short sighted.

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

#252

Post by steveoscaro »

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's weird to me to see so many people thinking Tesla is "far behind", when in reality, they're far, far ahead of the competition for a general purpose and scalable self driving solution. Seems like political biases just cloud judgement so much. Youtube now has videos comparing Tesla FSD V13 with Waymo rides on the same routes.

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

#254

Post by [deleted] »

fastball wrote: post #216
kevindamm wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that, even -- Waymo is already transitioning to having partners that do the operations & maintenance work while they focus on the tech. I read this as a confidence in the tech timeline, strategy, and maturity. Meanwhile, Tesla's strategy is "hype, ???, deal with it." I know which one I'd back.

So I assume you've put your money where your mouth is and own GOOG and not TSLA.

[deleted]

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

#255

Post by paxys »

cortesoft wrote: post #245
paxys wrote: post #236

Pretty bad news for the space as a whole. A decade and a half ago there were a dozen+ companies and tens of billions of VC dollars in the space. People were proudly proclaiming the end of driving. Now all but one of them have folded. My thoughts today are the same as they were back then. Self driving will only be solved city by city and street by street. Local governments will need to create dedicated closed-off auto…

That could also mean that one company just won, right? Ten companies try to do a really hard thing, nine fail, one succeeds, the nine failures close down. Seems pretty reasonable for difficult new tech.

Has Waymo "won"? At its peak Cruise was operating in more cities and had more cars on the road than Waymo does today. Look at how that ended.

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

#256

Post by VirusNewbie »

aanet wrote: post #5

Archive https://archive.is/20241210211353/https://www.bloomberg.com/... QUOTE: Cruise and GM’s technical teams will be combined into a single effort focused on developing autonomous technology to offer in future models sold by GM, according to a statement Tuesday. GM said it will no longer fund robotaxi development work “given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with…

>is that its parent Alphabet has deeep pockets

I wouldn't underestimate the advantage of not having to bootstrap a planet scale backend/ML platform. Look how much R&D Uber spends on software and they're not even doing the same level of ML. Waymo can just start using excess capacity across the google fleet whenever it wants for training and simulation. That's a huge advantage.

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

#257

Post by jmount »

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…

Reminds me of my father in law's experience with Toyota (I think). The car's nav system had an update available on a CD you put into the car stereo. The dealership made him order one, instead of the much more reasonable loaning him one.

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

#258

Post by lang4d »

standardUser wrote: post #19

Waymo needs competition. Who else is even close to being able to provide it? I'd hate to think Tesla is next in line because they haven't even started a commercial pilot program yet.

Waymo is also in competition with non AV ride sharing companies. They'll need to make it more cost effective and/or (continue to) deliver higher quality rides

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

#259

Post by david38 »

dangus wrote: post #149
schiffern wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "GM's business model" problem, which is again a GM problem. The top-selling EV maker in the US doesn't have any dealerships, so clearly it's not an insurmountable problem. GM just hasn't prioritized surmounting it.

To be fair to GM, Tesla basically had to be a brand new auto company and work through a whole bunch of legal loopholes and battles just to have their direct sales model. GM and the rest of the legacy automakers are essentially bound to the dealership system and the dealerships represent a much larger lobbying base than the automakers themselves. We are seeing this play out with VW’s attempt to direct-sell Scout vehic…

GM controls the profits the dealers make. They can easily incentivize quality training

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

#260

Post by danans »

rogerrogerr wrote: post #188
crazygringo wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a company could expand their offerings with a less robust safety record But would people take it? I mean, if one service is 25% cheaper but there are a bunch of horror stories of their vehicles crashing into highway barriers (like this past October), I'm not sure people are going to get in.

Driving is 100% cheaper, and there are a bunch of horror stories of people crashing their vehicles into highway barriers. We’re not starting at zero here.

Is driving really 100% cheaper? Owning a car has pretty high fixed costs.

Also, it's different when you crash a car yourself vs a robot doing it. If you are driving, there is clearer accountability than a robot, so the bar must be much higher for the robot.

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