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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

#421

Post by 7thpower »

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…

I get all that, but I want a new scout. Bad.

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

#422

Post by kortilla »

danans wrote: post #250
upbeat_general wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something but are there any current regulations that make it difficult to operate? My understanding was that in many states, it's mostly just paper requirements and not any strict testing, etc.

Most states and communities aren't ok with unproven AVs on their streets causing accidents and injuries, even if they are superficially politically aligned with the AV manufacturer's CEO. That's a good thing, we shouldn't be lowering the bar for AVs.

AVs already exceed the quite low bar for humans. The real crux is liability when they screw up.

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

#423

Post by 7thpower »

jcgrillo wrote: post #308
nradov wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Waymo actually works? It's limited by geography and speed but they have robotaxis carrying paying customers in multiple cities. This is reality today, not sci-fi.

When will it be profitable? The carmakers are betting that L3 autonomy is a profitable investment, but robotaxis aren't. Regardless of what Waymo can or can't demonstrate technically. So either the carmakers are wrong or Waymo is. I guess we'll wait and see.

You’re shifting the goal posts, but do you not believe these services can eventually be delivered profitably?

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

#424

Post by netcan »

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…

>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

Before the iPhone came out, some pretty decent/popular smartphones existed. I had clients in the industry. They sold a lot of n95s and such.

But... data plans sucked. Apple did an exclusive deal and forced them to include 2gb of data. They could not sell phones with data-less plans. Customers could not buy iphones on data-less plans.

At some point you have to nudge the paradigm.

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

#425

Post by kortilla »

kevindamm wrote: post #123
ketzo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it kinda the other way around? I feel like the clock starts the first time a CyberCab gives a paid passenger ride, and that seems like quite a ways out — potentially much more than 2 years. And Waymo has that whole time to bring down their costs of construction, learn how to solve problems of scale, and so on. I agree that a CyberCab would have structural advantages if the service were at parity w/ Waymo, but t…

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.

Confidence in the timeline is one read. Lack of confidence and finding partners to shoulder the financial burden at the cost of lower upside is another.

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

#426

Post by lukan »

ashoeafoot wrote: post #348
rgovostes wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN priorities are not real world priorities

People in the real world are not interested in autonomous driving?

I doubt that. They just care less for the technical details.

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

#427

Post by zeusk »

7thpower wrote: post #416
zeusk wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why? And I’m curious if you would you pay more or less to avoid people who are texting/reading while driving? What about people who make snarky comments to posters who are sharing their experiences in good faith?

Would definitely pay more to avoid FSD pilots, because the texters sense their surroundings more often than the drivers lulled by false advertisement and (at-best) beta grade software.

The snarky posters can stay, doesn't hurt my life or property.

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

#428

Post by tzs »

purplethinking wrote: post #396
nojvek wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is a veeeeery distant second. Elon is full gung ho on vision only. They even removed ultrasonic sensors for parking. Tesla even removed radar. Vision only is Tesla’s bet. Meanwhile Waymo bets on jamming the car full of sensors to ensure it has superhuman 360 perception in all conditions with multiple sensor redundancy. Waymo takes safety insanely seriously. Tesla doesn’t care if 100s die in their car while on F…

Tesla is a distant first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYlQjINzO_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoZhER_-nhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeNKYRWGgBc

We’re talking about robotaxis.

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

#429

Post by fldskfjdslkfj »

purplethinking wrote: post #396
nojvek wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is a veeeeery distant second. Elon is full gung ho on vision only. They even removed ultrasonic sensors for parking. Tesla even removed radar. Vision only is Tesla’s bet. Meanwhile Waymo bets on jamming the car full of sensors to ensure it has superhuman 360 perception in all conditions with multiple sensor redundancy. Waymo takes safety insanely seriously. Tesla doesn’t care if 100s die in their car while on F…

Tesla is a distant first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYlQjINzO_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoZhER_-nhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeNKYRWGgBc

All those are channels that claimed that FSD was great 3+ years ago.

Not exactly reliable sources of information.

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

#430

Post by speleding »

jcgrillo wrote: post #308
nradov wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Waymo actually works? It's limited by geography and speed but they have robotaxis carrying paying customers in multiple cities. This is reality today, not sci-fi.

When will it be profitable? The carmakers are betting that L3 autonomy is a profitable investment, but robotaxis aren't. Regardless of what Waymo can or can't demonstrate technically. So either the carmakers are wrong or Waymo is. I guess we'll wait and see.

I would think that getting to a positive cashflow shouldn't be that hard, most of the cost are fixed. Recouping the billions of R&D will take many years, but those cost are sunk. The fact that they're adding cities probably means they already have positive cashflow, or are near it.
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