Live data from Hacker News

Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

therobotreport.com

51–60 of 257 posts

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#51
post #34

This should be very interesting, I'm not clear on the relationships after their split but Hyundai has a huge reach across every sort of heavy industry you can think of. I found another article that says it is the motor division that is acquiring Boston Dynamics. I'm surprised the US allowed this, Boston Dynamics seems like the sort of company they would keep close to home. https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012…

What reason would there be to disallow it?

They've been kept afloat with a lot of DARPA funding. Not a good ROI for the taxpayer.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#52

I have been secretly hoping Tesla to buy Boston Dynamics and revolutionize autonomous manufacturing. One day, a Starship fleet will send an army of robots to Mars and build out a city.

What makes you think that Tesla would be able to do that, given their reputation of not being able to manufacture cars that don't fall apart immediately upon rolling off the factory line? They kinda have to be able to build cars in the first place in order to build them faster with more robots.

Any kind of company that can inspire these kind of comments is worth investing in I tally how many comments I run into randomly over the week and use that to determine how many more shares I should buy.

Anything disruptive attracts this kind of attention and even if you don't think they will succeed it's hard to argue they are not disruptive.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#53

This just demonstrates the "price gap" between virtual and "real world" companies. An app with a few thousand uses with worth more than one of the world's best engineering companies. Even if either has a path to profitability.

The day Uber was 'worth' more than General Electric reformulated how I think about the stock market.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#54
post #34

This should be very interesting, I'm not clear on the relationships after their split but Hyundai has a huge reach across every sort of heavy industry you can think of. I found another article that says it is the motor division that is acquiring Boston Dynamics. I'm surprised the US allowed this, Boston Dynamics seems like the sort of company they would keep close to home. https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012…

What reason would there be to disallow it?

ITAR or even classified

The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#56
post #50
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reason would there be to disallow it?

National security, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), has gone as far as requiring the repatriation of Grindr after it approved a deal for it to go to a Chinese company. https://www.ft.com/content/30408b0e-50e2-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626... edit: not the FTC, it was Cfius

Hyundai is South Korean

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#58

I have been secretly hoping Tesla to buy Boston Dynamics and revolutionize autonomous manufacturing. One day, a Starship fleet will send an army of robots to Mars and build out a city.

Robots are the goal for Tesla - no labor laws needed for them (probably not for people that build them as well)!

All jokes aside, Hyundai can probably do much more with Boston Dynamics than Tesla. Tesla has already failed to automate, using the exact same method as Ford in the 80s. Doubt that throwing more advanced tech at it solves a fundamental logistics problem.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#59
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do cars count as hardware? People spend a lot on those.

Its about the margin though isn't it? They cost a lot to buy but they also cost a lot to make. How much value can Apple and Microsoft extract from you over the lifetime of a single car.

> How much value can Apple and Microsoft extract from you over the lifetime of a single car.

Probably less than Toyota has extracted from me in my lifetime already.

Cars are lower margin, but they are expensive in absolute dollars, and their purchase almost always involves leverage. A $35,000 car will typically earn the manufacture $3-7k in direct profits, the financing arm gets ~$1800, the dealership gets ~$600 (plus profits from extended warranties, service, etc). There's still a ton of money to be made in automobile manufacturing.

And that's for an average car (actually, below average, the median new car price is nearly $40k). Vehicles like Porsches or an F-150s have insanely high margins. Porsche has the highest margins in the industry (50% for the 911) by a comfortable amount and Ford reports the percentage of F-150s sold for over $50k in their annual reports, and have for years, because it's the most critical aspect of their bottom line.

Tech companies benefit from having really dispersed revenue streams: they make a few dollars off of billions of people while car companies make thousands of dollars off of a few million people.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#60

I have been secretly hoping Tesla to buy Boston Dynamics and revolutionize autonomous manufacturing. One day, a Starship fleet will send an army of robots to Mars and build out a city.

ive been hoping tesla buys BD as well. i think tesla is the only company that will have the necessary battery tech to untether BD's products from a hard line for power
Post reply on HN