GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by maerF0x0 » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 4:50 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #395

logifail wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's just not a compelling offer I drive (and have driven) a fair number of rental cars due to travel, and I have to say I feel that way about many new vehicles in their entirety . So much vehicle tech is at best unimpressive and at worst positively in my way as a driver. > It's wickedly expensive We own two cars, 6 and 10 years old respectively, yet I've never felt less motivated to look at new cars than I do now.…

If you look at the lifecycle analysis of ICE cars, burning the fuel is the major contributor. So if you drive an average amount with those cars you're not saving the planet by continuing to drive them. In a well functioning system you'd be selling them on to people who drive very little and are old and set in their ways and replacing them with an EV.

In the book Heat Monboit argues the stats show that when someone "greens" their consumption they also increase it. For example switching to "green" energy meant people stopped thinking about conserving.

In the specific case of electric vehicles (and many plug in hybrids) luckily they're such an immense improvement that my guess is that they still have a net benefit. But far from the simple efficiency math, and more likely the user will increase their consumption by some meaningful percent.

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

#562

Post by taneq » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 4:51 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #372

SkyPuncher wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems like drivers did not find the feature compelling and were not renewing. IMO, it's largely because BlueCruise (and all of the similar services) is not sufficiently better than the non-subscription driver assists. I have the option of BlueCruise on my vehicle and it's just not a compelling offer. * It only works on major highways. Beyond actual coverage, major highways are places where the standard driver as…

> it's just not a compelling offer I drive (and have driven) a fair number of rental cars due to travel, and I have to say I feel that way about many new vehicles in their entirety . So much vehicle tech is at best unimpressive and at worst positively in my way as a driver. > It's wickedly expensive We own two cars, 6 and 10 years old respectively, yet I've never felt less motivated to look at new cars than I do now.…

> So much vehicle tech is at best unimpressive and at worst positively in my way as a driver.

Honestly, I'm not surprised that new cars aren't breathtakingly awesome. It's been a really rough 5 years for everybody and we're not seeing much genuine light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone's just trying to survive. Hard to do your best work under those circumstances.

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

#563

Post by specialist » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 4:55 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #530

lucianbr wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is battery manufacturing that bad for the environment? I mean, ICE cars still have wheels, drivetrains, chassis, doors, windows, chairs, electronics, paint and many other things, same as the EVs. The electric motor I can't imagine its worse to produce than a combustion motor. So that leaves batteries as the cause of this huge disparity on day one, that takes 100,000km of fuel consumption to overtake. Is this with the…

>Is battery manufacturing that bad for the environment? In any practical sense, no, it's not. Its a dumb argument pushed by people trying to sandbag EVs.

Yes and:

Current recycling tech is pretty terrific (IIRC ~98% recovery of lithium, misc metals). Enabling the long fabled "circular" economy.

At some point we'll hit a (near) equilibrium. IIRC, ~20 years out. (Assuming Li-ion battery tech continues to improve at current rate. Thereby balancing out the lithium lost during recycling.) So we'll hit something like "peak lithium", greatly reducing mining (extraction) of new lithium.

Recycling is much cheaper than mining (both $ and CO2).

(I believe, but obliviously can't prove, that sodium (et al) batteries will enable new use cases and markets, complimenting lithium rather than replacing it.)

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

#564

Post by FredPret » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 4:57 PM UTC

SequoiaHope wrote: post #365

FredPret wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A very small number of people decide where investments go, what tech to design, and what to buy. Baked into this is a certain kind of economic unrealism that you frequently see online. Rich people aren't endless fountains of capital. They fund things that work, ie, things that sell, ie, things the public likes. Rich people who have some other investment strategy than this go broke. > Fifty percent of the people in…

> Rich people aren't endless fountains of capital. They fund things that work, ie, things that sell, ie, things the public likes. Rich people who have some other investment strategy than this go broke. Rich people fund a certain kind of thing, but that is a subset of the class of all things which could be built. Free universal healthcare is very popular in the US, but rich people aren't building it. They have pervers…

It's true that there are very good things that aren't products. It's also true that public goods come at the expense of private goods. I've lived in several places with "free" healthcare, including Canada right now, and while it can be a great system, it can also come at the expense of a huge tax bill that eats into other spending and slows down the whole system.

> > The US consumer rules the world. > Yes to the detriment and suffering of a sizable portion of the world's population.

Why is it then that real income & wealth (and with that, life outcomes) have shot up in all the "sweat-shop" countries that stock the shelves of Walmart?

> Yes, in a world where we vote with our dollars, a car and a bus are going to be the only options for poor and middle class families. But in Japan, China, Spain, France, and countless other places countless poor and middle class families ride bullet trains. How come we didn't vote with our dollars in to bullet trains in the USA?

Have you been to these kinds of places? I've lived in several, and spent significant time in many. Poor and middle class people aren't taking bullet trains to work anywhere in the world. Those things are hella expensive to build and run and ride. Even rich, dense London with its world class mass transit has a hard time delivering an acceptable experience compared to an F150 and a stretch of wide tarmac.

For most poor American families, living in a big house in a small town and owning one or more cars is the optimal solution, not some utopian pipe dream involving high-rises and buses.

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

#565

Post by dartos » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 4:58 PM UTC

tosser2084 wrote: post #558

Workaccount2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, super cruise only works on pre-approved roads/road sections, whereas FSD works just about anywhere. When I last checked my commute to work, the main highway I take becomes unsupported half way to work, despite it being the same bland typical highway layout. I really don't want to buy a Tesla, but from what I can tell, nobody has anything close to what FSD offers.

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A lot of crazy in here, but this is the lowest hanging fruit.

> and X is quite literally the only truly free and open space

> free

My brother, you need to literally pay money or your tweets get buried by those who do.

> open

Since taking control of the company, musk made it a closed platform. You now need an account to view tweets, before you did not.

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

#566

Post by tosser2084 » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

tosser2084 wrote: post #558

Workaccount2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, super cruise only works on pre-approved roads/road sections, whereas FSD works just about anywhere. When I last checked my commute to work, the main highway I take becomes unsupported half way to work, despite it being the same bland typical highway layout. I really don't want to buy a Tesla, but from what I can tell, nobody has anything close to what FSD offers.

[flagged]

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

#567

Post by hedora » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #528

Workaccount2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, super cruise only works on pre-approved roads/road sections, whereas FSD works just about anywhere. When I last checked my commute to work, the main highway I take becomes unsupported half way to work, despite it being the same bland typical highway layout. I really don't want to buy a Tesla, but from what I can tell, nobody has anything close to what FSD offers.

> nobody has anything close to what FSD offers. From what I read about it, you're absolutely right. Down to the point of unwanted veering towards road dividers and other vehicles.

> Down to the point of unwanted veering towards road dividers and other vehicles.

Our 2024 Kia does this every 10-20 miles on average. You don't even have to enable lane assist. It also randomly decides to weaken the regenerative braking, or switch out of single pedal mode.

If you disable enough of the safety features it stops doing these things, but, for instance, that means you can't have blind spot detection that works when you're going over 5mph and a working steering column at the same time.

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

#568

Post by manwe150 » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #523

manwe150 wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that analysis might have the “sunk cost fallacy” assumption? Just because we already have the ICE doesn’t make it more efficient to keep using it, over immediately replacing it with something more efficient, as long as you then keep the more efficient thing operating until it becomes inefficient to keep that operational. The crossover point seems likely it would occur much sooner if you replace the ICE now th…

And I think this analysis suffers from ignoring the increased environmental cost of creating a new electric vehicle. It takes 15,000 to 20,000 miles of driving for the average EV to "break even" with new ICE vehicles due to the much worse environmental impact of creation. Reduce, reuse, repair, recycle. Vehicles should be reduced first (drive less), reused second (keep using existing one), repaired (keep using existi…

> All of this should happen prior to replacement... it actually has to "catch up" with your existing already made working ICE that has no new cost for construction

That is precisely the sunk cost fallacy though: the principle is that continuing an endeavor simply because it already has been a cost paid shouldn't be done, unless the total continuing cost (including the eventual replacement) is less than the cost of immediate replacement (plus all continuing costs after initial replacement, including the eventual replacements of those in turn). Otherwise the principle says it is a waste of resources.

The 4 R's assume that the replacement is no better than the original at the job, which is why I described that analysis as the sunk cost fallacy. We don't have to take this assumption (personally, I prefer to bike over driving my ICE, so this analysis doesn't apply), but if we take the assumption that the EV does less environmental damage over its lifetime, then this assumed "environmental damage" function is minimized by discarding the ICE immediately, as any further use simply increases the total "environmental damage" caused by the choice of which car to use.

This can be seen in computers too, as newer computers are sometimes so much more power efficient then their replacement that they can very quickly save on resources by throwing out a perfectly working computer to replace it with a newer one.

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

#569

Post by dpe82 » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 5:10 PM UTC

Philadelphia wrote: post #185

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.

There’s no evidence that this is even going to be a viable business model, commercially or technically. There’s no “moat” around it or obvious first mover advantage. It seems very early to worry about competition.

First mover advantages:

a) Early technology adopters are more forgiving of minor problems and are your free word-of-mouth marketers. The company benefits from lowered GTM costs.

b) Fast, reliable service depends on density; there needs to be enough cars on the road that there's always one available within a few minutes when you open the app; users will develop a habit of choosing whichever provider is reliably faster and that habit will become ingrained, making market entry for later movers more costly. First movers also have the advantage of their early adopters helping pay for their fleet as it's built up; later movers have to flood new markets with subsidized capacity to get to equivalent density. That works (Uber did it for rideshare) but it's expensive. So again: lower GTM costs.

Regarding whether this will be a viable market - Lyft/Uber have already demonstrated there's tons of demand for on-demand transportation services, and Waymo in SF is already very popular. One can back-of-the-envelope whether the economics work but generally speaking any time you replace labor with automation in a large market, it does.

In the long run though you're right that there isn't a moat that can't be solved with massive capital investment. But you could say the same about many markets; turns out one can have a successful company within a competitive market the old fashioned way.. by just being really good. It's harder, but it works.

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

#570

Post by dangus » Wed, Dec 11, 2024, 5:19 PM UTC

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…

They're never going to make enthusiasts like you happy because the vehicle needs to sell to a mass market, not the kind of person who has owned a Scout 80 for 18 years.

I think you're not in a marketing mindset if you think that any significant amount of people are to buy a new Scout for off-roading. Premium-priced vehicles are more about image than the implied capabilities of that image.

Porsche sells more four door vehicles than two door sports cars. You might say that's not a real Porsche in the spirit of a Porsche, but it is what it is. It sells, and the average person doesn't need a two door car with no trunk or an off-road truck that is painful on the road. They usually need a family vehicle for mundane domestic life.