Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#61

Post by mumblemumble » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #33

I don't understand the current state of self driving cars. First we have tesla which already has a self driving car. They were the first to build one and now everyone is playing catch up, or are they? Waymo has been building something for a really long time too but I have no idea how close they are to an actual product. Now there is this new company that gets a bunch of money to build something. It feels to me like t…

> First we have tesla which already has a self driving car. They were the first to build one and now everyone is playing catch up, or are they?

They have a Level 2 system, which is certainly an impressive technical achievement, but not what most of us are thinking of when we think, "self driving." They are hoping to grow it into something more, but it remains to be see whether that will be possible. Other companies also have Level 2 systems, and, while I've personally never used any of them, some sources do report that Autopilot is not the best one out there, just the most hyped one. So, even if we are just focusing on assisted driving rather than self driving, I'm not sure one can say with too much confidence that they are the clear leader.

I would not interpret the existence of a functional consumer product as evidence of a technical lead in the race toward true self driving. Waymo never had any intention of commercially releasing a level 2 system. Their plan was to go straight to level 4 without any detours. Reports would seem to indicate that they are far, far ahead of everyone else on achieving that goal. It may be that they now have an unbeatable lead. Or it may be that some more direct competitor catches up. Or it may be that a company like Tesla or Cadillac is able to use profits and data collected from their commercial level 2 systems to accelerate their development and catch up. This, too, remains to be seen.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#62

Post by dmix » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

necubi wrote: post #17

thesimon wrote: post #6

Wasn't Uber's whole money losing strategy based on the vision that one day they'll use their self-driving cars to get the driving done for cheaper?

No, that was never the strategy, no matter how many times people on HN claimed it was. Both Uber and Lyft are aiming for profitability next year with human drivers. (Disclaimer, I work for Lyft but this has been said in public many, many times by both companies.)

And nothing about this deal indicates Uber is stepping away from self driving cars.

They basically structured the deal as buying stock in the company and investing $400M.

Letting them focus on their core business while still having a large financial stake in AI cars.

The big development is that self driving cars turned out to be an extremely hard problem which didn’t match company timelines (or potentially company business models, if for example AI kits can get installed in existing cars and brands for which they become the denominate call network) and they outsourced it to one of the best companies around.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#63

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

jeromegv wrote: post #41

dgrin91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to some sources to back that up? I have always been under the impression that self driving was the end goal that they were all working towards.

Everytime someone mentioned that idea I thought it made no sense. The Uber strategy is to delegate all the cost to a 3rd party (the driver and their own car). The idea of spending billions of dollar on hundreds of thousands of cars around the world and maintain them hardly seemed like what they were setup to do. They wanted the exact opposite. Externalize all cost, labor, material, etc. and just develop a software th…

How do drivers make any money while keeping the overall price less than a taxi? Factor in fuel and maintenance, and drivers are already getting pretty screwed on these platforms.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#64

Post by sorenjan » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #33

I don't understand the current state of self driving cars. First we have tesla which already has a self driving car. They were the first to build one and now everyone is playing catch up, or are they? Waymo has been building something for a really long time too but I have no idea how close they are to an actual product. Now there is this new company that gets a bunch of money to build something. It feels to me like t…

I think there are multiple companies that can make something that works most of the time in good conditions, but you have to have a certain level of arrogance and self confidence to be the first to release it as a product.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#65

Post by dev_throw » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #33

I don't understand the current state of self driving cars. First we have tesla which already has a self driving car. They were the first to build one and now everyone is playing catch up, or are they? Waymo has been building something for a really long time too but I have no idea how close they are to an actual product. Now there is this new company that gets a bunch of money to build something. It feels to me like t…

[https://medium.com/unikie/self-driving-cars-2020-and-beyond-...] helped me understand the major players in self driving vehicles and what they're upto.

Tesla does not use Lidar as a cost savings measure, and only uses camera output to determine how the car drives. It is unknown if this is enough to account for enough permutations of traffic, but they're calling it full self driving while using car owners as paying (!) beta testers.

AFAIK, no one is close to releasing an autonomous vehicle that can drive on par or better than an average human driver, but that several have a path to getting there.

I believe many companies can thrive until M&A whittles down that list. I don't think this is a first mover takes all kinda deal because safety will have to be proven over a long time allowing other entrants to prove their worth.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#66

Post by ghayes » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #57

Car companies doesn't make their own airbags, they buy them from Autoliv. They don't make their own brakes, they buy them from Brembo. They buy transmissions from ZF, tires from Michelin, ECUs from Bosch, etc. Why should car manufacturers develop their own self driving technology instead of letting others, like Bosch [1] or Veoneer [2], do that and buy it from them? Spread the investment over more cars, it makes sens…

To answer your question: presumably it's easier for a self-driving car company to offer "ride sharing" than a ride sharing company to offer self-driving cars. The power imbalance could be an existential threat to Uber or Lyft if it were realized.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#67

Post by khazhoux » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

necubi wrote: post #17

thesimon wrote: post #6

Wasn't Uber's whole money losing strategy based on the vision that one day they'll use their self-driving cars to get the driving done for cheaper?

No, that was never the strategy, no matter how many times people on HN claimed it was. Both Uber and Lyft are aiming for profitability next year with human drivers. (Disclaimer, I work for Lyft but this has been said in public many, many times by both companies.)

One of their execs literally pitched me this very vision when I turned Uber down for an eng mgr position several years ago.

I thought it was comical that his pitch was "The reason we're going to be successful at Problem 1 (taxis) is because we're going to be successful at ridiculously-difficult Problem 2 (self-driving) which we're not close to solving". Pass.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#68

Post by chairmanwow1 » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

mkoryak wrote: post #33

I don't understand the current state of self driving cars. First we have tesla which already has a self driving car. They were the first to build one and now everyone is playing catch up, or are they? Waymo has been building something for a really long time too but I have no idea how close they are to an actual product. Now there is this new company that gets a bunch of money to build something. It feels to me like t…

As someone who worked in the industry, there are a couple of different approaches, incredible amounts of hype, and disappointing amounts of progress to fully autonomous vehicles.

* Tesla driver assistance features that they market as self-driving features. You need a driver that is alert and monitoring the vehicle because it can return control to the driver without warning.

* Waymo has launched limited L4 pilot in the "easy" Tempe, AZ area. They have remote teleoperation / monitoring but no driving in the car.

* ATG has prototypes that run with safety drivers

* Cruise has prototypes that run with safety drivers + they are working on tele-monitoring / teleoperation.

* Comma.AI has a consumer-available L2 driver-assistance device that you can add to your car to do ACC and lane keeping.

* Aurora has prototypes that run with safety drivers

* Zoox (bought by AMZN) has prototypes that run with safety drivers

* Smattering of other companies that are working on the tech, but are no where close to a product launch (Lyft, Toyota, Argo etc)

In general, there was a bunch of hype and bunch of money poured into the industry in 2016-2018. Others saw people pouring money into it and assumed a breakthrough was close and so they poured more money in. The cycle continued to spiral into huge multi-billion dollar investments into technology that is still IMO quite far away from a public launch. Turns out that several years later, it's really hard and no one is actually that close to useful AVs.

Waymo has a publicly available product launched, but I'm confident they are running that program at a significant loss.

Cruise has struggled to hit the milestones set in their funding deals to unlock the next levels of funding.

In my opinion, Comma is going to crush it in the next 2 years, Tesla will keep refining their AP tech, but still won't be FSD. I think autonomous robotaxis will be the norm eventually but not until after 2025.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#69

Post by oivey » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

admax88q wrote: post #32

tuyguntn wrote: post #15

what happens to Uber now when Waymo releases self-driving taxi? Will they lose all competitive advantage?

Assuming that ever happens, they will likely just license it from Waymo. I don't think Waymo intends to run a full stack taxi service, easier to just sell the self driving tech itself and let other's doing the work on real world applications. Uber's competitive advantage now is their mindshare, app experience, and subsidized pricing. With or without self driving doesn't really change that.

Maybe. The amount of work to make a taxi service is much, much smaller than that to make a self driving car. I could see Waymo entering lots of industries like that to capture easy profits.

Re: Uber sells self-driving unit in deal that will push Aurora’s valuation to $10B

#70

Post by alejohausner » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #54

paxys wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That claim was infinitely repeated on internet message boards but never acknowledged by the company or taken seriously in the industry or by investors. That entire division was an expensive moonshot. Uber's core strategy and valuation have always been rooted in being a taxi company with human drivers.

So whats the big plan to lower overhead on rides? I looked up their last quarter and it was billions lost yet again. This doesn't seem sustainable, just shoveling money into the furnace quarter after quarter like that.

Uber's true mission is a charitable effort by SV capitalists to subsidize the cost of taxi rides. Of course they're not meant to make money. How silly to think so!