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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

#621

Post by jcgrillo »

floxy wrote: post #619
jcgrillo wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not super convinced about the V2H stuff, tbh. I only need backup power at home to keep the heat on when I'm not there. If I'm not there almost certainly my car isn't either. When I am there I can light a candle and run the wood stove to keep the pipes from freezing. So a stationary battery bank for my solar system makes a lot more sense than trying to use my car for that purpose.

Natural disasters that cut power (like hurricanes)? https://electrek.co/2022/11/08/electric-vehicles-provide-bac...

Right, what I'm saying is in such a scenario I only actually need power if I'm not home and it's below freezing.

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

#622

Post by jcgrillo »

7thpower wrote: post #615
jcgrillo wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a wild guess.

Well GM is in the automobile industry, so maybe the automobile industry? I’m trying to understand how this would be them determining autonomous driving is not viable, which appears to be your premise, rather than them and others just not having a path to compete.

They've been shouting it from the rooftops:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/11/24318651/cruise-robotaxi... https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/03/22/why-ford-and-vw-shut-d...

It's not that they can't compete with the almighty google, it's that there's no business there.

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

#623

Post by floxy »

jcgrillo wrote: post #621
floxy wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural disasters that cut power (like hurricanes)? https://electrek.co/2022/11/08/electric-vehicles-provide-bac...

Right, what I'm saying is in such a scenario I only actually need power if I'm not home and it's below freezing.

Ah. I think lots of other people would like to keep their refrigerator and freezer and appliances running in the event of multi-day power outages when they are at home, even when it is not freezing (like in Florida, for example).

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

#624

Post by AbrahamParangi »

wepple wrote: post #508
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #164

Frankly, I think Tesla is going to win this. The new self-driving is remarkably good. Based on this alone, I estimate (actual) level 5 self driving in 2-3 years. I'm convinced that the lidar sensors are essentially unnecessary and the vision-only strategy is basically going to work and be much cheaper in the process.

> I think Tesla is going to win this. If Tesla can do level 5 in 2-3 years as you say (and that might be a pretty big “if”), that places them 5+ years behind Waymo. What leads to the win here, then? Waymo constrained by the cost of LIDAR? Is it truly such a massive % of build cost that they can’t succeed? Is it that Tesla is vertically integrated?

It only needs to be good enough for lvl 5, then it's just regular automotive economics.

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

#625

Post by AbrahamParangi »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #164

Frankly, I think Tesla is going to win this. The new self-driving is remarkably good. Based on this alone, I estimate (actual) level 5 self driving in 2-3 years. I'm convinced that the lidar sensors are essentially unnecessary and the vision-only strategy is basically going to work and be much cheaper in the process.

People hate the concept of Musk winning again, I guess.

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

#626

Post by floxy »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #410
alkonaut wrote: post #383

Which cities in which countries and climates have robotaxis (or have had robotaxis) now? It felt like there was a lot of buzz around it a while back but then it only happened in a couple of cities which were just US cities with favorable climate. Did it ever move beyond that? You'd think that if the market is really competitive, then operators would bring it to cities where it doesn't exist, rather than just all comp…

I actually think robotaxis will never really catch on widely in the US outside of big cities or maybe very poor people with no other option or misc use cases like if you own a car and drop it off at the dealership or if you’re out with friends and want to go home early. Most of the US is designed for you to own a car and drive it everywhere, just because cars can drive themselves now isn’t going to make self driving…

I was thinking that elderly passengers could be one use-case where robotaxis catch on. Although I guess you'd still be poor in this circumstance, since otherwise you could just own a self-driving car. Or have the self-driving car from one of your adult children drive you around when they are at work. And so I just talked myself out of robotaxis being a very big market for the elderly.

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

#627

Post by Shawnj2 »

floxy wrote: post #626
Shawnj2 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think robotaxis will never really catch on widely in the US outside of big cities or maybe very poor people with no other option or misc use cases like if you own a car and drop it off at the dealership or if you’re out with friends and want to go home early. Most of the US is designed for you to own a car and drive it everywhere, just because cars can drive themselves now isn’t going to make self driving…

I was thinking that elderly passengers could be one use-case where robotaxis catch on. Although I guess you'd still be poor in this circumstance, since otherwise you could just own a self-driving car. Or have the self-driving car from one of your adult children drive you around when they are at work. And so I just talked myself out of robotaxis being a very big market for the elderly.

Accessible taxis already exist and are probably better for elderly people since they have a drive to help you get in and out of the taxi

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

#628

Post by Shawnj2 »

thfuran wrote: post #436
Shawnj2 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as your old cars are like Toyota corolla/camry’s and not like giant gas guzzling SUV’s or trucks keeping them on the road is better than buying a new EV IMO. I think the current EV gen is kind of doomed because of the fact the next EV gen is going to have massive QOL features the current one doesn’t and waiting for a more compelling car is worth doing IMO

>the next EV gen is going to have massive QOL features the current one doesn’t Like what?

The biggest one I can think of is really stupid actually which is a NACS port and proper supercharger network access for any non Tesla (and I personally would recommend against buying a Tesla for build quality and lack of repairability). Either way ICE cars are basically about as good as they can get while EV’s have a ton of room for improvement

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

#629

Post by Shawnj2 »

infecto wrote: post #497
Shawnj2 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as your old cars are like Toyota corolla/camry’s and not like giant gas guzzling SUV’s or trucks keeping them on the road is better than buying a new EV IMO. I think the current EV gen is kind of doomed because of the fact the next EV gen is going to have massive QOL features the current one doesn’t and waiting for a more compelling car is worth doing IMO

Even vehicles with poor fuel efficiency are better to keep on the road until EOL. This is why cash for clunkers was such a terrible program. I don't follow your take on the current EV gen either. A car at the end of the day derives most of its value from taking you one place to another. The current gen of EVs do this and do it well. "current EV gen is kind of doomed" that is just hyperbole, nothing is changing in the…

Not like that but an ICE car from 2018 and 2023 are basically the same while a 2023 EV is massively more efficient than a 2018 one.

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

#630

Post by Kirby64 »

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…

Good news: in the car market, almost everyone follows 'reuse' and 'repair'. Not many people take a car and crush it for recycled parts unless it's truly worthless or super old. They sell it to someone else. For the type of person who buys a new car every 3-4 years, you are selling that car to someone else who will continue using it, likely replacing their less efficient car with yours.

This is unlike most other consumer goods which tend to be scrapped much earlier. If you're scrapping a car before its ~10-15 years old, chances are there's either something quite wrong with it, or you just drove it way too much and its gonna fall apart (i.e., something wrong with it).

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