Automakers, even the most recent ones like Tesla, know how to sell cars to customers, and that’s their first herbal goal. Internet corporations sell facilities and rarely hardware, and they had their own apparent path. This is especially true with Uber and Lyft who are already in the grocery shopping business, having had to sell their robotaxi equipment for various reasons.
For one, Robotaxi is less difficult than promoting a customer’s self-driving car. First of all, you are not promoting the car, so it is under you at all times. It comes home every night and you can update it, modify it, recalibrate it and solve the first challenges that any new product can find. In the early years a product exists, it’s okay if you don’t have to get rid of it. Sell it to the visitor and you’re good to go. . If you act like Tesla, you can monitor it and update your software, however, it is much more separate from it. Traditional car manufacturers had almost nothing to do with the visitor after the broker bought the car. This is a challenge when you publish a complex and completely new product. Just as software vendors have moved from promoting software on CD to software as a service, the robotaxi style is much simpler.
It is conceivable to create a robotaxi that serves only a special subset of streets in a single city and is still a genuine business. No automotive company will manufacture a car that only paints in one city or even in some cities. to promote products that paint everywhere, either because personal consumers need it and because volume demands that you can sell it in as many options as imaginable.
A robotaxi can be much more expensive to build than one consistent with an individual car. Add $10,000 to your robotaxi construction charge and you’ll be able to offset it with a modest construction payment consistent with the kilometer. $5,000 LIDAR? No problem. Add $10,000 to a customer’s car and that’s $25,000 more on the MSRP, and it’s another total category of car, and only in the luxury segment if it wasn’t there initially. This is one of the reasons why Tesla is so motivated to make all paintings with cameras alone. In fact, when they started, there were no LIDARS they could have dreamed of putting in the car. (Today, there are less beloved LIDAR, but they are much more limited than robotaxi models and are used only for motive force assistance. )
Of course, the fact that the robotaxi only works in a few cities is also a disadvantage. Building a robotaxi fleet is incredibly capital intensive and requires a lot of human effort. It’s harder to grow exponentially in the same way as Tesla. sales have increased. You want to prepare each city, create maps and much more. (Another explanation for why tesla is so willing to do without cards. )The charge of this can be managed, but you can’t just break your hands and manage the whole of North America or the world.
Now GM will slow things down. However, the speed that drove the big ratings that led amman to have to include Cruise in the inventory bag. Investors are excited about the disruption of the auto industry and need returns as soon as possible. That’s why they’ve skyrocketed the valuations of some companies. That’s the component of why Tesla is more valuable than all the others combined.
In fact, I was inspired and surprised by Cruise’s determination towards the custom-designed Origin and the purest business plan, for a subsidiary of an automaker. This made me include GM as a leader. That’s not to say it’s dead: There will be a market for robots and other technologies for a few years, even if, in the absence of Elon Musk’s dreams, it takes longer to make a car. that you can sell to consumers.
There is also the possibility outdoors that Elon’s dreams will come true. He made a safe bet, that there will be a breakthrough in the PC vision that will allow him to turn a Tesla into a robotaxi with reasonable hardware. If this breakthrough happens, he will be the richest but richest user and will appear on more covers than Time magazine. Otherwise, he will have a wonderful position in cutting-edge electric cars. He has a fantastic plan if his bet pays off too. As an automaker, Tesla plans to lease Tesla to consumers, then buy them back after 3 years and turn them into robotaxis. It’s simple with the stylish interior of the Models 3 and Y: just remove the idler wheel and pedals and put a wooden plate in the hole. Then he materializes his robotaxi fleet with 3-year-old cars whose consumers have eaten up almost part of the depreciation cost. A car that is not rented for 3 years and the wheel has been removed will make a very decent robotaxi. At that lower cost, you can lower the value of others, or simply make more profit, if you make your way.
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