The invisible code is a very important part of a self-driving car. If you wanted to enter this market you'd need a company with the ability to devote billions to multi-year R&D activities and hire great engineers & scientists with the right skills. Uber ATC has those things, and while they may be significantly behind Waymo it's hard to see a more likely candidate for second place. (Maybe Cruise/GM?)
Other aspects of a self-driving car business are more easily observed, including the significant regulatory and public perception risks. Here's one scenario: Waymo creates a technically excellent self-driving car, but it kills a handful of people in particularly gruesome way that causes the public to lose trust in a fully autonomous vehicle. As a result, "partially autonomous" vehicles are perceived as "just as good", and a company that has a massive ride-hailing business through which to monetize the technology has an advantage over another that has only a theoretical technology advantage.
Where would you put the odds of a regulatory or PR catastrophe causing an existential threat to Waymo?
The other self-driving efforts seem to believe that additional sensors are required, whereas Tesla is sticking to camera-only solutions. If Tesla is wrong in this, they are not well-positioned to follow as a second mover.
And Comma.ai is cameras only, so it’s not fair to say all the others believe LIDAR is necessary.
Also, just because someone has LIDAR on their test rig, that doesn’t mean they think it’s necessary for production vehicles. They could just be using it for validation. They also might start off using it, and wean themselves off as they progress through development.
Waymo I believe had explicitly said they think LIDAR is needed but I haven’t heard anyone else say that explicitly.
The last major Tesla crash in California was a clear situation where LIDAR would've prevented a crash and yet the Tesla team continues to insist that cameras and radar (sonar really doesn't help much...) are all that is needed.
Other aspects of a self-driving car business are more easily observed, including the significant regulatory and public perception risks. Here's one scenario: Waymo creates a technically excellent self-driving car, but it kills a handful of people in particularly gruesome way that causes the public to lose trust in a fully autonomous vehicle. As a result, "partially autonomous" vehicles are perceived as "just as good", and a company that has a massive ride-hailing business through which to monetize the technology has an advantage over another that has only a theoretical technology advantage.
Where would you put the odds of a regulatory or PR catastrophe causing an existential threat to Waymo?
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