[HN Gopher] Waymo and Hyundai enter multi-year, strategic partne...
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Waymo and Hyundai enter multi-year, strategic partnership
Author : ra7
Score : 125 points
Date : 2024-10-04 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (waymo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (waymo.com)
| coffee-- wrote:
| Gonna miss those nice Jaguars
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They didn't mention cancelling their relationship with Jaguar.
| I think this is just to get more scale and another car
| supplier?
| alephnerd wrote:
| Jaguar Land Rover is deprecating the I-Pace (and almost every
| other model) in order to concentrate on the F-Pace EV SUV
| along with newer greenfield EV models.
|
| JLR is also owned by India's Tata Group, and most of the
| upcoming EV models share components with Tata Motor's EVs
| (eg. Batteries, power electronics, etc).
|
| It can be treated as part of JLR's long term pivot towards
| the India market, where SUVs and CUVs tend to have strong PMF
| unlike Sedans, and I-Pace, being manufactured in Austria, is
| difficult to operate in for an Indian company because of the
| lack of EU-India FTA.
| jitl wrote:
| Jaguar discontinued the I-Pace model
| https://www.topgear.com/car-news/business/jaguar-has-stopped...
| ra7 wrote:
| Jaguar has built thousands of new I-Pace vehicles for Waymo.
| It's probably Waymo buying the full remaining capacity before
| I-Pace production is shut down.
|
| https://x.com/mike_is_typing/status/1827431086990962983
| refulgentis wrote:
| What is it?
| Fricken wrote:
| It was 6 years ago Waymo announced it would acquire 20,000
| I-pace vehicles. It's probably some amount less than 20k
| they'll actually be acquiring.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-
| i-p...
| ra7 wrote:
| My guess is they shelved plans for procuring all 20,000
| I-Pace vehicles, but then saw 10x ride growth in a year
| and with tariffs looming over Zeekr vehicles, they bought
| out I-Pace production capacity to meet short-term demand.
| jeffbee wrote:
| It might be a little more accurate to say that the contract
| manufacturer which made the I-Pace also made a lot of them
| for Waymo.
| ra7 wrote:
| True. Magna, the contract manufacturer, is also a Waymo
| investor interestingly.
| xnx wrote:
| I think this is a vehicle diversification/hedge workaround for
| their initially planned Zeekr vehicle
| (https://waymo.com/blog/2021/12/expanding-our-waymo-one-fleet...)
| being subject to 100% tariffs.
| fotta wrote:
| I hope they're not getting rid of the Zeekr because as far as I
| know Hyundai doesn't make any vehicles that have wheelchair
| ramp conversions and Waymo was planning a wheelchair accessible
| version of the Zeekr. If Cruise hadn't so colossally screwed
| the pooch their next-gen custom vehicle was going to have an
| accessible version too which I was excited for because they
| were already testing it.
| NullHypothesist wrote:
| Doesn't seem like getting rid so much as optionality... Makes a
| lot of sense for Waymo to partner multiple OEMs. I'd imagine,
| barring an outright ban, some Zeekrs will likely find their way
| to US streets. I'm curious if this will accelerate Waymo's
| expansion into international markets, as they've doubtlessly
| agreed to purchasing some minimum number of Zeekr vehicles.
| Maybe they launch in Japan, Australia, Singapore, or UAE in the
| next year or two to put that supply to use?? Shot in the dark,
| but I wouldn't be surprised to see a "Waymo Launching in
| Singapore" headline on here sometime before next April.
| jitl wrote:
| I think these are two companies in very strong positions:
|
| - Hyundai/Genesis has some of the best cars on the market right
| now between the GV line and Ionic lines, and they seem to be
| improving faster than other manufacturers
|
| - Waymo is now the clear leader in self-driving in my mind after
| visiting SF recently and opting for Waymo driver over human
| driver 60% of the time.
|
| I have a Mercedes on a short lease now but my hope/expectation is
| that in 3 years Hyundai will be making my ideal car since the
| GV80 is so close, but I'd like to see an electric-first design
| from them in the space.
|
| I wish the Waymo deal meant I could buy a Waymo-equipped Hyundai
| myself though :-(
| kevlened wrote:
| The intent is to eventually make this available to own
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCY214KiwNs&t=1329s
| dageshi wrote:
| I'll be honest, I think they're just saying this so as not to
| spook anyone. But really I think they plan to build a
| massive, super convenient robot taxi service across the
| country and by the time their self driving tech is "ready"
| for sale that service will be completely ubiquitous.
| Hasu wrote:
| Does it matter if you "own" your car if it is part of the
| Waymo fleet, getting regular updates and communicating with
| the Waymo network like any other robotaxi in the fleet? You
| could even opt into having it give people rides while
| you're working or sleeping. And then Waymo can have you pay
| for the maintenance, insurance, and cleaning. It's like
| having Uber drivers who don't have to drive!
| dageshi wrote:
| I think the key issue is that "owning" a car comes with a
| lot of expectations on behalf of existing customers.
|
| People are going to say that if they own it they should
| be able to mod it as they please, is that actually
| practical with a self driving car? What if they mod it in
| some way that makes it dangerous? Who's liable?
|
| There's a whole host of issues like this and most of them
| go away completely if you can't buy a self driving car
| but you can rent it per ride. Plus, if they do run it as
| a taxi service I think they can iterate everything from
| hardware, software and even infrastructure that supports
| it much faster than if they're selling it.
|
| I think google will be content to run a taxi service and
| let others sell self driving cars if and when they catch
| up because honestly it's a better business than outright
| selling cars.
| conductr wrote:
| There is still some value in having a dedicated/always
| available option like car owners are used to. I live in a
| car centric city and maybe drive somewhere on average of 8
| times a day (it's probably 4 on weekdays and maybe 20 on
| weekends). Uber is always near but still usually takes a
| minimum of 8-10 minutes and probably an averages ~12-15
| minutes in my experience before I am entering the vehicle
| after summoning it. You can do the math and see that I
| would spend hours a day waiting in current world. If every
| vehicle was a Waymo then sure they'd always have one on my
| block at the ready, in theory. But in reality, a business
| will eventually seek to maximize efficiency and this will
| lead to a sucky UX.
|
| People also use vehicles as cargo carriages, not simply
| human transport devices. I know I don't always immediately
| unload my vehicle when I transport things, sometimes it
| gets stored there. Sometimes the load time and the unload
| time don't even make sense to do back to back. Sometimes I
| load something knowing I will unload it next week. Some
| things I just carry around with me on the off chance I
| might need them while out and about. Anyway, there's a lot
| of nuance to this type of change and why owning a car might
| still make sense for a lot of people.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You get in and out of your car 20 times a day on
| Saturdays? What hell is that?
| conductr wrote:
| Probably. I'm guessing. But it equates to 10
| destinations.
|
| 3-4 are kid activities sports/birthdays/play dates (we
| only have 1 kid but he's a busy guy!)
|
| 2 weekly dog grooming appointment (doodle!) have to drop
| her off then pick her up later, so it's counts as 2
|
| 2 we eat out twice on Saturday and once Sunday
|
| Rest are other social, family visits, or hobby activities
| along with a plethora of random errands; groceries, home
| center, and a long tail of specialty stores that are
| individually irregular but always a few every weekend
| (pool supplies, makeup for my wife, post office/UPS,
| etc.)
|
| We shop online so mostly avoid malls and department
| stores unless it's more of a boutique thing or something
| we want to see before buying. We don't do food delivery
| or groceries unless it's just curbside thing which is
| another trip. I hate the online/app shopping experience
| for things like groceries.
|
| Sometimes I just drive half a mile to get a Big Gulp
| fountain drink or an ice cream cone with the kid. I could
| walk or bike, but it's car centric and 100F outside.
|
| It's also a huge range and varies a lot by season. We
| certainly have some weekends we barely leave the house.
| dageshi wrote:
| I would expect self driving cars to be a lot quicker and
| more available than uber.
|
| Plus lets be honest Americans love their cars, a lot of
| them are never going to give them up on the principle of
| the thing, but their kids are likely to reach an age
| where they would need to learn to drive and just not see
| the point, self driving robo taxi's will be good enough.
| lucianbr wrote:
| They may say that, but OpenAI also said they're not for
| profit. They say the darndest things.
|
| It seems to make much more sense to have a fleet owned and
| operated by a corporation. I actually doubt that any company
| that achieves proper self-driving will sell vehicles. Renting
| makes much more money, and corporations like money. Do you
| see Google selling their search engine as software that you
| can deploy on-premise? Do you see Amazon selling the internet
| store software? Microsoft was selling Windows and Office, and
| what do we see? They are trying to move as many customers as
| they can to the rent model. Logitech mentioned subscription
| for a mouse.
|
| Nobody will sell self-driving cars, if they can make them.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| There are going to be a ton of really powerful network
| effects with large scale robotaxi networks. Rideshare
| network effects are already pretty strong and the startup
| costs are much lower than a company having to build and
| maintain hundreds of thousands or millions of vehicles. The
| first team with commercially viable wide scale self driving
| might not jump straight to consumer sale, but the second
| one will, and if not them the third. On top of that, anyone
| who wants to scale quickly will have to either be an
| automaker or play ball with automakers who will have little
| interest in putting all their autonomy eggs in someone
| else's basket. Even if an automaker does want to go all-in
| they will have to contend with dealers who are an extremely
| powerful political force and who would have a very
| diminished role in a rental only future.
|
| I think its much more likely that we see premium cars for
| purchase with L2 and advanced safety features at no
| additional charge and a yearly subscription model for L3/L4
| like we see with hands-free and L3 tech from Ford, GM, and
| Mercedes right now. Even so Ford now offers a one-time
| purchase option for Blue Cruise so maybe consumers are
| going to push back on that model as well.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| What's scary so how networks externalize the costs while
| controlling the profit.
|
| Ideally the internet could be host to actual
| marketplaces, versus the up-in-the-cloud data-keepd that
| dictate to the down-below dwellers.
| skyyler wrote:
| >Do you see Google selling their search engine as software
| that you can deploy on-premise?
|
| They did, until pretty recently.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Appliance
| BossingAround wrote:
| Waymo works in specific areas only though. As soon as you get
| out of San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or Austin, the car
| wouldn't have self-driving capabilities.
|
| I suspect it'll be some kind of AI-powered assistant that will
| take self-driving vehicles to people, like [1]. You retrofit a
| device onto your car, which'll hook to the car's sensors (as
| well as bring it's own sensors, like camera) and get a better
| experience in self-driving. Still nowhere near reliable to just
| stop paying attention though.
|
| Hopefully, they'll make reliable self-driving vehicles within
| the next 10 years or so...
|
| [1] https://comma.ai/
| hiddencost wrote:
| Atlanta coming soon.
|
| They scaled from 10k to 100k per week in a year.
|
| They've been operating successfully on highways for months
| now.
|
| Once they can do highways, a huge fraction of the US will
| open up. And generally speaking, driving outside of cities is
| quite a bit more easy.
|
| They seem like they're moving very quicky to massive
| deployment. Comma is still just driver assist.
|
| Custom vehicles that can strip out all the complexity of a
| steering wheel will reduce costs pretty aggressively.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Any taxi service will rely on several elements which limit
| their service area:
|
| 1. Availability. How many vehicles are in an area, that can
| respond to dispatch?
|
| 2. Demand. Can't have too many idle vehicles scooting
| around and taking up space.
|
| 3. Service. Must establish depots where the vehicles can
| return for charging, cleaning and maintenance.
|
| 4. Support. Waymo Support is a tap away, and if a vehicle
| gets particularly jammed up, they will dispatch a
| technician in their own vehicle. Support can also monitor
| telemetry and push commands to give nudges (but cannot
| remotely drive a car).
|
| So with the current model, I do not envision Waymo service
| areas expanding beyond the reach of their depots, or
| offering long-haul trips between urban centers.
| tracker1 wrote:
| Even then... I happen to live in Phoenix, and locally
| wouldn't mind self-driving, but I like to drive on road trips
| as well. So electric first and limited self-driving as an
| option for my home area would be really nice, at least for me
| specifically.
|
| Of course, I don't have enough trust in self-driving to even
| use the things. I know a lot of people love them, and have a
| couple acquaintances working on self-driving stuff. Just me
| being a bit hesitant with new tech in general.
|
| I have similar feelings on a lot of the smart home stuff,
| well justified after companies dropping, deprecating hardware
| or outright dying. Maybe in another decade we might see
| better options all around.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Comma? Geohit's scarce attention already flitted away, quite
| some time ago.
| everforward wrote:
| Self-driving being affordable enough for people to own a
| self-driving car is going to rely on either massive price
| reductions on LiDAR sensors (an order of magnitude or 2) or a
| Tesla-style approach without LiDAR working out.
|
| I worked in the space 5ish years ago, and the LiDAR sensors
| were monstrously expensive. They were the most expensive
| component we put in the car; if I'm remembering right, a
| single LiDAR sensor cost more than the car itself and there
| were half a dozen or so of them on the car. I want to say it
| was ballpark $500k to build out one of the cars, with the
| majority of that being LiDAR sensors followed by the servers
| in the car.
|
| Comma doesn't appear terribly close to cracking that based on
| their features. It's certainly a neat project, but I wouldn't
| put them much closer to cracking self-driving than someone
| just starting out today.
| ra7 wrote:
| Your numbers are way off. Waymo reported 5 years ago their
| Jaguars cost between $120k-$150k. That was after reducing
| their LiDAR cost by 90% from $75,000 to ~$7500. Their newly
| announced 6th gen sensors are even cheaper.
|
| LiDAR sensors are no longer expensive. We are seeing
| automakers including sub $1000 LiDARs. Granted they only
| offer L2 ADAS, but the rapid price cratering means it's
| only a matter of time for consumer-owned self driving cars.
| bdcravens wrote:
| > Hyundai/Genesis has some of the best cars on the market right
| now between the GV line and Ionic lines
|
| This also includes Kia, and the sibling to the Ioniq 5, the EV6
| pb7 wrote:
| >Waymo is now the clear leader in self-driving
|
| Always has been.
| binoct wrote:
| Why was this downvoted? Waymo has always been the clear
| leader in autonomous/self driving capabilities, at least for
| the true driverless goal. Briefly there were one or two
| milestones that Cruise got neck and neck on, but still think
| the parent's sentiment holds true.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| You could argue Tesla has a lead since it is more
| general/widely deployed, but IMO Waymo is definitely the
| better long-term approach.
|
| Tesla is never going to ship fully automated driving IMo
| pton_xd wrote:
| > Hyundai/Genesis has some of the best cars on the market right
| now between the GV line and Ionic lines, and they seem to be
| improving faster than other manufacturers
|
| Best in what ways? I don't follow the car market so I'm curious
| for more specifics here.
| jsight wrote:
| Their charge curve is second only to Porsche at the moment,
| and at a much lower price point. The Ioniq 5 is arguably the
| best EV crossover on the market.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Anecdotally I've enjoyed the two Hyundais I've had. They are
| ICE but had great safety/usability features for the price.
|
| I'm not super into cars though so I don't have much to
| compare to.
| its_down_again wrote:
| Living in San Francisco, I feel much safer as both a pedestrian
| and a cyclist when I see a Waymo at crosswalks vs. human
| drivers. I was hit by a car once while cycling because the
| driver zoned out, realized too late they were about to miss a
| turn, and struck me while attempting a last-minute turn. Since
| then, I've become hyper aware whenever drivers are on their
| phones at stop signs or play pointless games of chicken, trying
| to beat red lights just to end up stuck blocking the middle of
| the street.
|
| When I see a Waymo, it feels like it's aware of me and always
| stops at a safe distance, and I don't fear a collision. It
| doesn't give off the hostile or dangerously clueless vibe I
| often get from human drivers in the city.
| drpossum wrote:
| I will never consider buying a Hyundai for several decades after
| their inexcusable security practices led to my insurer jacking up
| my insurance rates just for owning a Hyundai, despite being an
| earlier model.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Really? I thought it was mainly KIA who had security problems.
| Hyundai as well? Is there a car company that's known for good
| security practices?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| They are the same company
| BossingAround wrote:
| Oh, I had no idea. So it's similar to Lexus/Toyota. TIL,
| thank you.
| JoelEinbinder wrote:
| Seems like Hyundai own 33% of Kia, rather than it just
| being a brand under the same company like Lexus/Toyota.
| They share some things and compete on others.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It's a lot more complicated than that. They also have
| some common owners, and Kia owns parts of some Hyundai
| subsidiaries. Chaebol's are complicated beasts.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Hyundai and Kia were two separate companies that merged
| in 1998. Genesis is their premium brand, their Lexus
| equivalent. They claim to differentiate the three brands
| with: Hyundai: bold, Kia: sporty, Genesis: premium. Your
| guess is as good as mine what the difference between bold
| and sporty is.
| klyrs wrote:
| Comparing the bold looks of the Ioniq6 to the sporty
| looks of the EV6, I conclude that bold is convex and
| sporty is concave.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Kia and Hyundai aren't actually the same company, but
| they're very closely related. Hyundai _group_ (Hyundai
| automotive 's parent company) acquired a significant
| stake in Kia when they went bankrupt during the Asian
| financial crisis. In exchange, Kia received significant
| percentages of many Hyundai group companies, including
| automotive. They share components and designs, but
| they're separate companies with their own teams,
| factories and marketing.
| rendang wrote:
| Maybe more similar to Subaru & Toyota - not different
| brands under 1 company, but 2 companies one of which has
| a stake in the other
| drpossum wrote:
| The posts around this regarding Kia are right that they are
| under the same "group" with Hyundai having a significant
| ownership stake.
|
| The uptake is both have these problems and to be extremely
| wary of either either until they concretely show they can be
| trusted again. Having worked in several different software
| shops my experience has been software culture and security
| culture are extremely hard to change. It absolutely requires
| major restructuring in people and often major investments in
| reworking of software with the right priorities.
|
| I won't be holding my breath. The most common solution
| (practically the only solution I've ever seen happen) is to
| put bandaids on and just keep reworking the big ball of mud.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| Hyundai and Kia from some recent models years were missing
| the engine immobilizer resulting in many thefts. Maybe you're
| thinking of the vulnerability on Kia's web portal.
| zzzeek wrote:
| I own an Ioniq 5 and there was no such unusual change in price
| for insurance. maybe you should have changed your insurance
| company rather than your car.
| drpossum wrote:
| The pointed I wanted to make was the scope of it was that
| bad. Hyundai is the problem.
| peab wrote:
| Same. My elantra got stolen TWICE
| azinman2 wrote:
| I very much look forward to owning a car with the Waymo stack.
| Hope this comes sooner than later! Just don't want it to be a
| Hyundai, but this feature would cause me to overlook everything
| else about the car.
| lucianbr wrote:
| I don't think Waymo will sell you one. Every corporation out
| there is trying to move to a subscription model, even legacy
| car manufacturers (subscription for heated seats anyone?).
| Operating a robotaxi fleet is much more profitable than selling
| robotaxis, if they actually work well.
| keenmaster wrote:
| The nice thing about capitalism is that it doesn't care what
| a company wants (in a properly functioning non-monopolistic
| market. I'd say that the international market for automobiles
| is more functional than not, despite some degree of
| subsidisation and tariffs). I'm sure Ford wishes it could
| charge you $100k for a Ford Explorer but it can't because
| it's not part of an oligopolistic centralized pricing mafia.
|
| If self-driving tech becomes cheap enough, and there's enough
| demand for it, then competitive pressures will ensure that
| people can own self-driving cars. That being said, the same
| competitive forces can make using a fleet much cheaper than
| owning a car, and you might want a subscription to the
| Mercedes fleet rather than owning an autonomous mid-tier car
| if those things are equivalently priced and you live in a
| fleet-dense area.
| isx726552 wrote:
| Sadly collusion among market leaders is rampant even though
| there are (poorly enforced) laws against it, so it's not
| too far fetched for companies to all lock arms and say they
| won't do something. It's all too easy to get away with
| that, especially when there are high barriers to entry (as
| with cars).
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Capitalism isn't so friendly to people who find themselves
| in a shrinking market segment.
|
| If competitive forces do make using a fleet much cheaper
| than owning a car, then individually-owned cars lose the
| economies of scale that keep them affordable for the middle
| class. The costs of supporting and distributing to private
| owners go way up; the risk of liabilities from private
| owners making unlicensed modifications to their vehicles
| becomes a heavy burden, and eventually privately-owned cars
| becomes a luxury market only available to the very top.
| They become impractical even for the people who own them,
| as homes and destinations gradually stop being built with
| parking lots and garages, as most vehicles drive off after
| dropping off their riders.
|
| Changes in the equilibrium can really shift things, and
| when a replacement comes into the market, it can also make
| things expensive that used to be cheap. For example, public
| payphones used to be ubiquitous; now they're rare and
| expensive to maintain relative to the income they bring in,
| and their rarity has made the remaining ones become targets
| for vandalism. The segment of people who would use them has
| shrank, and the supply of parts has decreased too, and that
| means that it becomes unaffordable to provide them at all.
|
| Now even if you prefer payphones, and even if your phone
| company would gladly provide them for you for the right
| price, you can no longer find a price point that makes that
| deal work out, merely because of the shift in preferences
| of a sufficient quantity of third-party individuals.
| klooney wrote:
| > Operating a robotaxi fleet is much more profitable than
| selling robotaxis
|
| I'm a little skeptical- taxi companies and ride share
| companies both have a reputation for sloughing off a ton of
| maintenance costs on drivers. If you own end to end, you
| can't play that trick.
| _hark wrote:
| I think self-driving technology is really cool, and I hope it
| reaches high-reliability as soon as possible.
|
| But I would rather it is distributed in personally-owned cars
| than in fleet models. Would be a shame if the only access is
| through effectively "renting" rides from big corporations.
| Rooting for Comma and Tesla to get there and put it in vehicles
| which individuals own. Don't want some corporation to control
| mobility--their use policy could be restrictive to individual
| freedoms.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Comma isn't interested in anything beyond SAE Level 2, as a few
| engineers have spoken to their team.
| bloppe wrote:
| If you're going to buy and maintain your own car, why not just
| drive it yourself? A monopoly on self driving technology sounds
| scary, but I don't see it being actually harmful to anyone
| given how many ways there are to get around in cities
| wcunning wrote:
| This is an interesting move given Hyundai's position in funding
| Motional, who didn't seem totally incapable of creating AV tech.
| Does anyone know what their future looks like after this
| partnership?
| aramova wrote:
| Well shit, now Waymos will be getting stolen by scanning the
| license plate for a USB thumbdrive.
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