Already, that negates the advantages of consumer brand, reliability, dealer networks, internal combustion engines, ergonomics, and bodywork. There's not all that much left to the auto industry, once all that changes.
Already, that negates the advantages of consumer brand, reliability, dealer networks, internal combustion engines, ergonomics, and bodywork. There's not all that much left to the auto industry, once all that changes.
You still need someone to buold cars -> existing car makers
EVs are actually easier to built than EVs -> inceeasing the advantage they have on production
Maintenance -> to be done locally, there is no way to centralize it on a full continent, car makers and their existing network are king
Fleet management -> see above, plus existing fleet mgt serives, only real competition are large rental car companies
Ride sharing -> acquisitions, mytaxi in the case of Mercendes, drivenow and car2go in the case of Mercedes and BMW, VW with an in-house solution
Self-driving -> acquisition of the provider (GM and Cruise) or sourcing the tech, alternative is a partnership (Jaguar)
Traditional car makers slept into these developments, a few years ago I would have bet a lot on disruptors in that industry. Now that changed, the only "tech" (as in software) companies that can compete are the likes of Google and maybe Uber as long as VC money doesn't run out. The same is true for certain smaller manufacturers of automobiles, but this market cleaning is gling on for while now so they are used to it. And let's fave it, the automotive sector is well entrenched in politics (Europe, Japan and the US, Chine, too) and money generally is not a rwal problem. So, yeah, now I would say Google / Wymo might become a major Tier one supplier. But hardly more.
But you would also push some of the work out to cheaper labor and centrally.
So replace the entire wheel instead of the tire. Then ship off the wheel with the old tire to be replaced somewhere else and centrally.
But it is about the economics. Today car dealers lose money on every car sold and make their money from maintenance.
“Yes, the typical new car sold loses a dealership about $200.”
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/articles/show_me_the_money_how...
Which is why maintenance is so expensive. I would expect Waymo to invest heavily on improving this significantly.
Waymo will not be a tier 1 provider, IMO. They have shared rolling out their commercial ride sharing in Arizona later this year and testing today.
The thing is they started way earlier then others. This is from nine years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V2bcbJZuPQ
Google was the top place to work for six straight years and so they were getting the cream of the crop. They then get to triage those engineers and send the cream of the crop of the cream of the crop to Waymo.
Then there is the massive infrastructure that Google has to leverage.
SDC is an software engineering exercise. Who is better at software engineering?
Look at the automated testing that Waymo has.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...
How would you ever do SDC without this?
That electricity is cheaper is the big factor, especially for a service doing shorter runs. Whether it's used for traction or steering doesn't really matter.
Today cars are sold through dealers. Those dealers lose money on every car sold.
“Yes, the typical new car sold loses a dealership about $200.”
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/articles/show_me_the_money_how...
They make their money from maintenance and why maintenance is so expensive and so common.
Waymo or any other company running very large fleets of cars would fix this.
They would take the service data each year and invest to improve. Plus you have perfect data on how the car was used with SDC.
Car designs will also change. Today you have to design around the person being able to see when driving.
No longer needed.