You're right about the driverless thing being farther out than these big companies seem to be leading people to believe. It's somewhat straightforward to get driverless working in 90% of cases, but the remaining parts are basically unsolved as far as I'm aware. I think automated highway driving is the best we're going to see for at least a few years.
The L-cars are profitable (Charger, Challenger, 300). Not as profitable as Jeep, but they make money.
Do you know how far are Nutonomy to the likes of Waymo/Cruise or even Tesla/comma.ai from a tech point of view? There is so much opacity in this market that it is very hard to determine where each player stands.
Also seems to me that the way to play it smart if you are a startup in automotive space is to build ever more advanced ADAS features and sell them to carmakers or if you are building driverless vehicles deploy them in very safe and sunny environments. Would really appreciate getting your thoughts on this as I am in interested in this sector.
For example, Caterpillar -
(Revenue/EPS)
Q3 2012: $16.4B/$2.54 Q3 2017: $11.4B/$1.77 Stock price: 2012: $85 2017: $139
I'm not arguing that the market is currently rational; just surprised you've suspended 401k contributions because of it.
But yea generally pre-tax dollars are better than any other investment you can reliably make.
What is the rational here? Interested in ETH, however I haven't seen it move past $400 in months.
I know ETH isn't just about ICOs but I remain skeptical how big of a market there is, outside of the ICO world, for Dapps and smart contracts. That's before considering potential competition from projects like NEO, ARK and LISK; which could further splinter demand.
My lesson, just ride the flow
I think that's a very dangerous thing to ask. If you get an answer, run.
To which someone on HN will respond - 'well it's dangerous to be driving during that time anyway.'
Well, yes - but people still need to get to places (hospitals). And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. And the fact that hasn't been addressed yet in any legal manner/you're not seeing cars available with it on a lot other than Tesla (who is playing with fire without LIDAR) tells you where this is at.
Not saying it shouldn't be worked on/this isn't coming, but we've got a ways to go with this yet.
@markbspiegel and some of the other Tesla bears (read: those with large short positions) have documented the NHTSA cases that have been filed against Tesla.
(And clearly, that's what the Waymo early-rider program is trying)
But yeah, in relation to the Early Rider program, that's probably one of the reasons you must apply. They were asked what they thought of the program, and my interpretation of their response (not putting words in their mouth, but as I understood it) would be along the lines of, "Must be a controlled trial, since their technology is likely far from being able to handle anything outside of favorable environments."
Why would a car that can drive itself be idle 95% of the time?
You actually can. For instance - radar detectors are legal in some states and not others. If you cross that state line you can be pulled over and cited immediately.
Or to go one step further, you could be driving a truck carrying a load that's perfectly legal in the state you left, cross state lines, and be stopped: https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/policy/rpt_congress/truck_s...
GM is launching an enhanced cruise control that only works on limited access highways. They lidar mapped all the limited access highways in the US and Canada for the system.
The system is just a hands free cruise control, it still has an attention monitor and won't even do things like switch lanes: http://www.cadillac.com/world-of-cadillac/innovation/super-c...
It wouldn't be implausible in the future for an insurance company to deny a claim based on the fact that the owner knew the autonomous system didn't work in snow, but drove anyway.
This kills the argument.
All of their other investments are unremarkable.
I work for one of the big three - this autonomous stuff is way, way further out that what anyone is saying. I can't put a year on it because markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid but it's all a head fake/game by upper management, who have finally found the Silicon Valley playbook of making wild ass promises now they that they've largely shed their pension obligations (my Dad, a slightly below classified level engineer at GM, will be taking the cash buyout instead of pension. Who can trust GM at this point? They've gone bankrupt before).
Big Three company with that's poised to actually make real profits? FCA. New Wrangler/Grand Cherokee/Ram/Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer in the next 24 months. Today, those vehicles make the lion share of profits and its not even close. And all of those vehicle redesigns will have mild hybrids for their launch, as a hedge against oil going up. FCA improving quality by going upmarket/simply charging more. Dealer model isn't ideal, but that will change over time.