Re:Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in...
by jfoster on Tuesday October 13, 2020 @11:01PM
(#24772703)
I think Waymo won't have too much trouble actually finding the money to do it, but it's quite wasteful to have a $100 billion cost on something where it's in the vicinity of $100 billion revenue* for your competitor.
*: I don't know the actual number.
Yes, they definitely have the lead in outsourcing costs.
> Think about how much capital will be required to put a million Waymo vehicles on the road.
Actual deployment, not counting developing the technology, maybe, what, $100 billion or so at the outside, given a generous guess at the unit cost of the cars and a generous multiplier to cover other deployment capital costs.
> How many zeros are there on that number?
8
> Who is going to be paying that bill?
Well, I mean, if they couldn't convince outside investors, Alphabet could do it with cash on hand and still have money left over, but if they can demonstrate the technology, investors will be falling all over themselves to jump on board.