My articles about the incumbent automotive industry are usually not at all friendly, and that is not done on purpose but is a result of a never-ending series of missed opportunities, wrong decisions, and ill-advised strategies they regularly annoy me with.
Swedish carmaker Volvo will be splitting its autonomous driving development arm, now called Zenuity, into two separate entities in a bid to accelerate the development and implementation of its next-generation Pilot Assist self-driving system. The move will create one company, still called Zenuity, and a new company that will be absorbed by the safety equipment gurus at Veoneer.
What would you desire in a self-driving car? This question was a core theme of a survey posed to 2,000 people by Auto Insurance Center. They asked survey takers what they would do in a self-driving car, what would provide comfort for those riding in one, and more.
In California, the DMV now allows the testing of autonomous light duty trucks. “Light duty” means anything up to 10,000 pounds (5 tons). This means, according to a post by StreetsblogCal, that your pizza could be delivered with no driver.
The title “Nissan Beats Tesla To The Post?” definitely needs the question mark in it, as, with autonomous driving, there are too many unknowns to make any definite comparisons.
Why does the car world continue to be a closed community when sustainability aficionados embrace diversity?
There is a long-standing argument about whether Tesla is a car company or a tech company. This argument is typically made in the context of how Wall Street should value the company. If Tesla is just a new kind of carmaker, it should be valued at something significantly less than its annual revenue — maybe 25% to 50%, like Ford and GM. Alternatively, if Tesla is a tech company, then it could be valued significantly higher. Google, for example, is trading at about 6 times its revenues today, Facebook at 8, Microsoft at 9, and Salesforce at 10 times. Tesla trades at around 3 times its revenues with some profits, while Uber and Lyft trade around 4 times revenues and have never been profitable.
Bloomberg’s Tesla Model 3 survey finds 90% of owners feel safer because of Autopilot but only 41% believe the Smart Summon feature is useful for most drivers.
As self-driving cars move closer and closer to reality, one particular market stands to benefit — autonomous taxis (aka robotaxis). Tasha Keeny from Ark Invest recently evaluated the players who’d likely benefit from this massive market opportunity. Keeney writes, “Autonomous vehicles will transform personal mobility … reap[ing] the benefits of a new market which promises to ramp from essentially $0 now to $10 trillion in global gross annual revenues by 2030.”
The automobile has always been a very dynamic product. Since cars came into widespread use in the early 20the century, almost everything about them has been constantly (albeit slowly) changing.
