drdabbles , 9 months ago

Yeah, I mean, some food for thought here is that Waymo started out as a research project and has been doing this since 2009 and they’re ultra conservative with their behaviors. Before starting in 2009, the beginnings of the team were recruited from DARPA Grand Challenge participants. And even they have major mishaps.

Cruise, on the other hand, started out trying to sell retrofit hardware right away. Then tried convincing people they could do city driving right away. Now GM has revenue targets for them, like any adult business would, and they have no hope of ever accomplishing them. So, they’re back to their old tricks, cutting down the number of miles driven for training models, rushing vehicles into service with no monitoring operators in them, deceiving investors and regulators about remote operations.

One is a slow, methodical money furnace that attempts to solve the larger problem set. The other is a fast moving money furnace that tries to get people to pay them for half measures.