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Auto Makers Threatened By Both Tech Company Autos And Ridesharing (caranddriver.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Car and Driver:
For automakers, the first bit of bad news is that people seem quite receptive to buying a vehicle from a tech brand such as Apple or Google, according to Capgemini's 17th Cars Online report, which surveyed some 8000 consumers in eight countries... Consumer interest in buying cars from tech brands has grown from 49 percent in its 2015 study to 57 percent in the latest report... There is also the growing popularity of ride-sharing services offered by the likes of Uber and Lyft. Fewer people will feel the need to have their own car if it's easy and inexpensive to order up a cab on their smartphones. Capgemini's survey found that 34 percent of car buyers see ride sharing and related services as a genuine alternative to owning a vehicle.
The car companies already realize all of this, which is why they are also getting into the autonomous car and ride sharing business. They are late though, and they will probably move too slowly because of fear of cannibalizing existing sales. But they at least see the writing on the wall so time will tell if they can get their act together in time.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I think key problem is that automakers forgot that they are in the hardware business. Too many pushing infotaiment and other unwanted, and in cases like OnStar privacy-invading, features. All this while simple docking station for your smartphone would do.
Another issue is marginal technologies that undermine reliability. Direct injection for example, who wants to deal with engine sludge just to get 5% better gas mileage? Not me.
Period. There's just too many advantages. Plus when you're a teenager cars get you laid.
That said, it's never been possible for everyone on earth to have a car. There just isn't enough metal to go around. Add to that burgeoning wealth inequality making cars unaffordable (just bought a 1 year old entry level sedan and by the time I'm done with insurance & warranties it'll run me $380/mo. And before you ask the warranty's only $40 and I have a spotless driving record in my 40s. Full coverage's a bitch) people just can't have cars anymore.
It's gonna be fun, because building cars was something high profit enough that the scraps companies leave their workers let them live a middle class life. Meanwhile I'm still seeing people blame rising minimum wage on the death of the American class. Oh well, now I'm just rambling.
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Their clout is so high, it is not being talked about as much as the pension obligations of the big three, or the clout of labor unions over the manufacturers. If the cars made by tech alliance by passes the NADA, it would be a boon to the consumers.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
In my life, I have read about how the North American car companies have been threatened by:
- Japanese Imports
- The Gas Crisis
- Better Japanese Imports
- Korean (and other low-cost geography) Imports
- Technology
- German Imports
- Electric and Hybrid Vehicles
And have stayed in business. If anything, the greatest risk to their businesses is their own complacency and unwillingness to recognize deficiencies in time to allow external threats to establish themselves as niche (and larger) players.
And now Google Apple, Uber and Lyft's are a threat? Maybe and I would expect that GM & Ford (along with Fiat Chrysler) will miss the initial wave, but will offer competing solutions that will maintain their positions in the automotive food chains.
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The Government does.
There are so MANY government mandates that REALLY the NTSB designs the cars.
Owning a car means wasting a lot of money on insurance, depreciation, property tax, etc. When you can summon a robo-car with your phone, the incentive to own a car goes away. The auto makers will still sell cars, but the customers will be quantity buyers, and sales volume will be a lot less.
I need to use a burning application in Linux which supports blank Bluray medium.
No you don't.
Tesla spends billions of dollars on R&D in mechanical, electrical, industrial, and chemical engineering. They have a huge manufacturing infrastructure, and large sales & support network.
But they also employ some software engineers for self-driving software and the on-board infotainment system--and their headquarters is in SV. Therefore they are a *software* company.
Dealer ship only and get decertified after 3-4 years when they stop getting updates to make huge bank for them
I think people have a very lofty view of the condition that a shared car with no driver will be in. I think they also are dreaming if they think the response time for these cars will be any better than a taxi. Apps will give these companies all the flexibility in the world to multiply your charge if you are slightly out of the norm, and people will have to pay it because everyone else will be out of business. Right now with a vehicle in my driveway if i am stuck for a lunch to feed my kids in the morning it takes me 15 minutes to go to the grocery store and back. If personal ownership becomes unaffordable then that freedom is gone. I do not believe we are headed for a good place.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
We are going to see some interesting changes as once again the work market for blue collar workers are going to change again. Plus we are going to start moving into a cell phone model for cars. I think it is inevitable that nobody will want to own a car because of rapid changes in the industry.
Once the living room comes into the car model + autonomous model, we are going to see a signicant changes in lifestyle. Boomers are going to be pissed. haha.
They have a high P/S ratio because they are a fast-growing company and the market is betting they are going to have much larger revenue eventually. Any company that went through a rapid growth phase will have a high P/S ratio.
Tesla has a high valuation because they are a first mover & technology leader in the EV market. They have good engineering, a solid battery supply chain, a global fast-charging network, and have already sold >$20B worth of EVs. They're also a leader in self-driving and it is clear the world is heading that way; and certainly self-driving has a significant software dimension--but you are hopelessly clueless if you think 99% of Tesla's value comes from software.
Calling Tesla a software company is about as accurate as calling them a "leather seat" company.
Like when a co-worker and i car pool or commute together?
Uber and Lyft are unlicensed taxi services.. they dont "share" a ride, you pay them to go from A to B just like a taxi.
So far, though, the only real problem for the traditional American automakers has been the traditional Japanese automakers and the traditional European automakers.
Car ownership has been seen as optional by city dwellers for-freaking-ever. Lyft is more of a competitor to taxi companies than to auto manufacturers.
Sure, the Big Three are researching self-driving cars. Just like they research electric cars. And alternative fuels. And alternative materials. They spend lots of money on research, all of which may or may not pan out... and they've been doing that for decades.
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For some places, you could get by most of your life with ride sharing, especially if you live in dense population centers where ride sharing companies already have considerable influence and infrastructure. Granted, as urbanization draws more people in, supply might start to get strained as the cars wear out due to overuse, get rented for an extended period of time, have to be clean of vomit, cigarette smoke, trash, and possible contraband, have to go in for repairs, On top of cities being more and more stingy with handing out permits due to increasing lack of good real estate and as such having less space to store the cars and the logistics required to keep them and the workers running. It'll keep competition between ridesharers active though, which'll be fun to watch
Other places might have the exact opposite issue where there's a decent amount of real estate to expand to, and the population is a tad bit more stretched out. Than again, If there aren't enough customers than it might not be worth it to expand over to these humble little communities, or at least to the scale that would compensate for the entire population. A strong desire for personal ownership of cars might also be prevalent in smaller communities as well, which makes sense if they're campers, hunters, survivalists, etc. Basically the type of folks who expect their cars to take a little mud and rock and dirt.
I'm not arguing against ride sharing, particularly of the self driving kind, as depending on the situation and location it can be more efficient and cheaper than using your own car(although I think subways and transit systems and the like should also be considered), but I think it's important that everyone, including the engineers and businessmen take into consideration that every community has its own unique challenges and circumstances that can't be fixed with a singular business model simply because it works for them, a lesson that Silicon Valley and the like would do well to remember.
Maybe they will finally drop the price of cars. They have become outrageous over the years.1970 average income $22,000 a year, average car price $3800, 2017 average income $65,000 a year average car price $45,000. See the problem car prices have exploded over the years nearly 10 times more expensive. Auto makers need to severely drop the price. Also we don't need dealerships anymore, I am beyond tired of spending 4 to 6 hours buying a car because you have to haggle over the price, the contract, and the pressure to buy this extra that extra the extra extra warranty, the maintenance plan, the plus plus plus maintenance plan. Now they take your keys away even if you are not trading something in as a way to trick you into buying a car. While you are thinking about the new car let us wash yours, then they never give you the keys back as they wear you down to buy a car. I finally had to call the police and they gave me the keys back. No wonder no one wants to buy a car. Come on Auto makers, let us by a car on line direct from the factory for 60% to 70% less, skipping all the overhead, and direct ship it. We are an online world now-a-days.
The automotive industry is one of the oldest and have not changed its model since a long time, also it has been financially spoiled for decades, now is time for them to evolve and adapt to the times.
I cannot wait for Apple to release a new car every year!
This car is like the last car, except we have a slight curve to the windshield and new hub caps.
Oh. We felt the method to fuel it was inefficient so you are going to have to get a new fueling system adapter if you want to use your old fueling system.
Yes, we need repair shops/garages and service/tune-up centres. We don't need blood-sucking-leeches middlemen raking a percentage off the top of every sale. A salesman gets a Y-U-U-U-G-E commision for selling a new car. That's why the car's price drops drastically the momemt you drive it off the lot.
The dealerships also stock up on pimpmobiles. Safety features are one thing. But try to find a new car on the lot without a sun-roof, satellite radio, infotainment system, privacy-invading-constant-tracking (OnStar/etc), etc/etc. With a desktop PC or laptop, I have a choice between...
1) Ordering online from Dell and specifying the options/hardware I want/need.
2) Going in to Best Buy, picking from a limited selection the model that sort of comes close to my needs, and putting up with 20 minutes of nagging to buy extended warranty, etc.
I, and a lot of other people, prefer option 1) for computers. It would also be nice for cars. Right now car-buying is like buying a PC from Best Buy.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Traditional auto makers have already recognized they can't fill the gap organically and have made big inorganic bets to position themselves. GM is a great example with investments in Lyft and Cruise Automation just to name a few. Most of the other major automakers are also placing similar bets at at an accelerating pace.
Really ? Tesla. Puts car out there. Loses money on every sale. Company does not make money. Pushes technology in a way the big 3 never would, knowing how stupid some buyers are. Locks down car if you try to hack your own property. Stock swap to bail out companion company. I also haven't had huge issues purchasing a variety of cars at different price points from traditional dealers. I'm not jumping for the BS that tech companies make us deal with for a car...my computer is maybe 1K...a car is at least 20k.
to cars from tech companies that can't be fixed by yourself or anyone else but them.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Tesla is "a leader in self-driving" only if you believe Musk's over promising under delivering hype machine.
The reality is that they're no further along than most of their competitors (Volvo, GM, Mercedes etc), and remain behind the likes of Google/Waymo research and testing.
I thought car companies were threatened by the increasingly insane tangle of laws that allow random changes to the laws that allow different regional changes to the billing structure of the laws that were pushed into place by the insurance companies that, through legally mandated Must Haves govern whether or not you can afford a car. The insurance, the billing, rules that state whether or not you get billed more because you haven't replaced all 4 tyres with brand-new ones ever 12 months, gas prices, the model of engine, the Green Laws and exhaust output despite it being factory made and once-legal, etc etc. The insurance company created laws are creating a growing amount of places with a increasing amount of people who just say screw it, I'm taking the bus.
...that they're ready to think out of the box.
Car companies think in market segments and how they'll preserve their trade.
Tech companies think from the perspective of what product they can release to make their customers' lives simpler / "better".
A car company will want to promote its A-segment or B-segment cars as best as it can. "we can improve it, but you're basically buying our X model"
A tech company will start from "does a city dweller really need a car, or another kind of vehicle? Does that vehicle have to be personal? What's the most economical / eco-friendly way to go about it?"
So, yes, from this perspective, go Google!, go Apple!
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
Stripped Ford F150's are going for almost 30k. You can't get into a Jeep Wranger for under 25k. People are taking out 7 year loans on a car... The problem isn't alternative transportation. The problem is that automobiles are too expensive. I've had a long career and I'm well paid, but I can't see spending the money on a new car these days. My kids who are just starting out... I don't see them buying a new car any time soon.
Ownership and the ability to drive a car where one wants to go is the essence of freedom for many folks. There will always be a market for ownership and control
Tesla is more than hype. I own a Tesla and it has a functioning "partial" self drive that they're willing to test and gather data from. I recall one of Google's engineers saying that Tesla collected more self driving data in it's first month than all of Goole's cars did in their 7+ years. When I was shopping for alternatives given my rather long evening commute, no other manufacturer was anywhere near. And the self drive is a huge relief. When you're in back to back traffic for 30 minutes and the car does the donkey work for you, it's good times! I hate the "keep your hands on the steering" limitation Tesla has so that they don't get sued by idiots but that's the world they are working for/against.
at a Drive in, so yeah, I'm definitely old enough. I can tell you my kid wanted a car badly. So did her boyfriend. It took me till her second year in college to scrape together the money for one that wasn't just going to fall apart. The trouble is folks can't buy new cars, so they're not selling their old ones, and that means the cost of used has sky rocketed. I looked at stuff in the $10k range and found it all pushing 6 years and 60k+ miles. Yeah, those cars have life in 'em, but they're going to need a bunch of maintenance...
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