Why should anyone at Tesla listen to George Hotz? He doesn't have any incentive to care whether Tesla turns a profit or not. On the contrary, it is in his best interest to advance self-driving as a feature and as a standalone technology. That kind of hardware ubiquity may not be good for Tesla.
In three years, the market will be replete with mainstream EVs from the bigger (by # of cars sold) automakers. When that happens, Tesla will compete on more than powertrain technology alone, in its fight to maintain market share. If the big automakers install the same self-driving technology that Tesla has spent years developing, then what separates Tesla from any other EV? The big automakers are going to have better fit and finish; that's what they have been producing en masse for decades. Moreover, the big automakers have a broad and effective sales and distribution network.
Is aptiv/nutonomy a serious contender? The big automakers are betting on subcontracting self-driving tech like they do with every other commodity part.
The only reason I can think of is that Elon Musk - in the beginning - was open to sharing EV technology to help with a sustainable future. Any other car company would probably not be interested in sharing.
Now - is self-driving in the same realm?
There might be two angles - supporting electric vehicle development and maybe safety/lives saved.
for electric vehicles it might apply - but I don't imagine tesla would share technology that could be used on fossil fuel vehicles.
for lives/safety - who knows, but it would be good PR ...if tesla still does that without a PR department :)
It would provide Tesla an option to exit the automobile market and become an upstream parts supplier. My guess is the profits for that are substantially lower, though.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 13.4 ms ] threadWhy should anyone at Tesla listen to George Hotz? He doesn't have any incentive to care whether Tesla turns a profit or not. On the contrary, it is in his best interest to advance self-driving as a feature and as a standalone technology. That kind of hardware ubiquity may not be good for Tesla.
In three years, the market will be replete with mainstream EVs from the bigger (by # of cars sold) automakers. When that happens, Tesla will compete on more than powertrain technology alone, in its fight to maintain market share. If the big automakers install the same self-driving technology that Tesla has spent years developing, then what separates Tesla from any other EV? The big automakers are going to have better fit and finish; that's what they have been producing en masse for decades. Moreover, the big automakers have a broad and effective sales and distribution network.
Now - is self-driving in the same realm?
There might be two angles - supporting electric vehicle development and maybe safety/lives saved.
for electric vehicles it might apply - but I don't imagine tesla would share technology that could be used on fossil fuel vehicles.
for lives/safety - who knows, but it would be good PR ...if tesla still does that without a PR department :)
That's what people said Apple should do with macOS, and we saw what happened there.