[dkobia]

What a time to be alive. 3 companies competing for what might be the next trillion dollar business.

- Waymo has the advantage of launching sooner but has much more expensive vehicles which will eat into margins.

- Tesla has the advantage of full vertical integration owns their hardware and cheaper cars but also trying to do this with vision only.

- Zoox has the advantage of building purpose-built autonomous vehicles from the ground up with Amazon's deep pockets behind them, but faces the challenge of manufacturing at scale for a novel vehicle.

[oldjim798]

Why do we want a trillion dollar business? Why is that good for society/the world?

Tesla also seems to have the 'advantage' of ruthlessly exploiting labour; I very much hope they do not succeed.

Zoox being owned by Amazon also makes me deeply suspicious of their business practices.

[charcircuit]

The value of a business is based off how much value they will provide to others. In order to be a trillion dollar business you have to be providing a lot of value to others in the current or people are speculating you will provide value in the future.

[bpodgursky]

Because Americans spend 93 billion hours driving each year and tens of thousands of people literally die each year in car crashes. Unlocking that time and those lives is an unimaginably large quality of life improvement.

[hibikir]

If there's a trillion dollar business there, it's on transporting goods, not people. Ultimately a self driving car is a cheaper chauffeur or a cheaper taxi. The addressable market doesn't change that much because of price, and the more it changes it, the worse it is for infrastructure. Deadhead miles traveled are not better for traffic because there is no human driving them. All we get is more miles traveled over the same limited infra.

[UltraSane]

Tesla isn't really in the game. Their robotaxi's only purpose is to inflate the share price. Tesla hasn't driven a single mile without a safety driver in the car.