Short answer: Sam Nadler cites Waymo raising $15 billion at a $110 billion valuation. Anthony Monteiro says Waymo's cameras and LiDAR cost far more than Tesla's, which already has driving data and can put out a Robotaxi for a third of the price.
Watch this answer from Episode 25 (starts at 18:08) · Episode 25 notes and transcript
From Episode 25: Car Dealers Are Losing Inventory — AI Is the Only Fix, starting at 18:08.
Sam Nadler [18:07]: Sure. Yeah. Let's, I tried to choose a few auto industry focused articles. First one up is about Waymo. Waymo raising 15,000,000,000 in new funding at a valuation of a 110,000,000,000. Part of the reason why I chose this outside that you come from the auto industry, Anthony, is because last week, I took my first Waymo. It was a pretty magical experience, and, it leads one to believe how quickly most cars will be autonomous and over what time period. But, yeah, just any thoughts on Waymo in general and this new funding announcement?
Anthony Monteiro [18:46]: I personally think it's crazy that Waymo could raise that much money on that model. Not that the model's not good, but to build a Waymo vehicle, you need a massive investment on putting the vehicle together. So the number of cameras that they use and the type of cameras that they use and the LiDARs that they use are far more costly than Tesla's version. Right? So Tesla can put the same technology out with a self driving Tesla taxi. I forget what they call it.
Jordan Metzner [19:21]: It's a Robotaxi. Yeah.
Anthony Monteiro [19:23]: Robotaxi. For a third of the price. Right? So the cost of the vehicle and you have a manufacturer in Tesla that not only manufactures the vehicle, but already has the driving data from all of the consumers driving the car. So their data collection of being accurate, of being able to be safe in capturing all of the imagery around them compared to what Waymo has, I don't get it because I don't know, You man. Gotta go buy some Jaguars and build them all and then deploy them when you literally can get a Tesla in a couple weeks and create a whole fleet that's already built to do this.
Jordan Metzner [20:04]: Well, I don't highly disagree with you, but I'll I'll push back on a few points just Okay. Devil's advocate here. So I'm a Tesla owner. I just returned my lease and flipped it. I had a Tesla FSD 14.2. It was incredible. I had it for about a week. I returned my Tesla. I got a new Tesla. I don't have 14.2, so it definitely feels like a regression until they, like, push it back to me. And I saw Tesla launched Robotaxi in Austin, like, the first driverless version. It does seem that Tesla has a huge opportunity here if they're able to find full autonomy with a camera only system, especially because of how many vehicles they have deployed in the marketplace, ignoring their data and all those other things. I mean, I have a car parked in my park in my driveway. I'm I go on vacation. I turn it onto the network, or I'm not using it that day, and the vehicle goes from, a cost center to a revenue generator.
Jordan Metzner [20:48]: I think in the case of TESS, I think in the case of Waymo, I would say two things. One is the fact that the vehicle costs, I believe I saw this morning, Chamath said, about a 150 k versus Tesla's 25 k. So, in that math, we're locking talking six x. Right? Six or eight x? Yeah. And so, I think that is questionable. But if they put this technology on a cheaper vehicle, obviously, Jaguar is an expensive vehicle. So, if they move to a cheaper vehicle type, what is the true cost of that? What of the true LiDAR hardware is going to get reduced or not necessary?
