[WhitneyLand]

I read Google's position to be much stronger than you suggest.

Selling the sensor as an off the shelf part is a distant second to their strategic platform and data goals.

"They can't get people to partner with them" because these companies are afraid of being marginalized like IBM was with MS-DOS. They are just watching the dust settle to see if they can buy and build enough on their own to stay competitive.

Finally, your cash flow analysis doesn't actually tell us how much Google has invested here. It could be $10B for all we know.