Obviously no robotaxi outfit has a viable business model if they can't undercut a human driven Uber.
Zoox's initial fleet will be hand built, and will likely cost several hundred thousand dollars a piece to manufacture, but hypothetically one could still turn a profit on a robotaxi worth $300k.
Bullish analysts have speculated that economy class robotaxis will someday be cost competitive with public transit, though I suspect it will take a while to get there.
Of all the robotaxi companies out there showing real progress, Zoox is the most differentiated, and is positioned well to avoid the race to the bottom by capturing the premium end of the market, much like Apple has done with smartphones.
Of course this is all contingent on Zoox's ability to execute. But even if they fail miserably at developing their bidirectional robotaxi with independently articulated steering and drivetrain for each wheel, their autonomous OS is still very good. If we compare Zoox to what other companies such as Apple, Intel, Baidu and Uber have spent to accomplish less, Zoox's autonomous OS alone is arguably worth the $3.2 billion that the company is being valued at. So it's not like they don't have a plan B.
> What is the lowest price point they can get to for that product? Cause if I can pay a highly reliable driver for less, what's the point?
Let's assume that the technology and mapping becomes a Solved Problem.
Then the competition with humans boils down to the cost of sensors and compute (plus recouping R&D). I expect prices for both of those to plummet whenever self-driving capabilities are clearly demonstrated because the massive anticipated demand will justify huge capex in improving efficient manufacturing of these often bespoke sensors.
The market for computing machines 1950 - 1990 is instructive.
They can have pretty high up front price points and still hit a decent price per mile. An automatic system reliable enough to let on the roads should be able to drive more hours per day than a human and the up front cost will be amortized over a few years.
So you easily get to 5x a good driver's annual cost probably being cheaper.
Right now they’re fighting to own the platform that works when, ten years from now, the technology is affordable. That means developing on higher priced technology now to get the software sorted out.
Human drivers that are cheap probably leave a lot to be desired in the “reliable” category (I conjecture), so robots really can (in theory) offer more there.
Zoox's initial fleet will be hand built, and will likely cost several hundred thousand dollars a piece to manufacture, but hypothetically one could still turn a profit on a robotaxi worth $300k.
Bullish analysts have speculated that economy class robotaxis will someday be cost competitive with public transit, though I suspect it will take a while to get there.
Of all the robotaxi companies out there showing real progress, Zoox is the most differentiated, and is positioned well to avoid the race to the bottom by capturing the premium end of the market, much like Apple has done with smartphones.
Of course this is all contingent on Zoox's ability to execute. But even if they fail miserably at developing their bidirectional robotaxi with independently articulated steering and drivetrain for each wheel, their autonomous OS is still very good. If we compare Zoox to what other companies such as Apple, Intel, Baidu and Uber have spent to accomplish less, Zoox's autonomous OS alone is arguably worth the $3.2 billion that the company is being valued at. So it's not like they don't have a plan B.