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by zx2391 1840 days ago
VW ships 3M cars per year, let's say a car is used 1h per day. Given all cars are used in this subscription model, we look at $765M MRR, or almost $10B per year, which is already about 10% of their current revenue.

Given that autonomous vehicles do not suck time out of the user's budget, they might even be used more. At 3h/day, we already at $30B yearly revenue - almost half of what they made in 2020.

And software has marginal costs, so once you got over the investment (they recruit developers extremely heavily in Germany right now), you are looking at a more than comfortable income stream.

Not sure about you, but I literally see the level of dopamine floating on the VW management floors right now.

That said, I hope I never need a personal car in my life.
4 comments
_fizz_buzz_ 1840 days ago
This must be just the Volkswagen brand, the whole companz delivered a lot more: "The Volkswagen Group delivered 9.3 million vehicles to customers worldwide in fiscal year 2020 (2019: 11.0 million)."

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/group/portrait-and-productio...

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tonyedgecombe 1840 days ago
VW ships 3M cars per year

It's a lot more than that:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/272050/worldwide-vehicle...

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Mashimo 1840 days ago
> let's say a car is used 1h per day.

Just because the car is used, does not mean everybody unlocks the self driving mode.

I would not be surprised if you could unlock it unlimited fir a one time price.

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intricatedetail 1840 days ago
I wonder why developers won't organise and demand royalty payments for their code? It's crazy that company pays once for the software and makes money off of it forever but don't share those profits with developers.
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vimax 1840 days ago
I like the idea, and the industry continues to screw over developers, but there would be practical problems to a royalty plan.

Companies don't pay once for software, they hire a software team to maintain the code.

How would the royalties work? Do they all go to the person who first wrote the code? Based on the git blame of every line, so devs are always looking to rewrite as much as possible?

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