
Delphi buys self-driving car startup Nutonomy for $400M - edshiro
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/24/delphi-buys-nutonomy-for-400-million-to-scale-and-deliver-autonomous-vehicles
======
karpodiem
This was an inside deal. Looking at the partners page for Fontinalis (VC
firm), you've got Bill Ford Jr. and Jr. Jr.

All of their other investments are unremarkable.

I work for one of the big three - this autonomous stuff is way, way further
out that what anyone is saying. I can't put a year on it because markets can
stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid but it's all a head fake/game
by upper management, who have finally found the Silicon Valley playbook of
making wild ass promises now they that they've largely shed their pension
obligations (my Dad, a slightly below classified level engineer at GM, will be
taking the cash buyout instead of pension. Who can trust GM at this point?
They've gone bankrupt before).

Big Three company with that's poised to actually make real profits? FCA. New
Wrangler/Grand Cherokee/Ram/Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer in the next 24 months.
Today, those vehicles make the lion share of profits and its not even close.
And all of those vehicle redesigns will have mild hybrids for their launch, as
a hedge against oil going up. FCA improving quality by going upmarket/simply
charging more. Dealer model isn't ideal, but that will change over time.

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
I agree with you that it's further out than we'd like to think but since
you're an insider - do you see shorting Delphi as a decent investment play?

~~~
karpodiem
I don't understand this market at all. I'm in cash/Ethereum. I've suspended my
401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every paycheck.

For example, Caterpillar -

(Revenue/EPS)

Q3 2012: $16.4B/$2.54 Q3 2017: $11.4B/$1.77 Stock price: 2012: $85 2017: $139

~~~
rokhayakebe
_I 've suspended my 401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every
paycheck._

What is the rational here? Interested in ETH, however I haven't seen it move
past $400 in months.

~~~
karpodiem
You mean $300? ETH seems to lack the drama of BTC and Byzantium is humming
along. I see the ETH dev team being active/creating off-chain solutions
(whether the market will adopt these solutions is a valid question to ask) - I
think these solutions offer value that isn't fully priced in.

~~~
corford
I like ETH (especially the lack of fork drama every few months) but the only
thing that's stopping me regularly buying more is a fear for what will happen
to the price if the ICO market starts receiving sustained negative attention
from regulators. Blog posts like this one suggest a (probably necessary imho)
storm is coming: [https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-
sale-7ac14c845bc0](https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0)

I know ETH isn't just about ICOs but I remain skeptical how big of a market
there is, outside of the ICO world, for Dapps and smart contracts. That's
before considering potential competition from projects like NEO, ARK and LISK;
which could further splinter demand.

------
mayank
Anyone know the context behind Elon Musk’s “groan” tweet about this
acquisition:
[https://twitter.com/verge/status/922828400439504897](https://twitter.com/verge/status/922828400439504897)

~~~
discordianfish
Maybe because a acquisitions in this phase is rarely a success signal. It's
hard to innovate now that they aren't independent anymore.

------
anilshanbhag
Nutonomy founder Karl gave a talk at MIT and one of the things that surprised
me was that they used very little machine learning. Most the work is done
using a pre defined route map and the rrt star algorithm for making local
decisions.

~~~
gumby
That's true of all the autonomous vehicle projects: the planners, etc are all
written by hand. The ML is for "image" processing (I say "image" because it's
object extraction from multiple sensors, in most cases including LIDAR).

~~~
sjg007
and those outputs probably map into a bayesian network to make decisions.

------
romanovcode
I read the article and still don't get what Delphi does, I'm pretty sure they
are not talking about programming language tho :)

~~~
martinshen
Delphi is one of the biggest Tier-1 automotive suppliers. They effectively
supply parts, components and software to major auto manufacturers.

Other Tier 1s: Bosch, Magna, Continental, Denso etc.

------
mjkunc
I honestly thought Delphi went out of business years ago.

