
Car designer warns on Google game changer - leephillips
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/27/us-autoshow-japan-designer-iduskcn0sl08t20151027?utm_source=twitter
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11thEarlOfMar
One attribute that puts Silicon Valley in the category of globally iconic
regions is its penchant to reinvent itself. Over the last 30 years, the waves
have gone from DRAM to CPUs to networking to Dot-coms to Social and Web 2.0.
Toss in a healthy dose of biotech for flavor.

Now, are we really establishing automotive as core industry? Tesla, Google and
Apple as auto manufacturers? Today, it's tiddlywinks in the shadows of
Detroit, Regensburg or Toyota City, but is there any chance The Valley is not
totally deluded and another automotive center is emerging?

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ChuckMcM
I don't think it is a dire as Okuyama suggests. If you have ridden in a Tesla
you can see (and feel) all of the things that Tesla is learning about being a
car company (perhaps more so riding in a Roadster).

Both Google and Tesla have done something that was considered "impossible" (or
at least "very far in the future") by the senior leadership of the car
industries, that said, just like when the first machine guns made their
appearance on the battle field[1], the senior leadership did not appreciate
how effective that technology would be in achieving their objectives.

In the case of electric cars Tesla was able to put into production an electric
drivetrain with a car wrapped around it. It almost killed them and it was
insanely risky. They also managed to convince the high margin market to go for
it and tapped into a number of timely themes (energy independence, global
warming, 21st century gadgets, Etc.) But now that they have done that, _all_
the car companies have a fully electric car in their designworks. The reason
I'm long on TSLA the stock is because I think the Gigafactory is the secret
weapon. Someone will buy out the "car" business and Tesla will end up
supplying _everyone_ with their batteries. Like Intel capturing the margin
from the CPU business, Tesla will capture the margin on the battery business.
And you have to replace those batteries regularly, so its like a subscription
business too. Pretty genius.

Google put enough computers and connectivity into a car that they could drive
it. They mere embraced and extended the technology that Dr. Thrun had been
developing at Stanford starting on the DARPA Grand Challenge. They added the
enhancement of massive amounts of ground truth data from their mapping project
and took it to the next level. But more importantly they convinced the public
that self driving cars were not only possible, but _desirable_.

I don't see them getting into the self driving car business themselves but
they have a tasty patent portfolio to license there. And unlike companies that
"build to license" they have enough resources to build alpha+ prototypes to
further their research. So rather than wait for Ford or Toyota to partner with
them (and diffuse some of the licensing revenue possibilities) they keep
enhancing that portfolio. But Google car dealerships? Unlikely. I think they
learned their lesson on phone handsets there.

Apple is an interesting dark horse. Arguably the best tech design shop on the
planet they could conceivably re-invent the car around electric and self
driving technology to create a consumer device that redefines the world. But
they don't have the 'itunes' hook as far as I can tell. So I consider them a
long shot at best.

[1] Yes, its lame to use war analogies in business examples but it works in
this case (for me at least)

