Honda-Waymo Talks Are Said To Have Faltered On Tech Access (bloomberg.com) 27
Honda has reportedly walked away from a deal with Alphabet's Waymo to jointly develop autonomous vehicles earlier this year. Instead, Honda bought into Cruise, the self-driving car startup whose majority shareholder is General Motors. Bloomberg reports on the possible reasons why the deal fell through: For one, Waymo wasn't willing to share the substantial technology it had already developed to run autonomous vehicles, and was seeking to cut a deal that would focus on Honda providing the cars, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named because the talks were private. Essentially, Waymo wanted to be the brains and have Honda be the brawn in the relationship.
One person familiar with the talks said that Waymo wanted Honda to supply electric vehicles -- an area where the automaker is just beginning to establish itself. All of Waymo's existing partnerships supply EVs or plug-in hybrids because its autonomous driving system needs more power than the puny 12-volt batteries in conventional cars. After starting talks with Honda in late 2016, Honda told Waymo it was working on an EV for the partnership that would compete with Tesla Inc.'s Model 3. But by December of last year, Waymo was concerned about progress toward that goal and Honda went shopping for battery packs to power the vehicle, the person said.
One person familiar with the talks said that Waymo wanted Honda to supply electric vehicles -- an area where the automaker is just beginning to establish itself. All of Waymo's existing partnerships supply EVs or plug-in hybrids because its autonomous driving system needs more power than the puny 12-volt batteries in conventional cars. After starting talks with Honda in late 2016, Honda told Waymo it was working on an EV for the partnership that would compete with Tesla Inc.'s Model 3. But by December of last year, Waymo was concerned about progress toward that goal and Honda went shopping for battery packs to power the vehicle, the person said.
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This is America. We do NOT put our oligarchs in jail. It's in the constitution somewhere. The exception being Bernie Madoff who made the mistake of stealing from the rich rather than from the poor.
Trump may be in a bit of hot water with some states in a year or two once the Democrats take over the house and broadcast his financial indiscretions to the world. It'll be interesting to see if he has the money to pay the assessments for back taxes.
But Trump is a multi-billionaire? Yep. So was Madoff until
That make sense (Score:3)
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"A mechanical car? As opposed to??"
A bio-engineered car. It's next year's fad. If you move quick, you can catch the wave. Take a naked mole rat. Tinker with a few genes. And you have cheap, autonomous, non-fossil fuel transportation. I'm told experts in the area will be hauling in paychecks in the high six digits.
Tech access (Score:2)
For one, Waymo wasn't willing to share the substantial technology it had already developed to run autonomous vehicles
This shows that the accusation against China forcing American companies to share technologies is exaggerated and made up demonized China to rally support for the American political system and military industrial complex. As seen here, all countries make the same requests. And if an American company doesn't want to share, they can walk away like Waymo. And the foreign partner can just go to another American company that is willing.
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This shows that the accusation against China forcing American companies to share technologies is exaggerated
No. Under WTO rules, American companies should have access to do business in China WITHOUT A PARTNER. They should be able to set up their own fully owned subsidiaries, just as Chinese companies can do in America. It is not an exaggeration to say that China uses illegal trade barriers to restrict market access.
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A few issues with your argument:
* the issue with the need to partner with domestic business partner is not the same as tech access we are talking about here
* companies have very simple way to work around the domestic partner requirements -- for example, all major Chinese internet companies were owned by foreign VCs and investors; they operate by creating wholly own business entities that own the IP, trademark etc of the company but partner with a Chinese national who own the business license. Go read about
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1) China still has 1 billion of poor people;
2) US itself agreed to such term and without setting a timeline.
Of course the US never abide to its own commitment anyway.
And, China has powerful nuclear weapons too
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Really? Cuz... China isn’t involved in this story,
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EVs only because of âoepower requirements? " (Score:3)
There isn't a technical reason a fossil fuel powered vehicle can't supply enough power to run an autonomous vehicle. Even with a "puny 12 volt battery".
The whole statement is cringe worthy. Google only wants to put their autonomous tech into EVs to encourage people to buy more EVs.
Call it for what it is.
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Waymo's entire fleet of Chrysler Pacificas are all ICE vehicles so this is obviously bunk.
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Exactly what sort of hardware is Waymo stuffing into their vehicles if a typical 1KWh car battery won't power it? Maybe networked Univac-1s running Excel spreadsheets? Not that there isn't room for one or two additional 12v lead-acid batteries in a typical car.
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Batteries aren't the issue. There isn't really an issue, it's made up, but if there were it would not be the battery. There's this thing called an alternator that provides power. The battery is used for starting.
Nice (Score:1)