Interim CEO claims L2++ EoY and L4 by 2029

[Tâm]

Agree, the added cost for a halo-like structure or the typical festooning of LIDAR on a Waymo car would be prohibitively expensive for a consumer-use car. The economics just don't make sense, and an L4 car has to be carrying passengers for as many hours as possible in a day to be profitable. Lots of analysis on this from McKinsey, Goldman, etc. The L4 consumer car duty cycle is just too short for any reasonable payback. Excellent point on insurance - L2++ with some verifiable driver monitoring will be considerably less and simplifies the "at fault" determination. I think you are right L2++ or enhanced or whatever we want to call it will likely be with us for a very long time. In that case the L2++ hints we get from Lucid make sense and fingers crossed for at least nav integration in DreamDrive by end of year.

Lucid Sapphire costs around $249,000 as an L2.

Motor Trend estimated the cost of a Waymo is $130,000-$150,000 that does L4.

I bought an EV not for an economic sense but I've been willing to pay more for getting rid of the smell of smoke and petroleum.

I would pay more for an L4, not for an economic sense, but for its safety and zero-collision goal.

 

[TahoeMichael]

Lucid Sapphire costs around $249,000 as an L2.

Motor Trend estimated the cost of a Waymo is $130,000-$150,000 that does L4.

I bought an EV not for an economic sense but I've been willing to pay more for getting rid of the smell of smoke and petroleum.

I would pay more for an L4, not for an economic sense, but for its safety and zero-collision goal.

I agree with you. I think there are a lot of people who would pay a premium for an L4 capable vehicle for personal use, with no expectation of an economic return by using it as a taxi. Of course, that will depend on just what the price premium is for the L4 capability. I think looking at Waymo's costs is a mistake. First because Waymo doesn't disclose the costs, so all figures are (at best) semi-informed speculation. But more important is that Waymo has been producing low volume engineering vehicles, not mass produced vehicles. Maybe the 6th generation Waymo Driver platform will change that, we'll have to wait and see.

 

[jrb24]

Agree some might be motivated that can afford the L4 sensor and compute requirements. Some estimates make that around $80-100K on top of the base vehicle cost for Waymo. As noted before, Waymo provides no details. But in any case, that's a pretty hefty add-on option. But I am sure people who can afford that will indeed go for L4 given the added safety and the option to fall asleep in the back seat. But if the goal is to sleep in the back seat...an experienced personal chauffeur costs roughly $45-75K but you dont get the supposed L4 safety. LOL