Broader Robotics Applications

Suggestions that Waymo's perception technology could benefit factory robots, home robots, space applications, and various mobility solutions beyond traditional cars

The cutting-edge perception technology developed for autonomous driving is poised to revolutionize diverse fields such as industrial robotics, home automation, and space exploration. There is a strong call for visionaries to look beyond standard vehicles and embrace varied mobility solutions, such as autonomous golf carts and last-mile transit infrastructure. Furthermore, Waymo’s lidar-focused lead is viewed as a formidable market advantage similar to Nvidia's dominance, while competitors like Tesla face skepticism due to strategic technology choices and declining brand reputation in adjacent markets.

View on HN · Topics

Obviously there is a huge amount of money and effort being spent on automated driving. But I cannot help thinking that this perception technology will prove very useful for robotics in general, factory, home, in space, etc. Car dynamics are fast enough to be useful across a huge number of domains.

In some sense, the visionaries in this space are not thinking big enough. I want visions of mobility with a totally different size, look, speed, etc. autonomous Golf carts? tuktuks? A moving autonomous bicycle carrier? etc

Like imagine a low speed, electric, autonomous, golf-cart-only lane at every train station, for the last mile.

The lead that Waymo has acquired in perceiving its driverless car's environment will be almost impossible to kill. In about 5 years, it'll be like NVidia and CUDA. Tesla's choice to abandon lidar will be one of the biggest oof in business history.

View on HN · Topics

Home batteries are being installed at insane rates in Australia at the moment. Very few of them are Powerwalls because Tesla have priced
themselves out of the market (and also Elon’s reputation is toast).

Summarizer