Google's Parent Company Is Throwing $36 Billion At The L4 Future?

The Battle of the Endgame for Autonomous Driving Begins 

Baidu's Radish Run, Robotaxi, a "new species", has for the first time set off a "nationalized" discussion in China, in which position debates, pros and cons analysis, I believe that after half a month of self-media bombardment, everyone has their own judgment.

In any case, the layout of ten years, and now only on the wind mouth, the tip of the wave of the radish fast running, at least proved that the driverless this long road, in the many twists and turns, there are vendors traveling to the dawn. But who is the ultimate winner? Still unknown.

The heavyweight players on the other side of the ocean, also can not hold back, once again.

Beijing time on July 24, the same U.S. stock "seven sisters" of Tesla, Google's parent company Alphabet took the lead in announcing the second quarter of 2024 financial results. Performance, Tesla and Alphabet revenue exceeded expectations, but the stock price fell after the plate.

Among them, because of the horse boss "mouth high painting cake" failed, once again staged a vote skipping drama, Robotaxi release date from August pushed to October Tesla, the stock price is a big turnover, the market value of the overnight evaporation of 96.92 billion U.S. dollars (about 700 billion yuan), wailed all over the place.

This morning, Musk again in his own social media, "the whole job", launched a "whether in favor of Tesla to xAI investment of $ 5 billion" poll, to explore the market wind. The results show that nearly 960,000 users participated in the vote, of which the number of people in favor of up to 67.9%.

As Musk's brand new AI venture, xAI has been extremely eye-catching since its birth, taking $6 billion (about 43.3 billion yuan) in Series B financing within 10 months of its founding, and playing an important role in the development of Tesla Robotaxi's FSD system. Therefore, although there is no lack of "happy people" in the vote, but we can also see that the public is optimistic about AI, self-driving and entangled.

In addition, Google's parent company, Alphabet, has also passed heavy news.

Alphabet announced on its second quarter earnings call that it will make an additional $5 billion (about 36.1 billion yuan) investment in its self-driving subsidiary Waymo to help Waymo continue to build the world's leading self-driving company.

5 billion dollars, this number is enough to be staggering.

This not only sets a new record for Waymo's financing, but is also a big gamble on Alphabet's ability to invest in itself.

If the bet is successful, the excellent backing model has; if lost, around the money is also for their own children, when supporting their own family business.

But in the case of the market continues to tighten, profitability prospects are not clear, Alphabet also firmly invested 5 billion huge sums of money, enough to prove that it in the unmanned driver track "must win" determination.

5G surfing Musk, but also look up the hilarity, sighing "Waymo money", may still draw inspiration from it, initiated "to xAI investment of 5 billion" vote.

The "fever" does not go down.

Waymo's predecessor is Google's self-driving program, which officially became independent in 2016 and became a subsidiary of Alphabet.

From 2009 to 2024, Waymo as the industry's "big brother", has been in the field of autonomous driving for 15 years.

However, the old ways to the old ways, but in this track, burning money "all beings are equal", and difficult to profit in the short term.

The same Robotaxi players Cruise, daily net loss of more than 5 million U.S. dollars (about 36.08 million yuan), Waymo is not bad.

According to Alphabet's second-quarter earnings report, Waymo's "other businesses" lost a total of $1.13 billion in the second quarter, with an average daily net loss of $1.26 million (about 9.09 million yuan).

Spending money quickly, and lack of their own ability to create blood, so highly dependent on external financing blood transfusion, is the common problem of autonomous driving companies.

However, backed by the rich and powerful parent company, Waymo's external financing was opened very late, until March 2020 to complete the first strategic financing.

According to public information, Waymo has previously completed 3 financing, the cumulative amount of disclosed financing amounted to 5.5 billion U.S. dollars (about 39.7 billion yuan), and the company's valuation reached 30 billion U.S. dollars (about 216.4 billion yuan) after the 3rd financing in 2021.

The lineup of shareholders is also very luxurious, including top-tier venture capitalists such as Silver Lake Investments, Abu Dhabi Sovereign Fund, a16z, Fidelity Management Research, Temasek, Tiger Global Fund, and others.

If we add the $5 billion investment promised by Alphabet this time, Waymo's cumulative amount of known financing will exceed $10.5 billion (about 75.6 billion yuan).

However, with such a high level of continued investment, how long will the money on the books last, and can Waymo turn a profit in the foreseeable future, proving that Alphabet's all-out bet is a wise move? It's hard to say.

Attack of the "foreign carrot"

With the radical and poked a big basket, "once back to the liberation of the past" Cruise is different, Waymo like a good student, all the way steady.

From the initial test, to gradually open the service in a specific area, and then to the multi-city spread, Waymo's cautious attitude, although to a certain extent limits the speed of expansion, but also for it to win a better market reputation, as well as regulatory trust.

On this earnings call, Google CEO Sundar Pichai (Sundar Pichai) said that Waymo provides an average of 50,000 paid trips in five weeks, mainly concentrated in San Francisco, Phoenix and other cities, and has accumulated 2 million paid trips so far.

However, according to data previously released by Turnip Express, it provided more than 820,000 trips in the first quarter of 2024 alone, completing an average of 68,000 trips per week, a figure that has surpassed Waymo.

Although the volume of the Chinese market itself as well as policy related, but by the latecomer to the top, Waymo "anxious" is also understandable.

Robotaxi "Dragon and Tiger"

With the rapid rise of Chinese self-driving companies, the global competition pattern of Robotaxi is undergoing profound changes.

In terms of commercialization progress, Chinese companies have shown amazing speed and flexibility.

Recently, "unmanned circle top flow" radish fast running, not only in the scale of service beyond Waymo, but also in Wuhan, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other places to carry out large-scale operation, and "queue list" continues to increase.

In terms of policy, as a pioneer, the United States had a significant advantage, but because of Cruise's several accidents, resulting in "total loss", overnight back to the liberation of the former. China, on the contrary, after extensive research in the early stages, showing the glory of the pilot in many places.

However, even if the future has come, we still have to ask: are we ready?

The answer is no.

As a former no man's land, now the deep water area, the driverless field has not yet appeared winner, we are in the "step, change a step, another step" stage.

What's more, with the previous volume, most people in the life is difficult to see the physical Robotaxi. this is also the turnip fast running can cause so much controversy of the real reason, because before the unmanned driver has not really explored into the life of the people.

Driverless, as the most cutting-edge technology direction, is the hard bone that every country wants to gnaw down.

Although the development of technology can not escape the controversy of human feelings, but you do not develop other people have to grasp the fierce attack, backward will be beaten, the law of history is so. Who can come out on top in this track, who may be able to grasp the dominant power in the next travel revolution.

Therefore, Chinese companies in this "dragon and tiger", bear not only business competition so simple.

Even though the road ahead is long and full of challenges, we still have to walk this road.