Financial Times today: "Waymo forecast to capture 60% of driverless market"
The FT has an article today, based on research from investment bank UBS: "Waymo forecast to capture 60% of driverless market". UBS says " Waymo will own 60% of the global self driving taxi market by 2030, a level of dominance that forces many of the world's carmakers to adopt its technology or become obsolete." UBS estimates global revenues from self driving tech by 2030 will be up to $ 2.8 trillion, with Alphabet's Waymo unit the global leader. They say "only a select handful of carmakers such as Daimler and GM will be able to operate their own systems and compete with Waymo's tech, following interviews with self driving developers, technology groups and academics as well as UBS' own analysis."
UBS expects that 12% of cars sold in 2030 will be for driverless taxi fleets, with a total of 26 million robotaxis in operation. Private car sales will fall by 5% as a result. The report predicts that demand for self driving taxis will take off around 2026, depending on public acceptance of the technology in the face of recent crashes, and regulatory approval, although it will develop at different speeds in different markets. UBS believes the largest revenue pools will be in operating the car booking networks and monetising time spent by passengers in the cars, with building the cars and other services such as mapping or sensors taking a smaller portion of the driverless pie. But the costs of building a self driving system from scratch, as well as the challenges of deploying it in cities across the world, will prohibit all but a handful of carmakers from competing in the most lucrative part of the market, according to UBS.
UBS says that "unlike most auto players, Google focused on fully self driving technology from the very beginning, more than 5 years before the auto industry started working on it. Waymo has notched up more than 6 million miles of physical testing in California and elsewhere in the US as well as 5 billion miles of virtual testing on its computers, putting it far ahead of rivals. Analyst Patrick Hummel, who led the UBS report, said: "Very few players other than Waymo will be able to succeed with having an autonomous vehicle brain in the marketplace." "Sooner or later carmakers that are unable to compete will have to give in and take the Waymo system ." And "those that do provide vehicles for driverless fleets may see their brands disappear from the cars, and be relegated to "white label" providers."
Over time he concludes this will lead to a shake out in the car industry and a reduction in the number of carmakers. There are dozens of carmakers around the world in a fairly fragmented industry. The majority will be in the loser category.
Prediction: in a couple of years, the Overclockers Motor threads will be predominated by autonomous vehicles!
Any thoughts?
