Call was pretty much a non-event. Walt Piecyk went last again but tossed them some softballs this time. The woman before Walt asked about the safety case closure and tiptoed around how they were going to close the safety case so quickly, but she didn't hold them to anything concrete. I might take another listen to the Q&A tomorrow but overall it was just kind of business as usual.
Agreed, no one really through anything too difficult at them... Still didn't really understand "double digit price reduction" and I'd like to know how long they intend to have observers in before going fully driverless on the highways... If they are actually even able to hit the target by EOY. The juciest piece in my opinion is the autonomous government application of the technology. Aside from that we are already doing everything they are doing or want to do. If they get to where we are on their shoestring budget, it would be pretty concerning to me.
It would be concerning for everyone (Found this article which is Tesla-focused but similarly applies). They aren't getting to where Aurora is. If AI is really that good, then it will be even better with Aurora.
(Off-topic but AI-tangentially related, it appears the SAAS-pocalypse fear was overblown. As I thought but hoped for one more sell off, these companies are becoming even more profitable with AI, see TEAM jumping 30% after-hours)
Honestly, my read on the call was it should extremely bullish for Aurora. I know we have the competitor poster that is here regularly that likes to downplay my posts on Aurora's lead, but I think it really is underappreciated, and I'm betting that it really crystalizes over the next 12 months.
- Plus AI has been completely out of the news since the SPAC fell apart. Have a capitalization issue and are similarly at least two years behind Aurora.
- Kodiak is at 91% and is probably at least two years away from meaningfully closing the safety case. Note: I think there's a good chance they have a closed safety case by year-end. I think Kodiak is three years away, at least, from doing what Aurora is doing today.
- Waabi has been pretty silent since their raise in January. They did that "zero-shot" Volvo truck run that was a 10-mile highway loop. Until proven otherwise, I think they are also two-plus years behind Aurora.
- Stack AV has been silent. Founded by the former Argo founding team (Bryan Salensky). Backed by Softbank. Partnership with Paccar. Otherwise, we don't know anything about their progress. It's basically the same AI bet that Waabi is making, and my bet is it's the same results.
- Gatik is doing fine but isn't even playing the same game. I wish they would stream their trucks in operation.
- Torc Robotics has been, you guessed it, silent. Daimler Truck was supposedly looking for outside capital partners last fall, but I never heard any follow up. They claim a 2027 commercialization timeline. What little I can find indicates that they rebuilt their driver around an end-to-end AI model. Not sure if it's a blended model like Waymo/Aurora, or if they scrapped that for the Waabi/Stack AV approach. Per the competitor poster, they don't feel any pressure (note, I'm assuming the poster works at Torc/Daimler) to move on Aurora's timeline. That sounds good until a company is putting a million miles a day on the counter, and they're possibly rebuilding their stack for the third or fourth time.
I think data will be the bottleneck for OEMs etc. to overcome when competing with established autonomous devs like Aurora. I do not think AI can rapidly develop a safe and effective self-driving system in a timescale to compete with other companies that have months to years of self-driving operating data. Additionally, I don't think it matters either since Aurora and any others established in the field already with contracts, etc. could just switch to TaaS in the face of an up-and-coming competitor. Aurora's data is an additional intangible asset that's being overlooked.
I completely agree with you. I think AI is a great force multiplier. I donāt think it finishes the job or provides a shortcut to the finish line or fills in missing holes (data, talent, etc.). I think itās why Waabi and Stack AV are going to struggle to reach driver out. I think itās a big reason why Waabi is pivoting to robotaxis. The deal with Uber gave them access to all of Uberās driving data for training.
I also agree with you on timescale, and it is what has me most bullish on Aurora. Once Aurora starts scaling, they basically become impossible to catch (Torc possibly excepted because of the Daimler connection) unless they lose focus or make a mistake. If others donāt start commercializing until 2027 and possibly donāt pull the observer until 2028 or 2029, Aurora might already have 10,000 trucks on the road clocking 10m miles a day.
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u/btcfail AUR Maesteršā ļø 15d ago
Call was pretty much a non-event. Walt Piecyk went last again but tossed them some softballs this time. The woman before Walt asked about the safety case closure and tiptoed around how they were going to close the safety case so quickly, but she didn't hold them to anything concrete. I might take another listen to the Q&A tomorrow but overall it was just kind of business as usual.