Listen to “AAH #725 – Robotaxi Fact, Robotaxi Fiction and Everything in Between” on Spreaker.
Here’s a link to the Changing Lane program that Alisyn talked about during the show.
– Some strong opinions on where all this mobility stuff is going, or whether it’s going at all
PANEL:
Alisyn Malek, Middle Third
Gary Vasilash, shinymetalboxes.net
John McElroy, Autoline.tv
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AAH
A great show yesterday, and Alisyn had a lot of great insights. But what happened to Nora Naughton from Business Insider?
It recently came to me that what we are seeing happen in the Chinese auto market is basically a hastening of what has been happening in the auto market for the past 20 years or so, the commoditization of cars. The Chinese are doing for cars what they do with everything else, put the product together as quickly and cheaply as possible and let the consumer be the quality inspector. With electric cars it is sooo much easier to do this than ICE vehicles because of the parts involved. With the prices they are charging they don’t have to be as good as products from the traditional OEMs, just almost as good. It’s like a toaster here in the US now. The thing lasts 5 years instead of 20 like they used to, but it only costs about 8 dollars so nobody is upset. This mentality allows them to bypass so much of the validation processes that are currently the norm by the traditionals. Me, I’ll still pay more to get more.
Per my earlier comment, what’s truly scary is the thought of what happened to all the American appliance manufacturers. RCA, Sunbeam, Westinghouse, Toastmaster, etc etc. They are all just worthless licensed trademarks now slapped on products by Chinese manufacturers. Is the Ford/GM’s future?