Embark, a company that went public only on 202 1,1,closed at $2.56 on Monday. Last April, the company's share price peaked at 134 USD. The cliff-like decline of the stock price was followed by the massive layoffs of the company, which made it impossible to follow the established route and timetable.
As the founder and CEO of the company, Alex Rodrigues said in an internal letter that on the one hand, the company will lay off a large number of employees and gradually reduce its daily operating costs, on the other hand, after evaluating all alternatives, it can no longer go on in its current form. In the future, selling assets, reorganizing the company or completely closing the company are all foreseeable choices.
L4 autopilot technology is difficult to land in a short time.
At one time, capital and industry were full of confidence in autonomous driving technology, especially L4 autonomous driving technology. Many star companies, including Tesla and Waymo, have developed a very radical roadmap for the development of L4 autonomous driving.
But from the current situation, basically no one can commercialize this technology. Waymo and Cruise, which are relatively advanced in technology, are only conducting demonstration operations in specific cities in the United States. At best, it can only be regarded as Robotaxi in limited scenes, which is basically consistent with the domestic rhythm.
It was once thought that L4-level autonomous driving technology needed to deploy V2 system on a large scale, that is, vehicles could connect with surrounding vehicles, traffic infrastructure, pedestrians and cloud background.
This not only requires the introduction of laws and regulations at the national level, but also means that infrastructure needs to be updated. The huge cost caused by this determines that it is impossible to realize the landing of high-grade autonomous driving technology in the field of passenger cars in the short term.
However, the commercial vehicle field, especially the truck as the trunk logistics, was once regarded as the best scene for commercial L4 autonomous driving.
However, neither Embark nor Tucson, another company, has fully realized L4 autonomous driving technology in the commercial vehicle field, and there is still great uncertainty about when commercial mass production can be realized in the future.
However, in the domestic market, companies including Yuche Technology still focus on driver assistance technology. By reducing the fatigue strength of drivers, we seek to reduce two drivers to one, thus seeking cost savings. However, judging from the current project progress, there is still a long way to go to realize commercial profit through systematic sales.
How do autonomous driving technology companies survive?
For the vast majority of autonomous driving technology companies, there was no hurry to achieve positive cash flow before. The sharp increase in valuation means that they can get considerable returns from investors.
Investors can also recover their investment from the secondary securities market and earn a lot of money. Therefore, most autonomous driving technology companies do not have the ability to self-hematopoietic.
Recently, in the US market, the continuous interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve has led the market to be pessimistic about the US economic prospects. Moreover, many autonomous driving technology companies can't fulfill their previous promises, so the grand occasion that the capital market pursues autonomous driving technology companies may no longer exist. How to survive has become a top priority for most autonomous driving technology companies.
1.？ Driver assistance system
At present, L2 driver assistance system is very mature, and L3 autopilot system is gradually deployed. For autonomous driving technology enterprises, it is a key step to give up the unrealistic L4-level autonomous driving in a short period of time and put more resources and energy into L2-level and L3-level driving assistance that OEMs are willing to invest and users have a sense of gain.
Previously, many domestic autonomous driving technology companies recommended a cost-controlled integrated parking and navigation system to the OEM, which won valuable pre-installation orders from the OEM, realized positive cash flow for themselves, and also helped enterprises accumulate valuable research and development experience. ?
2.？ Form a deeper alliance with the main engine factory
Forming a closer alliance with the OEM is also one of the keys to the survival of autonomous driving technology companies. Compared with the start-up autonomous driving technology company, the OEM is undoubtedly rich, and its main business can bring relatively stable cash flow and predictable profits.
However, if you want to form an alliance with the OEM and enter the system scope of the OEM, you must transfer some patents or technologies. Therefore, how to balance the relationship with all parties and maximize the interests of all parties is also a major topic for autonomous driving technology companies.
If ARGO AI, a joint venture between Ford and Volkswagen, is considered bankrupt, the overall environment is not friendly to autonomous driving technology companies. But it can also make the overheated market return to rationality.
Autopilot technology companies need to return to autopilot technology itself and re-examine their technical routes and timetables.
This article comes from Auto Jingwei AUTOMATRIX, the author of Easy Car Number, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author for any form of reprint. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.