Cruise shutdown blastzone increases – Microsoft takes $800M charge

Microsoft is among those in the blast radius of General Motors' decision to wind up its autonomous taxi business, Cruise. In a filing made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week, the company said it expected to record an impairment charge to the tune of approximately $800 million in the second quarter of …

[Steve Davies 3]

Who will pay?

The poor suckers who use their products. It is probable that the revenue has been incorporated in their Quarterly reports to the SEC/Wall St. Not having it will be a big hole that will need filling ASAP.

Now with the 25% Tariffs soon to be imposed by Trump V2.0, they are the perfect cover for increasing prices across the board.

Musk must be very pleased. All he needs to do is sink Waymo and the market is his and his alone.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Who will pay?

Musk must be very pleased. All he needs to do is sink Waymo and the market is his and his alone.

He can have it...

[Dinanziame]

Re: Who will pay?

Musk must be very pleased. All he needs to do is sink Waymo and the market is his and his alone.

Uber is already offering self-driving car rides with a Chinese company.

That said, Musk needs to have self-driving cars first in order to join the party.

[IGotOut]

Oh dear

what a shame. Boo hoo

What until AI implodes, you'll be able to add an extra 0 to that number.

[vtcodger]

Re: Oh dear

FWIW a $0.09 EPS hit looks to be about 60 hours worth of profits from the Microsoft empire. Significant, but genuinely it does look to be but a scratch.

The numbers I used are $0.09 write off from the article, quarterly EPS = $3,30 for the quarter ending Sept 2024 source -- the all-knowing Internet. I certainly might have that wrong. It's late. It's been a long day. I'm 85 years old. I never was all that great at math. ... And I really don't much care. Feel free to correct me if you have nothing better to do

[MachDiamond]

Big city not working

San Fran has been diminishing over time. The cost to do business in the city is very high and the liberal policies have adding to incidents of crime and people living (and relieving themselves) on the street. Every couple of years I'd go to SF for a conference or trade show, but it's on my "do not visit" list. Initially, it was down to cost but piling on the other things makes it not worth it. The reason I bring this up as it should be the perfect place for autonomous taxis, lots of visitors, high density, expensive to operate a private vehicle and terrain in places that makes it difficult to walk. There should be enough room for a couple of operators if the tech was ready for prime time. To have one of two completely pull out means there isn't a financial basis. I expect there are still plenty of gypsy cabs (Uber, Lyft, etc) since plenty of people don't trust the automation and to make it work there has to be some geo-fencing even if it's just for technical reasons.

[JLV]

Re: Big city not working

For anyone with a minimal amount of fitness, San Francisco is a wonderfully walkable North American city, being unusually dense.

Yes, it has seen eyeraising amount of "wokeness", such as wanting to rename Lincoln High - https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/27/us/san-francisco-school-name-changes-trnd/index.html - but a) that idea has been ditched and b) it is largely unrelated to this article, but you just had to pipe up with some politics. The housing crisis is complex and while it likely does have a bit to do with laying out a "welcome mat" of sorts, it has a lot more to do with classical economics of under-supply due to regulation, coupled with the existence of a sizable subgroup of professionals that can outbid everyone else.

I know, I know, basic economics is so boring for what passes for the modern day right.

[david 12]

Re: Big city not working

relieving themselves) on the street

That has always been a problem, but back in the day, there was a solution: public toilets.

There are some "wokeness" problems: cities don't want to be in the business of providing recreational facilities for anonymous sex (which can no longer be criminalized), cities don't want to be in the position of charging for toilet facilities, cities don't want to provide facilities without handicapped access, cities don't want to discriminate between men and women etc.

But the main problem is the opposite of wokeness: SF doesn't wish to provide public toilet facilities that can be use by the homeless.

[JLV]

Re: Big city not working

Actually, SF does have a bit of a recent history with public toilets https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/bayarea/heatherknight/article/S-F-s-Toiletgate-Newsom-calls-1-7-million-17526254.php

A history which seems quite in line with British - and Canadian - over-regulation when it comes to construction.

Thankfully the thing finally went live - the opening of one public loo in SF apparently being worldwide news.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Big city not working

Actually, SF does have a bit of a recent history with public toilets etc

A propos of not much more than a late Poets' day afternoon the comments about public loos fired off some aging random neurons and brought to mind Clochemerle especially the 1972 BBC production narrated by Peter Ustinov (who also narrated Dr Snuggles. ;)

[dangerous race]

Re: Big city not working

Upvoted for mention of poets day - not heard that in a while. And Clochmerle, though I must have seen it later than 1972 as I was just 12 then.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Big city not working

"Actually, SF does have a bit of a recent history with public toilets"

When I had a business representing movie locations, I was working with one site that needed an on-site washroom including at least one shower. Most of the productions were small and hiring a portaloo company to bring and service temp facilities added a bunch of cost. We could do that for larger production with more people, but it wasn't needed even when there were no productions at the location. IIRC, the cost would have been about $30k with the biggest line item being a septic tank. Water for the shower would be heated by solar backed up with propane. What we didn't worry about was all of the red tape. The site was not observable from public roads and the location for the installation was even more hidden. It would be more now for the project with that septic tank being even more expensive and the cost of lumber off the charts. If we doubled the cost to $60k, deduct that amount from the $1.7mn for the cost of the red tape. The project time would also go from a couple of weeks to several months if not longer. Not only will there be a minimum number of bids required to meet regulations, there will be fewer companies willing to bid on such a project as they are a major headache and take forever to get paid.

[rafff]

Re: Big city not working

"SF doesn't wish to provide public toilet facilities ...."

So how is that different from London? My borough has removed all the pubic toilets, and most of those that used to be in the Tube stations are now closed.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Big city not working

"But the main problem is the opposite of wokeness: SF doesn't wish to provide public toilet facilities that can be use by the homeless."

I would expect that the other factors are an issue as well. If the city did provide public toilets, lawmakers might mandate there were designated facilities for men, women, confused of several different types, and accessible versions for each of those groups as well. The people that won't use them are tourists, visitors and others that have any possibility of using a much cleaner and better smelling loo someplace else. People would see them as more services for homeless people that are already going to have a difficult time surviving in a very expensive city.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

Re: Big city not working

Interesting - but I find it to be astoundingly beautiful city. Been all over it on a bicycle and there is always something new. Most of the city is unaffected by people living on the street - although the parts that are, are. I would have to go out of my way to make that most of what I see. Tourists always packed in all the way from Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge - despite the negative publicity they keep coming exactly because it is a beautiful place to visit.

Waymo has already open up service in other US cities.

[trevorde]

If anyone can make this work, it's Elon Musk and Tesla!

[Jimmy2Cows]

Why? FSD is provably still anything but. Robotaxi is a pipedream that had a very carefully curated demo.

[Groo The Wanderer]

They failed because they tried to use LLMs which have no actual intelligence at all; Musk's little venture will fail for the same reason.

[Jaybus]

Well, if it takes intelligence to drive a car, then why is there no IQ test for obtaining a driving license?

[Groo The Wanderer]

Because even a Meercat has more actual intelligence than an LLM. An LLM is just statistics gone mad, the mass average blurting on the internet.