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Mark Dolan's avatar

I saw this reposted elsewhere but thought I'd comment here directly and get your feedback if any. I thought your analysis was VERY GOOD.

* The vehicle was originally designed cooperatively with Waymo back in 2020

* The original hard point vehicle was adapted by Zeekr into the Zeekr MIX in 2023

* The MIX is a very high content vehicle and baselines in CHN @ $38K.

* The decontented RT for Waymo is likely significantly less cost perhaps closer to $32-$33K

* The automated seat rails, leather throughout and lounger seats with massage in the back for example are not included

* Furthermore, because of the Biden-era ruling about Russian and Chinese cars, much of the add-on cameras and other tech are also removed

* Waymo applied for a Commerce Dept exemption from the tariffs as a B2B purchase and a hardship since Jaguar plant was torn down. Who knows how that turns out

* You should probably consider the shipping cost to get it to the US from Ningbo. It could get loaded on shipments for Polestar & Volvo which are also Geely properties

* The Zeekr RT is REPORTEDLY plug-n-play

* Not having to do retrofits for wiring, cabling, power, etcetera is the big Kitting reduction

* The designed in drive by wire makes adaptation to Robotaxi service trivial which is a BIG SAVINGS in integration.

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Bill Elliott's avatar

I still think that even after autonomous vehicles become commonplace on our roads, there will need to be a tele-operator at a dispatch center that the vehicle can contact when unique situations arise, such as accidents, protestors taking a baseball bat to the vehicle, flooding situations, etc. Perhaps, a single tele-operator can manage a fleet of a couple dozen vehicles. The tele-operator can send commands to the distressed vehicle until normal autonomous operations can resume.

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