At the Automated Vehicles Symposium (AVS) held in San Francisco last week, one presentation made was by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), about the first Tesla crash involving Autopilot. The NTSB said that “steering wheel torque is a poor surrogate measure” for driver attention. In a tweet highlighting the presentation, Colin Barnden, Lead Analyst at Semicast Research commented: “This only really leaves camera-based DMS to fulfil driver engagement function.”. In a subsequent tweet Colin also identified a possible scenario where Waymo buys Seeing Machines, maybe even in a 12-18 month timeframe, for US$10 billion.
Here’s Colin’s reply in full to my asking about his thinking behind these tweets and the jaw dropping valuation.
Colin Barnden
The NTSB presentation at AVS. That’s a game changer. If you are a transport executive and you value your freedom, you don’t ignore NTSB recommendations. This even applies to anyone with the first name Elon too.
Level 3 is starting to gain traction so Waymo are looking like they have called the handover problem incorrectly and L3 is possible after all. Time will tell on this. L2/L3 is where the volume will be in my view, at least for the next decade.
Robo-taxis may get investor and press attention, but the volume will be in the mass market. Seeing Machines is the classic ‘pick and shovel’ play, the tech can go almost anywhere in transport applications that humans and machines interact. It certainly isn’t obsolete.
Price… who knows? Could be higher, depends how desperate the bidding war gets (see Sky as a good example). Remember what I wrote to you last week “I can see ten bucks a share persuading the Board to sell up soon, or even ten pounds, but not pennies. That would be stupid, and they (the Board of Directors) aren’t”. [This refers to us discussing privately the likelihood of Seeing Machines’ management accepting a low-ball bid in the next few months].
The current market cap simply reflects that the market is clueless to what SM has achieved. The company isn’t clueless, the executive management are whip smart. The market is coming to them (and Smart Eye too) it just needs patience. Maybe even as little as 12-18 months.”
You can follow Colin at @semicast_res
You can follow me, Chris Menon, at @Penforjustice
The author holds shares in Seeing Machines