Waymo raises first external investment round
For those not in&#x2F;near the automotive industry, this is very interesting for several reasons:<p>1) With this move, Alphabet is basically saying they a) don&#x27;t want to continue funding the autonomous moonshot on their own, and b) want some partners to come on board for various reasons<p>2) $2.25B is a big round, and speaks to the level of confidence in Waymo as well as the massive cost to get to market<p>3) Magna is effectively an outsourced automotive production company.  You can give them a vehicle design spec and they will spin up a production line to make it for you.  This points to the possibility of Waymo stepping outside the &quot;buy from an OEM and retrofit&quot; plan, or of outsourcing the retrofit entirely to Magna for scale at some point<p>4) AutoNation is also an interesting investor here given that they are effectively an OEM-agnostic dealership network and they have a pretty strong fleet sales arm.  This is another indicator that Waymo might be looking to sidestep the traditional OEM channels entirely.