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Comment by ricardobeat | Hacker News Reader

> With fewer consumers purchasing and leasing vehicles and drivers on the road, we unfortunately do not see a path forward for our business.

Said like nobody will ever drive cars again.

I'm perplexed at how quickly these businesses are deciding to fold.

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I think it's a cop out. Sirius XM purchased them and then pivoted to rental car fleets. Guess that didn't work out, so blaming the Covid economy is an easy way out.

I was nervous Sirius would shut them down. Guess my worry was not misplaced.

There's very little money on the hardware space... plus if you're not charging an ongoing premium it may not be worth it.

What upsets me is seeing this hardware just become e-waste. I really dislike seeing perfectly functional hardware become unusable just because the company folds or something newer comes out. I ranted about the iphone 4 and how it's no longer possible to build software on that platform, especially since it's low power and could be used for any small project. My old Nexus 7 is still kicking (just slooow)

I used to work (sort of) in this space. A lot of the functionality that companies want to tie to their ODB hardware is getting rolled into the cars themselves by the auto manufacturers and app platforms like CarPlay and Android Auto. Companies like this had 5-10 years before facing obsolescence.

Most startups rely on industry growth. If you have 100 drivers today and 110 tomorrow, you will have the climate for startups. If you have 100 drivers today, and 90 tomorrow, you only have room for the entrenched players.

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