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Tesla Robotaxi

tesla.com

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Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#101
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we already know they can make a car.

A new car look without steering wheel and pedals. A working robovan. I don't think people understand the complexity of creating a hardware prototype of anything. This can't be ChatGPTed

They've shown working shells of cars at every single reveal of their past cars without the interior filled in. We know they can do that. What's in question is whether they can make a driverless taxi.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#102
post #5

Love the design of the robocab. Assuming production looks something like this, can’t wait to see it IRL.

Where does my luggage go?

The back opens up to reveal a huge trunk that can store lots of luggage. They showed it during the livestream. Pic here https://x.com/sawyermerritt/status/1844583051449467202?s=46

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#103

Anybody know why the autonomous taxi isn't just a model 3? I don't see the point in a purpose built two seater with no steering wheel or pedals and I don't know why regulators would approve an autonomous car with no way to manually override it.

I assume robo taxi will be significantly cheaper to manufacture. You can get away with much less range and creature comforts being quite a bit less. People care much less about comfortable for something they sit in for twenty minutes versus buy for $50k

Huh? You will spend exactly as much time in the Robotaxi as you do in a vehicle you buy for yourself.

If people are willing to pay extra for comfort and style already, why would they stop?

I feel like so much of this discourse is dominated by people who hate cars. Most people like their cars! That's why they bought them.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#104
Robotaxi & Optumus robot still looks to be years and years away. However, I'm pretty fond of the idea of having distributed compute nodes that performs computations when idle, the idea of reclaiming parking lots, the induction charging and vacuum bots looks pretty sleek as well.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#105
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single person's evidence isn't helpful. People doing testing at scale of Tesla's solution (even the latest version), have found a few interventions happen an hour (or at least per day), especially on busy streets or in situations where weather isn't complimentary. It cannot be truly an autonomous robotaxi without VERY HIGH reliability. One intervention per hour is one too many.

Cruise had driverless robotaxis on the streets while they had 2.5 to 5 miles per intervention. [1] I think FSD 12.5 is way beyond that --- I drove over 20 miles yesterday with zero interventions. Also, having ridden Waymo in San Francisco many times, I find that the FSD is actually slightly smoother and handles stuff like going around obstacles and blockages more naturally, although, as you are no doubt aware, there…

As a Tesla owner I can promise you there will never be reasonable human assistance infrastructure.

Have to ever tried to get in touch with a human at Tesla short of driving to a service center. Almost impossible. It would be easier for me to get the president on the line.

Having just purchased a new Tesla, I tried for 2 weeks to communicate with Tesla prior to purchase. The closest I even got was a phone tree, which after 7 levels sent me to a voicemail box that was full. Am I’m talking every day for 14 days. Had my wife not wanted it so bad I would have cancelled my deposit on the spot.

I requested service on it last week. The earliest service date is Nov. 12. I have yet to hear from an advisor on the app.

Tesla does a lot of things right, but supporting their products with actual humans is not one of them..

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#106
post #87

This story seems to have been buried.

as far as I've seen a high number of comments in a HN post will impact it's ranking.

to my understanding that is a feature designed to limit flamewars, of course I might be mistaken.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#107
post #42

The Robovan—as an actual van one could buy today—would sell. Especially in Asia, versus Toyota Alphards. Alas, seems it's more likely to get used as point-to-point transit inside closed spaces (parks and convention centers and ... perhaps the Vegas Loop).

> The Robovan — as an actual van one could buy today—would sell.

One would think so. But slow self-driving mini-buses seem to be a niche item. San Francisco's Treasure Island had one from Beep for part of 2023 and early 2024. Las Vegas had one back in 2017, from Nayva. Local Motors had some, but is defunct. There are a few from WeRide on an island in Guangzhou. EasyMile has a few installations.

This kind of self driving, at 7 to 9 MPH, has been around since 2009. It works, but it's not that useful.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#108
post #41

Here's an idea - take the Robocab car design, strip out all the FSD/autopilot stuff, put in a steering wheel and dash and sell it starting at the end of the year for ~$25k. It would sell +++

This. If you have a robotaxi for under 30k, why not just sell the car for that much?

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many disengagements per thousand miles? By all accounts, it's still far behind where Waymo was 10 years ago.

It doesn't matter because it's a meaningless statistic. But sure, I'll entertain it. Last figure I heard was 1 disengagement per 200 miles. The distance between SF and LA is 380 miles. If my car can drive me from SF to LA and I only have to intervene once , that's already incredible and leagues ahead of what Waymo can offer. And since you asked, FSD 12.6 will reduce disengagements per mile by 5x.

Waymo doesn't require a driver to supervise the car, they're supposedly running Level 4 cars. FSD requires continual supervision, you must be responsible and attentive at all times. How is this a reasonable comparison?

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#110

Robotaxi & Optumus robot still looks to be years and years away. However, I'm pretty fond of the idea of having distributed compute nodes that performs computations when idle, the idea of reclaiming parking lots, the induction charging and vacuum bots looks pretty sleek as well.

> distributed compute nodes that performs computations when idle

I can't imagine that working well for latency-sensitive applications... like self-driving cars.

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