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Tesla Robotaxi

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Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#241

Post by ulfw »

rapsey wrote: post #225
Animats wrote: post #188

It's amusing that this was at the Warner back lot, which is out in Burbank. Not Paramount or Universal, which are both in Hollywood. It would have been embarrassing to do this at Paramount or Universal, because those are in Waymo's service area. People would have arrived at the event in real self driving taxis.

Waymos however need thousands of dollars of hardware to achieve this and only work in limited areas. Tesla's bet is a lot more risky but also with a lot more potential.

Waymos exist. This intro of nothing doesn't.

It's much much easier to make an existing thing cheaper and better over time.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#242

Post by DennisL123 »

Classic bait and switch setup. Selling people the future in 2 years time with little to nothing to show for today. Timelines will slip, plans will change, software won‘t be ready, prices will change. And that doesn’t even account for where Waymo is in two years from now, or what the Chinese EV industry is able to pull off until then.

Even this underwhelming event was originally announced on short notice to prop up perception when sales looked bad in April [1], delayed by two‘ish months, and then didn‘t even start on time. Oh, and implementing the robo taxi was a two-months project back then [1]. It‘s a ruse, folks.

[1] https://fortune.com/2024/07/16/elon-musk-tesla-robotaxi-dela...

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#243

Post by toomuchtodo »

monocasa wrote: post #240
toomuchtodo wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Global light vehicle sales are ~90M units/year. US ~17M/year. EU ~13M/year. China remains a factory to the world (and itself is the leading market). BYD can build in Mexico (NAFTA) and the EU to avoid tariffs, if desired. Tariffs aren’t going to keep the EV printer at bay. They only delay the inevitable. https://electrek.co/2024/10/09/byd-to-sell-100000-evs-north-... https://electrek.co/2024/08/16/byd-plo…

The tariffs would most likely morph to disallow that.

I disagree this would be effective or a path to success. The evidence does not show policy moves faster than capital, and auto tariff policy gymnastics only work until foreign corporations open factories in country (as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, BMW, Mercedes, Stellantis, and Hyundai all have done [US example]).

US EV demand is simply not at the point where this is economically rational (imho), yet. And so, you’re stuck with a legacy auto EV, a Tesla, or a BYD with 100% tariff markup for now. Even with the tariff, the BYD is still cheaper than a Tesla.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#244

Post by cinntaile »

modeless wrote: post #192
marsten wrote: post #172

The most interesting thing to me by far was the lack of a steering wheel on the Robocab. Without manual controls, vague promises ("puffery"?) about autonomy won't drive vehicle sales as they do today across all Tesla's models. The Robocab as shown literally cannot function (or make a dime of revenue) until they've fully solved autonomy and have convinced regulators of the same.

It's not going to be in mass production until 2027 at the earliest, realistically. Will they have unsupervised FSD "next year" as claimed? I doubt it. But by 2027? I think there's a strong possibility. I've been testing FSD since it was released and lately the pace of improvement has gotten a lot faster. And the Cybercab is going to have a much faster onboard computer, and probably more/better cameras.

If they were that close, why did Karpathy leave 2 years ago?

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#245

Post by m463 »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #40
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #15

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

I would imagine the interior would be more "passenger proof".

Maybe easier to clean, or wash out vomit, or even warn of forgotten items.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#246

Post by ulfw »

m463 wrote: post #208
forgot-im-old wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

All that puffery is overestimated in the short term, and underestimated in the long term.

No it isn't.

Where's that Roadster he promised 7.5 years ago?

And that's an easier thing to do.

https://jalopnik.com/its-still-very-funny-that-1-000-people-...

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#247

Post by seanmcdirmid »

thefourthchime wrote: post #212
toomuchtodo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla market cap is based on AI/robotaxi/FSD. Without that, they’re just playing catchup to BYD (who quietly, yet aggressively, executes at scale; they offer EVs today between $10k-$20k and already employ more workers than Toyota [for scale]). https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/cars/china-tesla-byd-competit... https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/chinas-byd-is-set-to-beat-te... https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/be…

I think you're ignoring the fact that Chinese manufacturers are heavily tariffed in the west

China can easily get around that the same way they made western manufacturers get around its own tariffs. Only the Americans aren’t going to require 49/51 JVs, even though they should.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#248

Post by ulfw »

strulovich wrote: post #31
wilsonnb3 wrote: post #15

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.

Barring all the issues, if you did build a huge fleet of autonomous taxis - smaller, lighter cars with less moving pieces would save you a lot of money. 2 seater - smaller car No wheels or stuff - saves money on the build and parts.

Or god forbid you'd build a proper electric public transport network that can transport dozens, sometimes hundreds of people way more efficiently.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#249

Post by m463 »

kombookcha wrote: post #178
BluSyn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally showed a clip of a robot cleaning the car in the announcement. Also perfect task for Optimus.

I straight up do not believe that Optimus is capable of vacuuming a car unassisted without damaging itself, the car or the hoover.

what if the robot can exchange it's arm for a vacuum?

sort of Kentucky Fried Movie style :)

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#250

Post by echoangle »

justahuman74 wrote: post #180
binarynate wrote: post #168

It's ironic that the example he gives for driving across LA already has a fast train connection: > People that live in LA, I mean try to get from Pasadena to El Segundo during rush hour. You can fly to another city faster than you get to crosstown LA. And you have to drive the whole way. You can take the Metro A line from Pasadena, then transfer to the C line to get to El Segundo. No driving necessary. Musk sells car…

Trains are great Unless you think LA should go London/NYC style and build a load of stations, there is still the problem of what to do if you're not near a station at the start or end. If it involves a bus connection, people will just drive

> Unless you think LA should go London/NYC style and build a load of stations

Why shouldn’t one think that? Wouldn’t this be a good solution?

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