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Tesla Robotaxi

tesla.com

321–330 of 788 posts

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#321
post #277
post #50

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Bold to assume it will go into production.

Just like the cybertruck, this is a concept car that will never be sold in real life

It’s amazing the shared delusion that my entire family participates in. My kids somehow get driven by a vaporware FSD to school every day in a car that I was told will never exist let alone be allowed on streets.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#322
post #262

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>What's the deal with cynical, low effort comments like this that add nothing to the discussion? People are starting to wake up to the (shitty) new reality that Big Tech created for us. The cynical nature is just the natural reaction to a serial grifter becoming the world's richest man. I don't think anyone but the most naive actually believes anything in this PR piece will come to market.

Oh yeah, look at all the terrible things Tesla has done, sell more EVs than everyone else, and make them for less cost, and include a good infotainment system in a car, what a terrible reality

Tesla doesn't sell more EVs than everyone else, BYD does.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

This is a bit of an aside, but why does everyone assume, if not for the sanctions, BYD would eat Western manufacturers alive? I for one, don't like to engage in anti-China hysteria, but having had experience with Chinese products, their quality and reliablity is a hit and miss. How would you know, that they didn't cheap out on caps in inverters, and they won't break down after a decade/200k km?

Also their cars are build like modern consumer electronics, welded/glued together at every opportunity.

Take a look at this video where a guy tries to pry apart a BYD battery pack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPTefsqNGI4

I guess BYD's strategy of world domination involves a high degree of automation, so they can make their cars in countries without a large pool of free workers/high wages, that's why they're made like this.

And here in Europe, they're not even that much cheaper, before tariffs. A Seal costs almost as much as a Model 3.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#324

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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 st…

It's not rational, but the current tariffs are explicitly aimed at Chinese EVs and were created faster than they could hit the US market in any sizable quantity even using China's existing manufacturing infrastructure.

Policy in support of existing capital that is a heavy hitter politically can absolutely move faster than capital of new entrants.

And with both political parties explicitly being anti-chinese capital currently, it's not clear that a chinese factory would even be allowed to open domestically.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#325

The big promise of the Robotaxi was that every Tesla would be one, that your Tesla would earn you money while you weren't using it. This was obviously unlikely to ever happen, but has been the promise right up to this event, and something Musk has been very vocal about. Despite having very few details in this presentation, the one detail that is clear is that existing Teslas won't be taxiing anyone, and Tesla will be…

I don't know what presentation you were watching, but in this one it was clearly stated that all Tesla models will be autonomous, not just the Cybercab, and also that you will be able to buy and own the Cybercab just like their other cars and it will earn money for you. It's fine if you don't believe it, but that's what was said.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You'd have to ask him. He worked there for 5 years, maybe he just wanted a change instead of a second 5 years of sprinting to the goal? In interviews he says he is still bullish on Tesla.

Of course he is bullish on Tesla, probably still has some stocks or stock options. Otherwise saying that he is bullish costs nothing to him.

And "wanted a change" my *ss. If you believe the hype that autonomous driving is really just around the corner (has been since 2015) AND you are leading the R&D of the company that does this, would you want to jump ship before the product is shipped? Do you think Jobs would have left Apple in 2006, just before the Iphone announcement because "he wanted change"? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#327

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 pe…

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Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#328
post #271
post #241

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Waymos exist. This intro of nothing doesn't. It's much much easier to make an existing thing cheaper and better over time.

Waymos drive in limited geofenced zones. FSD exists but needs driver supervision. Both are incomplete and it is unknown who will be the winner.

FSD is also geofenced, just a bigger fence. When/if the robotaxi actually debuts it too will be heavily geofenced and have usage restrictions but it will also be several years behind Waymo in terms of development, testing, technology and regulation.

Whilst it is unknown who will be the winner, or even valid competitors, we can predict with high confidence that Tesla has a massive challenge to reach where Waymo is today.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#329
post #310

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…

BYD are literally handmade. I expect QA issues worse that Tesla’s Production Hell and in long term support. Plus, they’re doped up with subsidies like an Eastern Block Olympic Athlete; China needs to prop up its books after the Real Estate bubble turned to rubble

They seem to have significant quality issues - I have multiple friends with them in Thailand, and every second social post from them is bitching about whatever randomly stopped working or fell off this time - although I have a feeling they build their Thai market models elsewhere.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#330
post #225

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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.

The idea that Tesla would win the robotaxi race by not needing LiDAR died sometime between when LiDAR cost $100k and when it cost $1k. Now it’s just Elon being intransigent.

Humans don’t use lidar, which clearly shows that a vision-only robotaxi is very much feasible.
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