Live data from Hacker News

Tesla Robotaxi

tesla.com

771–780 of 788 posts

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#771
post #567
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running compute nodes in cars is honestly an even dumber idea than renting out your own car as a taxi.

> dumber idea than renting out your own car as a taxi. your car is doing nothing for most of it’s lifetime. renting it out via turo or as a taxi makes sense.

Or maybe you can just use a taxi if you need it, instead of buying a car to be used as a taxi?

It would be worth running the numbers on this, it is more viable to just take taxi rides for a year, compared to how much would payments and potential income net from a scheme like this. Of course if it ever sees the light of the day.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#772
One thing confuses me... Why invest so much into automony on streets/roads when most (all?) US trains/trams/busses still have operators?

Elon said himself that busses have 5x the operating cost of robo-taxis (1$ vs 20¢ per hour), but failed to mention that a typical bus carries 25x people. Presumably the cost delta is due to payroll for a human operators & janitors, so if busses already have 5x max throughout per $ in a worst-case comparison, why not put more energy into driving down costs on the more efficient modality?

I imagine it would be an easier problem to solve too, as you could could define constraints on your operating environment. Dedicated travel lanes, rail, and preprogrammed routes seem like they'd massively reduce the complexity of the problem.

I could also envision a decent financial argument for moving from a customer base of general-consumers to one of cities & local govt. If a 5x operating cost reduction is feasible, I could see "public transit automation" making for a pretty compelling capital project.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#773
post #764
post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not say no one would want this. I'm saying that it's odd play. Most people that own their own cars do not want the limits of 2-seaters. 29k is a price point that appeals most to private buyers. If robotaxis exist, a lot of people would opt to not own a car at all.

Hypothetical here, but my mum's 88 and various relatives have had to give up driving around age 90 due to becoming dangerous, so I've been kind of looking out for something like this that could get her around in that event. Another thing re the price point, in other news "Apollo launched its sixth-generation robotaxi at Apollo Day 2024 in Wuhan, Hubei province today, costing 200,000 yuan ($27,670), a 60 percent drop…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#774
post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my experience driving FSD in silicon valley. I was floored

I obviously don't know your personal experience, but with the amount of videos from Tesla owners showcasing FSD turning into oncoming traffic, trying to clip parked cars, blazing through stop signs without even slowing down and taking roundabouts the wrong way around in 30 minutes and then finishing the video by concluding that FSD did well is insane. Just the amount of scary FSD footage from Cybertrucks alone that o…

Think about it this way: when it actually works, that's not a video you're watching or that's getting amplified on the feed.. social media is a distortion field

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#775
I'm confused, cause all these comments seem to just be plain lies? Have anyone actually driven in a tesla using FSD? It's freaking awesome. I literally drive to and from work everyday and pretty much never have to put my hands on the wheel unless i want to go faster.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#776
post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reuters said that, and Elon directly denied it. I think it is likely that the $25k car was delayed somewhat from whatever its initial plan was, but not canceled.

When is it going to be released if it has just been delayed?

The 25k will be on the same chasis and drivetrain as the robo taxi. He couldn't get all the execs to move to mexico to build it, so he agreed to do the robo taxi first in texas, then when they build the mexico giga factory they will build the 25k there. So, one year for cybertaxi line, and a year and a half for mexico factory. Will probably start rolling off the mexico factory in late 2027

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#777
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire plan hinges on low cost high volume. That means reducing parts and complexity. Stainless steel body so no paint shop or variations to worry about, or paint maintenance, etc. removing steering wheel, removing glass roof, removing doors, and more. For high density you have the robovan.

Vehicles are dominated by the production costs of producing anything . You save surprisingly little producing smaller vehicles because the expensive bits are all the things you don't majorly save on like the production lines, the battery, the mechanicals, the wiring, the electronics, etc. Nicer interiors, paint options, and other consumer upgrades have extremely low marginal costs. They're pure profit for the manufac…

Paint shop is the most expensive line by far. Maybe 20% higher than stamping capex.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#778
post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they aren't. If you look at their wording, they are saying they are ready to defend themselves and their software, not that they will protect anyone from a lawsuit. The owners manual even explicitly states you are always the operator under drive pilot.

> The owners manual even explicitly states you are always the operator under drive pilot. Just a straight up lie. The manual states: > The person in the driver's seat when DRIVE PILOT is activated is designated as the fallback-ready user and should be ready to take over control of the vehicle. > As soon as the driver steers, accelerates or brakes, the responsibility for driving and safe operation of the vehicle, incl…

On other words, the product can just return control to the user at the moment when there is a problem, so they don‘t take responsibility.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#779
post #713
post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your job is to, in your own words, be "replicating 6 million years of evolution"? You know how big your own team is, and that your team is itself an abstraction from the outside world. You know you get the shortcuts of being able to look at what nature does and engineer it rather than simply copy without understanding. You know your own evolutionary algorithms, assuming you're using them at all, run as fast as you…

Not to be rude but you're arguing with somebody that works in what I would assume is a highly mathematical space and asserting your opinion on how quickly that highly mathematical space can advance while your own profile admits that you were unable to understand "advanced calculus or group theory" and your own github indicates that you are stuck on "the hard stuff — abelian groups, curls, wedge products, Hessians and…

1. Note time stamp: https://github.com/BenWheatley/char-rnn

2. Most ML is basic calculus and basic linear algebra — to the extent that people who don't follow it, use that fact itself as a shallow argument.

3. I'm not asserting how fast it can advance, I'm asserting that the comparison with "6 million years of evolution" is a as much a shallow hand-wave as saying it's trivial, as evidenced by what we've done so far.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi

#780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rotation is one of those fundamental things differentiating our technological civilization from Nature. Rotation is very common in nature. Planetary rotation, inner-core rotation, spinning galaxies, dung beetle rolling, Keratinocyte migration, Rotifers, spirals, rotational symmetry, etc. What isn’t common (but not non-existent) is using rotation for locomotion in biology.

Many plants and trees spread rotating ”helicopter seeds”. Many vines roto-grow themselves around vertical supports. Day flowers rotate to follow the sun. Apples and oranges fall on the ground and can roll far and wide. Walnuts too. Partial rotation is still rotation, of course: see animal joints in walk, trot and gallop. And then there’s the belly-up pig drunk on brewery grain rolling down the hill. That mash packs a…

Yes! Which is why the idea that “ Rotation is one of those fundamental things differentiating our technological civilization from Nature” is not all that useful a statement.
Post reply on HN