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Robots eat cars

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Re: Robots eat cars

#101

Post by Scholmo »

spwa4 wrote: post #82
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious problem with steer-by-wire is that in the traditional design, it's not uncommon to lose power assist but not the mechanical connection to the wheels, so you can still steer the car. To completely lose steering control you'd need significant mechanical damage. If the whole thing goes through the computer then there are lots of new ways to fail. Steering wheel position sensor goes bad on the highway? Comput…

Of course, a counterpoint is what's been happening in aviation. Autopilot became a thing. Autoland became a thing. And, to keep improving planes (first military planes, then commercial aircraft), it was much easier to drop the mechanical connection to the wings. Autopilot started as a help to pilots, and evolved to something that is a necessity and pilot control inputs are "suggestions" or "goals", not inputs like tu…

Planes are probably the most controled machines we have. Everything gets checked twice or more, everything gets tracked and there is a clear requirement to do it like this because, as you said, its not possible for humans to control a fighterjet or a big plane.

Cars are non of that and we have billions of them on the street.

Cars also became a lot more expensive due to their complexity which def creates problems for a lot of people who can't afford all of that. I'm really torn by this because I think its very good that my side mirror shows me if there is a car next to me but in our capitalistic economy, we are excluding a lot of people from affordable cars. Drive by wire needs to be cheaper and easier to fix/repair.

Btw. Waymos are slowly learning to drive on highways so I might agree that they drive saver than humans in certain controlled envs. For sure not in any environment.

Re: Robots eat cars

#102

Post by Scholmo »

rconti wrote: post #17
cyberax wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, Technique X does not actually provide any significant value. The whole steer-by-wire in CT happened because Musk wanted a yoke as the control system. And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire.

steer-by-wire makes safety nannies way easier, eg, the ones that jerk the wheel out of your hands when they decide you're too close to a line on the road.

I don't think thats true.

Its power steering already and cars use that to turn a wheel when you are not driving.

So why would that make it safer?

Re: Robots eat cars

#103

Post by Scholmo »

youngtaff wrote: post #97
taffydavid wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well from this article I got the feeling the intended customer is industrial, not domestic. There's a lot of talk about how much a robot can lift versus hydraulic systems. But I do also get the feeling that maybe Musk is just off his rocker and everyone else is copying what he does just in case he actually a genius

What evidence is there than industrial customers want general purpose humanoid robots over specialist ones?

There are plenty of positions were you have normal humans doing only a handful of tasks.

Checkout youtube on some chinese factories building like rice cooker and co. They have like 10-50 stops were one person only does like 1-5 things. Putting tape on, screwing something together etc.

I can see it as the last niche were the real big specialised and for purpose build robots are just not economicly

Re: Robots eat cars

#104

Post by Scholmo »

dyauspitr wrote: post #69
yalogin wrote: post #68

Building robots at that scale without any indication that the market wants it is weird. I wouldn’t want to say atupid because with musk there is no rational thought. However this is not cars where the concept exists and we know people spend 100k towards a car. We don’t know if people will even spend on a robot that doesn’t do shit. Figure is looking at 100-150k robot if built at scale, so u less they revised this est…

They’re meant to clean your house, do your dishes, do your laundry, some gardening probably mowing your lawn and weeding. The possibilities are endless. It would 100% be worth at least $50,000 if it could do those things even 85% of the time.

The industry has a lot more money and easier use cases.

A robot like Optimus will not be a household robot for years to come. Why? If it falls, it will crash into some kind of glas from doors to windows etc. If it falls it might crash a human or animal underneath it. It might trip on a toy or stairs and crash into a wall.

I would love to have one robot but 50k? Who buys something for 50k? A normal person has to save up for a car and they need a car, for a household robot you need a lot of income to justify 50k. You will buy a car, flat, kitchen, etc. before you will buy a 50k robot.

10k perhaps is more realistic but than it has to be good. Like if you are alone, I don't think you will recognize normal housework as such a bad thing that you will buy a robot for a small flat.

For families, the robot has to be very good and really save.

If you have a partner not working, you might not be able to afford a robot and that perosn has time anyway to do all of that.

I can imagine having a robot for elder people and some remote service using these robots to do stuff for them but 50k is costly.

I'm not bullish on household robots for the next 10 years at all. Now you have another problem though, if they become really good in an industry setting, guess who will lose their jobs? yeah exactly the people whou should be able to buy these.

Re: Robots eat cars

#106

Post by Scholmo »

delichon wrote: post #18
otikik wrote: post #4

Cars that nobody buys replaced by robots that nobody buys

The best selling car in the world in 2025 was the Tesla Model Y, with a little over 1 million sold. ~350k total vehicles have been sold in 2026 as of April. https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/ , https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-...

Man come one not only is this the wrong analysis because Tesla only has one single model, they literaly build 50k cars which are not sold

50.000

My guess, they made them for pushing the Space X IPO. The same why he did this weird Keynote last week with this megafantasic dyson sphere and whatnot vision.

And I find it very weird tbh that it still even sells. Whenever you see a Tesla, its always the same car.

Re: Robots eat cars

#107

Post by cyberax »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #71
cyberax wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moreover, Technique X does not actually provide any significant value. The whole steer-by-wire in CT happened because Musk wanted a yoke as the control system. And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire.

> And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire. But also look at Citroën's DIRAVI system, used on the CX, SM, and some XMs. There's no direct mechanical link between the steering wheel and the rack when the system is pressurised. When you turn the wheel a kind of dogbone link thing pushes a spool valve one way or the other allowing hydraulic fluid to push the rack along, which p…

That is truly steampunk! Overengineered and crazy but cool!

Re: Robots eat cars

#108

Post by goosejuice »

dangus wrote: post #99
goosejuice wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From what I can see doing some quick searches the EV9 sold 22,017 in 2024 just in the US, while Tesla's global deliveries of "other models" (S, X, and Cybertruck combined, which includes over 10,000 Cybertrucks) totaled 85,133. This, critically for this comparison, includes China. Cars in the US. As in the Taycan, A6 e-tron, and Air. Maybe the Air had more sales in '25. > The type of buyer who is actually looking f…

You think Tesla is discontinuing the cars because they no longer serve a purpose to Tesla? Isn’t the purpose of the company to make money by selling products? Can you think of any other successful cars that are being discontinued for a similar reason and aren’t being replaced with a new model? Doesn’t pass the smell test. You said people buy because of trends…well, the trend is away from Tesla and toward other brands…

It's more plausible than what you're implying. Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla all have the same playbook. Sell luxury cars to fund a path towards an affordable platform.

Not all products need to continue to be made to be viewed as successful. S and X were low volume, high tech cars that paved the way to 3 and Y. The latter two have now consistently dominated US EV sales. By all accounts they were successful halo vehicles.

Re: Robots eat cars

#109

Post by spwa4 »

Scholmo wrote: post #101
spwa4 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, a counterpoint is what's been happening in aviation. Autopilot became a thing. Autoland became a thing. And, to keep improving planes (first military planes, then commercial aircraft), it was much easier to drop the mechanical connection to the wings. Autopilot started as a help to pilots, and evolved to something that is a necessity and pilot control inputs are "suggestions" or "goals", not inputs like tu…

Planes are probably the most controled machines we have. Everything gets checked twice or more, everything gets tracked and there is a clear requirement to do it like this because, as you said, its not possible for humans to control a fighterjet or a big plane. Cars are non of that and we have billions of them on the street. Cars also became a lot more expensive due to their complexity which def creates problems for…

But that is the "tradeoff" people are going for. What irritates me about Waymos is that they are not really cheaper than taxis and Uber. If we want people to become more mobile ... Waymo does not appear to be the answer.

And that was always the trade that was proposed. Sure, Waymo's (and Uber) will displace a LOT of taxi jobs, but they'll be way cheaper than taxis. Well ... they're not. And at that point, from an economic perspective, this is just taking things away for not much in return.

Once again people get a lot of possible choices and once again they choose for the more expensive one, putting more people out of business, out of a job, and as you say out of society. Now they're saying "yeah but this is good for autistic people and women, who can now travel by taxi without ever seeing anyone". How, exactly, does anyone think that's a good thing for society? Seriously?

Plus I'm a bit of the opinion, if Waymo is already breaking their own proposed social contract now ... imagine what they'll do in 10 years.

Re: Robots eat cars

#110

Post by dyauspitr »

Scholmo wrote: post #104
dyauspitr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re meant to clean your house, do your dishes, do your laundry, some gardening probably mowing your lawn and weeding. The possibilities are endless. It would 100% be worth at least $50,000 if it could do those things even 85% of the time.

The industry has a lot more money and easier use cases. A robot like Optimus will not be a household robot for years to come. Why? If it falls, it will crash into some kind of glas from doors to windows etc. If it falls it might crash a human or animal underneath it. It might trip on a toy or stairs and crash into a wall. I would love to have one robot but 50k? Who buys something for 50k? A normal person has to save…

>A robot like Optimus will not be a household robot for years to come. Why? If it falls, it will crash into some kind of glas from doors to windows etc. If it falls it might crash a human or animal underneath it. It might trip on a toy or stairs and crash into a wall.

Strong disagree here we have plenty of machinery that we use that could be very dangerous if it fails, but they just slap a disclaimer on it and that’s usually enough the same is going to be done here.

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