It's not like Tesla actually has functional FSD technology. If a ten year staged rollout of "transportation as a service" is the way to get there, then Waymo has a substantial leg up. Either way it is a lose-lose for Tesla. They failed to continue innovating on the EV and battery fronts as well.
Tesla is committing automotive suicide
121–130 of 458 posts
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
A teleoperated robot is little more than a human worker with extra steps. (And an expensive, clumsy human worker at that.) I can't imagine many situations where that would make sense instead of having a human do the work in person.
Maybe you can scale to have one operator operate ten or a hundred household robots at a time. An autonomous robot that has 99% reliability, getting stuck once an hour, is useless to me. A semi-autonomous robot that gets stuck once an hour but can be rescued by the remote operator is tempting. Expect security and privacy in the marketing for these things, too, but I don't think that's a real differentiator. Rich and m…
> Expect security and privacy in the marketing for these things, too
Pitching "security and privacy" as features of a device that's remotely operated and monitored is going to be a very hard sell.
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#123Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Parallel steps: Step 1: SpaceX IPO Step 2: Trillion dollar payout Step 3: Nothing matters any more
SpaceX is rockets, now global satellite internet, ... To credibly harness off-world resources at any scale, there are going to need to be automated refueling depots and many kinds of robotic automation for resource extraction. With the Asteroid Belt looking amazing for quantity and accessibility of resources. That would also completely remove the lid on how many $ trillions of market cap SpaceX could accrue. So I fin…
> Simple cooling sinks
What? You're in a huge vacuum thermos
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#125I have no issue understanding why Musk does that, he's gone from “weirdo with lost of enthusiasm and charisma” to “batshit crazy, so full of himself there's basically no negative feedback loop anymore”.
What I don't understand is why are the Tesla shareholders accepting his bullshit?
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#126They had the first mover advantage, but then Musk lost interest in the company and let it just sit there for the last five years or so without making sure that they have a future-proof product pipeline and that those products are actually being delivered on a reasonable schedule. Now they are increasingly turning into an EV also-ran while their moonshots are unlikely to work out any time soon. Realistically, he shoul…
The problem is that EVs are basically a solved problem. There isn't any technological advantage to be gained, since the technology in an EV is very basic (+) compared to ICE vehicles. So then it comes down to manufacturing, and there China is king. (+) Except for the battery, but that's a very long term battle with very tiny steps.
There have been significant advances in power electronics and electric motors in the recent decades. Yes, there's not a lot to gain when you're starting at 85%+ efficiency, but it's far from "basic" technology.
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#127I have a Model Y with AI hardware version 4. It is phenomenal at self-driving, and if your impression of FSD is a year old or older, then you are woefully out of date in understanding where the tech is today. If I could, I would send my own grade school child off to her friend's houses and extracurricular activities in my car unaccompanied. It is safer than buses, taxis, and me. Not since Tesla created the first economically viable EV for the American public have I been as excited about a revolution in automotive technology. Other than the fact that Tesla still needs people out there manually driving to generate training data, I don't think Tesla should be selling cars at all. I fully support this move, and all I have to say is thank God for Waymo, so we can have good competition in the Robotaxi market.
I'm done listening to pundits doubt Elon. I haven't seen Wall Street forecast future economic and technological trends well at all. Elon has created an EV market, caught falling rocket boosters, created the leading AI "nonprofit", and launched a worldwide satellite internet service, mostly in the face of rent seeking financial professionals and hacker news SSEs calling him dumb. I'm not sure what else a man needs to do to prove he deserves a little deference in his strategic decisions.
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#128I have to admit, I love my model S and have been very bullish of TSLA but this news makes me very bearish. There is no way they are going to make robots at scale in the next 5 years and the model s and model X are cool pieces of technology. If they dont start rolling out robotaxi extremely quickly to new locations, I cant imagine the stock going anywhere but down.
That is exactly the plan: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-confirms-robotaxi-expansion-...
I think robotaxi will eventually everywhere but austin is rolling out a lot slower than i expected.
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
BYD uses slave labor. "In the dormitories of the Jinjiang Group, the company hired by BYD to carry out the work, there were no mattresses on the beds, and the few toilets served hundreds of workers in extremely unhygienic conditions. The workers also had food stored without refrigeration. The Brazilian Labor Prosecutor's Office (MTP) also accused the companies of withholding the workers' passports and keeping 60% of…
Tesla's factories have been responsible for deaths, systematic injury issues and wage theft - https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2025/03/30/human-rights-co... Pretending BYD is winning because of Chinese labor practices alone or primarily is denial of their technological and operational prowess.
Don't get me wrong, both are pretty terrible. I'm not going to defend Tesla.
But BYD is on a whole different level with that stuff (e.g. human trafficking, suicides and the factory that collapsed and killed a bunch of people).
There's no way that being able to cut costs to that level doesn't help their bottom line.
Re: Tesla is committing automotive suicide
#130Elon's superpower is commanding insane valuation premiums. The trouble with this is that "the bill eventually comes due", so to speak, which forces Elon's companies to take wilder and wilder bets, or to make wilder and wilder promises. With telsa it was robotaxis, and when that failed to materialize, humanoid robots ( fucking LOL ). SpaceX is an even more insane example. They are eyeing an IPO at a 1.5 trillion valua…
What would you do with a satellite, if I gifted you one for free? Let's forget orbital mechanics for a while to make this answer more fun. It would follow me around and provide a dedicated, private lifeline of communication anywhere I go, real-time aerial surveillance of my surroundings, and eventually lasers to zap anyone who pisses me off.
Yes, and the reality is that any of those would require a fairly large constellation of satellites. I guess the play is that many large constellations of satellites will be launched.