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Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#81

Post by cowthulhu »

blindriver wrote: post #41
cowthulhu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla has proven to be very good at lying, moving goalposts, and insisting that this time [x] is right around the corner. I don't know what would be different this time. They might launch it with, like, 5 cars total, or have it be 100% teleoperated, or limit it to side roads. They might require the passenger to sit in the drivers seat and take liability, or push it back a few more months, or only run it at 3AM when t…

Tesla has lost a lot of their lustre this year. Sales plummeting is incontrovertible. Just based on that alone is devastating. But this robotaxi lack of success will not be treated the same anymore.

Totally possible this time is different... but I'm more making the point that if I'd bet against Tesla each time it looked like they would tank, I'd be very broke.

At least historically, Tesla stock has shown a consistent ability to defy reality.

No pressure, but if you feel comfortable with it... would you share the specific contracts you bought? I'll be interested to see how it works out.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#82

Post by JumpCrisscross »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are taxis like the anti-public transportation? Taxis are a useful way to get around, including to and from public transit. That's all that should matter. Whether they fit into a particular urban vision is secondary to the fact that they're desirable to the people living there.

True, Omaha is not very "urban" (in the Manhattan sense). I don't understand the singular focus on them. (Again, maybe because I don't live in Manhattan).

> Omaha is not very "urban" (in the Manhattan sense)

I split time between Manhattan and Wyoming. I still take taxis from time to time in the latter, e.g. to and from the airport or to and from a bar on the weekend with friends.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#83

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

turnsout wrote: post #57
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how you could look at Elon's actions and think he has any interest in making as much money as he can. Oh totally. That's why when Tesla shareholders sued Tesla over Elon's massive compensation package, Elon said, "I reject the compensation package entirely. Pay me nothing! Actually, I'll pay you to let me work here!"

That whole storyline is about him forcing the board to prove their loyalty—it has nothing to do with the money. He wants fealty.

Mmhmm. And I suppose ending his feud with Trump had nothing to do with the $50+ drop in TSLA stock price. Probably some kind of principled, non-financial action, certainly.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#84

Post by darth_avocado »

horsawlarway wrote: post #10
iw7tdb2kqo9 wrote: post #6

Tesla had more chance to succeed than Waymo. It's impossible for Waymo to match Tesla in real world training and testing data. Somehow Waymo is winning.

Waymo chose an approach that seems geared towards actually doing the task. Tesla tried for the moonshot - They wanted a consumer car with cheap sensor hardware to perform the job. Trusting that computing "smarts" could solve the rest of the problem. I'm in Atlanta where Waymos have started popping up left and right - the sensor bank on these things is HUGE. You can spot 'em from way far off... Giant sensors on top. B…

> consumer car with cheap sensor hardware to perform the job

Except, they took even that out because a certain someone leading the company thought they don’t need the sensors. It’s like someone trying to figure out how to make a bicycle balance itself and they decide to take the wheels off.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#85

Post by steveBK123 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #73
steveBK123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nature finds a way

Sure, for public infrastructure where the provider is legally limited in the ways it can limit access. If the claim is there literally aren't nice spaces in New York City, or any American city, you haven't been there.

I've lived in NYC 20 years. Unstaffed stuff left unattended just doesn't work.

Zipcars & Cars2Go turned into wrecks precisely because there were no prying eyes at pickup or drop-off. I stopped using them after the 5th consecutive trashed car. Reporting it to support would garner a $10 refunds. Clearly the repercussions for bad customers were not strong.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#86

Post by Veserv »

antisthenes wrote: post #52
moralestapia wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, tell that to Theranos' executives. Oh yeah, you can't, they're in jail.

Theranos never went public, so the quote about markets doesn't apply. I do agree with the general sentiment, however. If FSD kills a person, many executives, including the top dog, need to go to jail.

FSD, in particular, already did definitively kill a person between 2022-08 and 2023-08 [1]. Still going strong.

Note that this is distinct from the tens of publicly documented fatalities on Tesla Autopilot.

[1] https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INCR-EA22002-14496.pdf

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#87

Post by bryanlarsen »

monetus wrote: post #17
RajT88 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So - the cooked-ness of Tesla may depend on what you think Musk's goal was with Tesla. If you believe he was out to change the world - maybe he'll let Tesla die. It's unlikely they are going to accomplish much else at this point, better, smarter more experienced competitors are sweeping the board. If you believe he's out to make as much money as he can, he'll probably course correct at some point. Lidar it is clear w…

Elon has positioned adopting lidar as a personal defeat - I am curious if his ego would allow that course correction.

Amongst his many faults, I don't think is one of them. One of his sayings is "if you don't have to revert 10% of your decisions, you're not being aggressive enough".

And you see him undoing decisions quite regularly. For example they tried removing all of the stalks on the steering wheel, but ended up putting one of them back.

What will prevent that course correction is the liability. They sold millions of car that were "FSD ready". If they need to add additional hardware to actually make them FSD ready they'll either have to retrofit it to millions of cars or pay out a giant civil lawsuit.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#88

Post by misiti3780 »

jjcm wrote: post #11

I own two Teslas, and drive between Portland and Seattle about once every 10 days, using FSD nearly the entire way. FSD has gotten amazingly better over the last year, it can and has taken me from driveway to driveway between two cities... when the weather is nice. As soon as there is any weather however, things start to fall apart. It's very clear to me that vision alone wont be the solution to FSD, and is the main…

I have the same experience as you. I live in a state with no snow though.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#89

Post by xnx »

tuckerman wrote: post #47
leesec wrote: post #8

I personally think it'll be fine. FSD is perfect for all my driving. It's been 3000-4000 miles since my last takeover. I know an uber driver who's driven his 16k miles without a safety intervention. And this is without them superfinetuning and doing custom navigation/mapping on a specific town.

I'm a huge proponent of e2e learning for robotics (worked at two places doing e2e before Tesla adopted it) and personally believe its the right approach long term. I also have FSD on my Model 3 and love it for L2+. That said, my experience with disengagements is very different than yours.. I have a few a week for things like road works, school zones, route map following. Perfectly fine for L2+, L4 it would be unaccep…

e2e is good, but why limit yourself to only cameras? e2e with cameras, radar, and lidar is going to perform better.

Re: Tesla Robotaxi launch is a dangerous game of smoke and mirrors

#90

Post by darth_avocado »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #9
iw7tdb2kqo9 wrote: post #6

Tesla had more chance to succeed than Waymo. It's impossible for Waymo to match Tesla in real world training and testing data. Somehow Waymo is winning.

Waymo has ~40 million miles of test data. Tesla has ~4B miles. But for training both quantity and quality are important. Tesla only uploads excerpts and metadata for its 4B miles, and it's video only. Waymo can fully analyze all 40M miles, and it's much richer, with LIDAR and other sensors. My feeling is that Waymo has the data advantage.

I’ll trust Waymo’s 40 million over Tesla’s 4B any day. You can make something work most of the times with our vision. But when there is no one to man the car, most of the times isn’t good enough
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