Make your robotaxi predictions for the 8/8 reveal

So Elon says that Tesla will reveal a dedicated robotaxi vehicle on 8/8. What do you think we will see? Will it look like this concept art or something else?

I will say that while this concept drawing looks super cool, I am a bit skeptical if it is practical as a robotaxi. It looks to only have 2 seats which would be fine for 1-2 people who need a ride but would not work for more than 2 people. I feel like that would limit the robotaxis value for a lot of people. Also, it would likely need a steering wheel and pedals for regulatory reasons even if Tesla did achieve eyes-off capability.

So I think this is concept art for a hypothetical 2 seater, cheap Tesla, not a robotaxi.

Could the robotaxi look more like this concept art but smaller? It could look a bit more like say the Zoox vehicle or the Cruise Origin, more futuristic box like shape IMO and seat 5-6 people.

Or maybe the robotaxi will look more like the "model 2" concept:

Other questions:
- Will the robotaxis be available to own by individuals as a personal car or will it strictly be owned by Tesla and only used in a ride-hailing network?
- What will cost be?
- Will it have upgraded hardware? Radar? Lidar? additional compute?
- Will Elon reveal any details on how the ride-hailing network will work?

Thoughts? Let the fun speculation begin!

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

but the proof-of-concept certainly exists.

Not really. So far we have only demonstrated that computers still can't drive well enough to be let loose in unfamiliar territory or even in familiar territory with unpredictable humans in the matrix.

 

[spacecoin]

It's hard to predict the future but it's easy to look back on history.

I just want to know when in the history of humanity has any problem been solved by minimizing the givens?

I also want to know when in the history of humanity has a robotics problem been solved by minimizing the givens?

Isn't a central tenet to solving any problem, be it a high school math problem, an SAT problem, a robotics problem, an engineering problem, whatever: know your givens, and maximize the number of givens?

In the same vein, I think a "Cybercab" or "Robotaxi" and attempts to solve the Robotaxi issue by minimizing the givens and maximizing the number of unknowns is interesting.

Also, I think it's interesting, at least to me, that many of the great problems of humanity were solved nearly simultaneously by independent people and/or entities. The development of Calculus, for example: two different people, working independently, came up with it at roughly the same time. In this same vein, I see the robotaxi problem being solved simultaneously by various independent entities. Well, I suppose we could say that the robotaxi problem has already been "solved," as in, there exist proofs-of-concept from various companies already. No one has a massively deployed robotaxi network yet, but the proof-of-concept certainly exists.

To me, the term "robotaxi" implies that it is not personally owned, and won't take you anywhere. To me it's quite clear that one company has a path to profitability in the "taxi" category. Others are still working on the on getting there, and imho, it will take quite a while until they get there - especially for those who operate with one hand tied behind their back.

The "robocar" (wide ODD "general" autonomy), I don't think will happen in the ten coming years. One without steering wheel, I don't think will happen in 20 years, as that requires a whole new level of reliability and capability.

 

[DarkandStormy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1387572858768007179

It will "blow your mind" like V9.

 

[RDoc]

Not really. So far we have only demonstrated that computers still can't drive well enough to be let loose in unfamiliar territory or even in familiar territory with unpredictable humans in the matrix.

Waymo seems to be doing pretty well in San Francisco. I see lots of them around.

 

[enemji]

Waymo seems to be doing pretty well in San Francisco. I see lots of them around.

People see the ROBOCOP kind of car, and get out of it's way?

 

[RDoc]

People see the ROBOCOP kind of car, and get out of it's way?

No one gets out of the way in San Francisco. I've been sitting outside at the intersection of Columbus, Kearny, and Pacific at night and was amazed at how well the Waymo cabs did. If you're not familiar with it, that's a genuinely crazy intersection, lots of cars, pedestrians, and drunks.

 

[enemji]

No one gets out of the way in San Francisco. I've been sitting outside at the intersection of Columbus, Kearny, and Pacific at night and was amazed at how well the Waymo cabs did. If you're not familiar with it, that's a genuinely crazy intersection, lots of cars, pedestrians, and drunks.

Someone in san fran should post a video of fsds handling that intersection

 

[contaygious]

Waymo seems to be doing pretty well in San Francisco. I see lots of them around.

So we'll they don't even know how to stay on the right side of the road lol see pic snapped below

 

[nativewolf]

It's really hard to predict the future. Tony Seba studies market disruption for a living and, in general, once a new set of integrative technologies matures enough to disrupt an existing market - the transition generally occurs within 10-20 years. If we look back at the iPhone introduction in 2007 - that's only 16 years ago - and smartphones have certainly disrupted or outright displaced many markets since their introduction. The majority of people use their smartphones for photos, music, and videos just to name a few. While digital cameras and video cameras and music storage devices (iPods/CDs/records/tapes) still exist of course, only hobbyists or professionals tend to still buy dedicated devices for the most part. The vast majority of people use the integrated functions on their smartphone for these functions now.

What Musk/Tesla really seems to be focused on - is what Tony Seba talks about with regard to TaaS (Transportation as a Service), which only becomes possible on a mass scale when true autonomous driving is introduced at scale. This is why Musk is pushing so hard on FSD. Think of Uber/Lyft on steroids with driverless fleets operating 24/7 and offering up transportation on demand whenever you need it - without all of the added costs of electric/gas fuel, insurance, vehicle purchase, maintenance, etc. Given vehicles are the second most costly budget item for most families, if TaaS offers up the ability to save 75-80% back into their monthly budgets - people will start choosing those options. If I'm spending $1000-2000/month on two vehicles all-in, and I could use TaaS for $250-500/month for the vast majority of daily transportation needs - I'd at least consider it. If this type of model actually becomes reality, where I don't agree with others that are touting that human drivers will no longer be on the road, I think pleasure driving will become the norm. People may continue to own weekend cars purely for fun - much like many folks own classic cars today. I don't think this element will go away, if at all, for a really long time.

If TaaS were to take hold, then a driverless vehicle operating 16-20 hours a day can displace a lot of personally owned vehicles that only operate 1-3 hours a day on average. This results in less traffic, a much smaller need for vehicle parking space, and a laundry list of other significant changes when you play it all out. Is this just a dream? Again, only time will tell, but this is clearly what Musk is focused on with Tesla. He literally said on the investors call, if you don't believe in FSD/autonomous driving via AI, don't invest in Tesla stock. It's a sea change without a doubt. I have my doubts and suspicions on the timeline for all of this. Likely this will become an eventual reality. IME the younger generations already don't care near as much about driving themselves around, don't equate driving with individual freedom of choice, etc, like the older generations tend to do. This is therefore likely to be tied up in generational shifts/changes with different beliefs/priorities as much as technical innovation/disruption in other words. Just my two cents of course.

It is clear that EM has been focused on RT and self driving since he first heard the term. Will TaaS actually enhance sustainability? I've seen nothing to really indicate that it will. Just lots of hand waving. The forum went back and forth on this a week ago so lets not repeat that exercise just let it be said that I'm a strong sceptic. If you throw in the resources on the datacenters ...very skeptical.

 

[aronth5]

Waymo seems to be doing pretty well in San Francisco. I see lots of them around.

Hopefully Waymo can generate a profit in the future since they are still losing money.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Someone in san fran should post a video of fsds handling that intersection

Given wholemars makes lots of trips in SF, it's likely in one of his videos, although people may say he only posts good trips.

 

[spacecoin]

Tesla fans: ”Waymo is not making any money”.

Also Tesla fans: “Robotaxi is a trillion dollar opportunity”.

—

Tesla fans: “Look after 10000 rides the Waymo made a mistake. It’s clearly not ready.”

Also Tesla fans: “I had a zero intervention drive!!! Omg. Tesla is ahead, lidar and maps aren’t clearly not needed. V12 is a step-change. Next version will blow your mind”

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

No doubt Waymo has to spend so much on the ongoing R&D that no profits are possible. What I would like to know is how profitable the big city operations are as they go about their work.

It must be a complicated sum as some of the supervision time is coupled to learning as they go and some of it is just what they would have to do anyway.

In other words, what would they be making if they just said 'the heck with it that's as good as it's going to get'.

I think that would have to be a decent positive number for more than one location to be rolled out. No point in losing more than you have to while you figure it all out.

Or maybe that's what they want their investors to believe? I think it would all have to be in black and white for it to have progressed this far.

 

[spacecoin]

It must be a complicated sum as some of the supervision time is coupled to learning as they go and some of it is just what they would have to do anyway.

Waymo doesn't sit and supervise the videofeed of their cars. No one controls them remotely. They are autonomous.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Waymo doesn't sit and supervise the videofeed of their cars. No one controls them remotely. They are autonomous.

Supervision at the end of an alert is still supervision.

 

[LarryClay]

My prediction is that around that date NHTSA will force Tesla with another recall.
This one non-voluntary and prescribed what NHTSA wants and not what Elon smoked.

 

[spacecoin]

Supervision at the end of an alert is still supervision.

Sure, but if you get an alert once every 10k miles how's that a scalability/cost problem like you argued?

All robotaxi fleets will need high level monitoring and in-car customer support capability.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Sure, but if you get an alert once every 10k miles how's that a scalability/cost problem like you argued?.

Simples. Alerts only take grunt labour to deal with in the moment. That's overhead on roborides.

Figuring out how to improve the system, and upgrades to hardware, are major non revenue activities that are subsidized by roboride fares and ongoing capital infusions.

I just thought it should be pointed out that it's nothing like as simple as "Waymo still makes a loss".

 

[MarkDave]

Sure, but if you get an alert once every 10k miles how's that a scalability/cost problem like you argued?

All robotaxi fleets will need high level monitoring and in-car customer support capability.

I fail to understand why people are so obsessed with scale right now.

The focus right now should be safety, especially since the tech isn't even proven yet.

It's like talking about scaling smartphones in 2003. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

The one aspect that everyone obsessed with scale misses is that transportation has to get safer, year over year.

There's no magical threshold that Robotaxis need to cross before considered "safe" for general public use.

Robotaxis MUST get safer and safer every year. The threshold is a moving target. Every transportation modality must get safer and safer over time as ridership increases (other than driving) to be accepted by the general public.

Flights must and have gotten significantly safer over time, for example, as ridership boomed from maybe a few thousand people a year to billions of people a year. One out of 100 planes falling out the sky is a big deal with a ridership of 2000 people. It's a code red emergency with a ridership of a billion people a year.

You don't scale to a billion passengers a year by keeping the safety level constant. Keeping safety constant = more and more passengers killed as ridership increases.

You scale by significantly making strides in safety on a consistent basis.

I think right now for Robotaxis, there needs to be a rock solid foundation, on which we can iterate in terms of safety. Without a good foundation, then you're just wasting everyone's time with a science experiment.

 

[aataskin]

Tesla Partners With Baidu, Closer To Offering Self-Driving In China

Tesla will partner with Chinese search giant Baidu on mapping and navigation in the world's largest market for EVs.

www.forbes.com

So I guess it's going to be mapping in the end? Throwing in the towel on this whole Vision only nonsense?

I doubt Tesla will use different technologies in different markets.