electrek.co/2024/04/16/elon-musk-tesla-all-in-self-driving-robotaxi/
Elon Musk is putting Tesla all-in on Robotaxi | Electrek
NewsAm I miss-remembering this? - The whole original point of the Tesla company was to solve the climate crisis by making EVs the obvious choice. Musk said he was going to build the stupidly expensive cars to fund the cheap everyday EV that would make this possible.
edit: I found this on Reuters: 'The decision represents an abandonment of a longstanding goal that Tesla(TSLA.O), opens new tab chief Elon Musk has often characterized as its primary mission: affordable electric cars for the masses. His first “master plan”, opens new tab for the company in 2006 called for manufacturing luxury models first, then using the profits to finance a “low cost family car.”'
Then Elon joined the party that calls climate change a hoax.
Man, I remember the time when I thought really high of Elon. Finally, a rich person with a good agenda, someone who wants to tackle climate change and doing good things with his companies, like pushing EVs, creating reusable rockets, and pushing ideas to reduce traffic.
Boy, was I stupid.
The moment he tweeted this I knew he cared more about his opinions / ego than being correct.
Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April
March 19, 2020
You (and I, and many others) were bamboozled by hope. Don't kick yourself too hard. Just proves the old adage once again... "If it's too good to be true"..
I thought really high of Elon
You were right. He was really high. Not sure what exactly his mix is, but everyone says ketamine is a major component.
That was a bait and switch scheme.
You think Musk would do that? surprised pikachu
You mean all of modern capitalism?
Some are worse than others
I’ve given up waiting for a cheap Tesla car. Time for a BYD/MG/GWM.
Am I miss-remembering this?
No.
Our goal when we created Tesla a decade ago was the same as it is today: to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible. If we could have done that with our first product, we would have, but that was simply impossible to achieve for a startup company that had never built a car and that had one technology iteration and no economies of scale. Our first product was going to be expensive no matter what it looked like, so we decided to build a sports car, as that seemed like it had the best chance of being competitive with its gasoline alternatives.
I suspected that this could be misinterpreted as Tesla believing that there was a shortage of sports cars for rich people, so I described the three step “master plan” for getting to compelling and affordable electric vehicles in my first blog piece about our company. This was unfortunately almost entirely ignored.
Business 101 : Don't go out of business.
China expanded self driving. Next up, Europe. Tesla wants to keep up with China. They do not want to keep up with the Bolt which was the best selling EV for GM in history in the USA. That is discontinued.
Who's going to have a low priced getter, in quantity, in USA, in 2025? The year of NACS.
Your argument is quite frankly bizarre. You act like a low-cost car would be trying to compete with the US when the place it is most needed to compete in is China and places outside the US. Here are the best selling Plug-in vehicles in China:
- BYD Song- RMB 109,800 or $15,167
- Tesla Model Y- RMB 258,900 or $35,764
- BYD Qin Plus- RMB 129,800 or $17,930
- BYD Yuan PLus- RMB 119,800 or $16,549
- BYD Dolphin- RMB 99,800 or $13,786
- BYD Seagul- RMB 69,800 or $9642
- Wuling HongGuang Mini EV- RMB 32,800 or $4,531
- GAC Aion Y- RMB 99,800 or $13,786
- BYD Han- RMB 169,800 or $23,456
- GAC Aion S- RMB 146,800 or $20,279
I really don't see how you can look at what is going on in China for even a second and think that the way to compete for Tesla is FSD and not a lower-priced vehicle.
Also, in the US, in 2025, I'd say GM and Hyundai/Kia are set up to have the best cheap EVs. VW could maybe also get in the running, but they don't seem overly interested in putting in much effort. Ford might also get in the running and have said they're going to try to, but they haven't shown a whole lot.
Maybe Tesla looks at what is going on in China and believes they cannot get their prices down to win a race to the bottom. The same way that Tesla can undercut Western EVs, the Chinese automakers are undercutting Tesla through even greater levels of vertical integration. If Tesla can't win on price, they have to offer something the cheaper vehicles can't.
Tesla appears to see self driving as its special sauce to justify a premium price. Is the concept of using a particular hook to sell cars at a premium stupid? Not really, BMW uses performance as their angle to sell cars at a premium rather than wade into low margin, high volume vehicles. Can Tesla's self-driving really get out enough ahead of the competition to pull this off? Time will tell, but it isn't looking great.
Also to go all in on something that has to only make one mistake and kill someone, will basically kill the company, as it will get banned from the roads.
A waymo slightly injured a cyclist and everyone was up in arms about self driving cars. We’ve already seen the mistakes that FSD can make, I don’t think the roads are ready for mass self driving cars yet.
I really don't see how you can look at what is going on in China for even a second and think that the way to compete for Tesla is FSD and not a lower-priced vehicle.
Congress isn't going to let those cars be sold in the US for those prices any time soon. I imagine Elon thinks that FSD will set Tesla apart enough because nothing else sets Tesla apart now that they've opened up the charging.
BYD is building a factory in Mexico to bring those models to the Americas and likely the US. At that point, they won't be subject to the same tariffs as China-built ones. That is beside the point, though. For the foreseeable future, the EV market is much larger in China and Europe. If Tesla wants to be one of the biggest EV manufacturers globally, it needs to compete well in those markets. In those markets, smaller, cheaper cars are more popular than in the US. A more affordable model is much more critical for Tesla to remain competitive globally than specifically in the US.
Oh. I 100% agree with you. I just think there's less threat from the competition than there is from domestic at this point for them.
Terrible resale, terrible reliability, abysmal build quality all set tesla apart.
Not to mention everyone does self driving better and without hitting curbs.
I can't speak to self driving in any car than my own. I think it hugs the right a bit more than I'd like.
And with the dropping prices of neural compute Tesla won't have much of an advantage.
Isn't the Model Y the most sold car in the world? Both the Model Y and 3 cost less than the average new vehicle in the U.S.
The problem with that line of thinking is that the average new vehicle price has been in part driven up by the more expensive transaction prices and increased sales of EVs, including Teslas.
But from a growth perspective, the Models 3 and Y don't meet every need. There will come a time where most people who want or have wanted one of those cars will already have one, and sales will stagnate (but still presumably remain high as cars are replaced, people leave and join the brand, etc).
Affordability aside, Tesla is, IMO, making a mistake in not further diversifying their lineup beyond a midsize sedan / teardrop CUV, a large sedan / teardrop CUV, and... whatever the Cybertruck is.
That would mean admitting that Tesla is just a car company and not a tech company and would severely hurt its valuation.
All they'd have to do is wrap the announcement in some nonsense about how the wide array of form factors and different types of people driving cars will finally give them enough training data to make FSD a real thing.
Remember before they were supposedly a tech company They were going to be an energy company
Tesla should be able to build out a larger lineup without sacrificing in other areas as long as the ev market is still growing which it will be for the next decade until it gets saturated.
I agree, I'd like to see them make 3 or 4 additional models, as well as refresh the S/X.
I'd also like to see them rollout infrastructure to support the cars on the street. The wait time and availability of parts and scarcity of locations is a real problem.
It is but that statistic can be a little misleading as most car companies have a much more diverse line of vehicles. Tesla was ranked 14th in the world in 2023 of car manufacturers by volume.
Model Y was the most sold vehicle last year. Previously it was Rav4, but in Q1 of this year Rav4 has taken back the title both in US and globally.
RAV4? Globally? I think you mean Corolla
Nope, RAV4 sells more than Corolla. Corolla is the 2nd best vehicle in Toyota’s lineup.
Wow, I didn't realize the two models were so close.
In 2023, Toyota sold 1.07 million RAV4s and 1.01 million Corollas, making the Model Y's lead potentially significant.
The whole point of any corporation is to make money for the stockholders. Nothing else matters.
Next you'll tell me the point of SpaceX isn't really so Elon can retire on Mars
It’s not?
It should be pretty much common knowledge at this point that a mission statement is just what the company wants the public to think they do, not what they actually do.
There shouldn't be any surprises when a company does something in opposition to their mission statement (and by the same token, people shouldn't hold up mission statements as some sort of demonstration of virtue).
Yes, you are sort of misremembering.
His personal goal was to make humans a multi planetary species. Tesla was a way to fund that, so it was more about the money, and SpaceX was about the building the mechanism to do that. M
Not exactly. That was the mission with SpaceX.
This is the 2006 original mission: https://www.tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me
End of first paragraph:
"This is because the overarching purpose of Tesla Motors (and the reason I am funding the company) is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy, which I believe to be the primary, but not exclusive, sustainable solution."
Everybody is missing the boat on a compact EV truck.
Ford will do it eventually. Either a Maverick EV or Ranger EV
Completely agree. There was a period where GM was rumored to be considering one to compete with Ford's Maverick since Ford can seem to keep those in stock but more recently I've heard GM's abandoned that plan now that they're slowing their EV push to a degree. I have heard that Ford may be working on a Maverick-ish EV.
My next vehicle will either be an EV or a small truck. If I could get a small EV truck for $30-35k I'd jump on it.
Same. The demand would be off the charts....
Don’t hold your breath on the maverick EV. They are pulling back hard on even the hybrid because the profit margins aren’t as good as the turbo. The EV version would have 0 margin and sell like hot cakes which ain’t what they want.
Ford has revealed they are working on their low cost EV platform. Based on their ICE offerings, this EV platform would hold the EV versions of their C2 ICE platform (Escape/Focus/BroncoSport/Maverick). Of those four, the Maverick is the lowest sales volume and worst aero, it probably makes sense to move it to EV last. Low margin vehicles only make sense at high volume, gotta get those Escapes out to pay the bills.
USA doesn't even start, just start, making EVs with the same charging port until next year in 2025.
China has been building boats to export EVs and is buying old factories form legacy auto.
Geely's Radar RD6 has been on the market for almost 2 years now. Limited sales success though as China's pickup market is fairly small, and many major cities don't even allow pickups to be registered.
Hopefully Geely tries harder at exporting the thing because it should find a good number customers in a number of international markets such as Australia, Thailand, or Latin America.
I know right? It boggles the mind.
And an actual large SUV. We have the Silverado EV and the Lightning but no Tahoe/Suburban or Explorer/Expedition.
The cyber truck was a huge waste IMO. They should have made a model Y based pickup.
They could have just taken the platform of the Y or X and made a truck out of it. Hell, even a truck with the same front end would have sold well.
You sound like me. It’s all the distractions and public statements which may just be a manifestation of an increasingly frenetic mind. Elon needs better people around him; he’s become his own worst enemy and it’s hurting the amazing work he’s done with Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. Twitter/X is when I bailed as a shareholder, but I still love driving my MYLR.
I just don't understand his priorities. All he has to do is shut the fuck up and do what he loves - which at one point was building more cars and more rockets.
I was very tempted to bail after the Cybertruck announcement, but finally did after the Twitter acquisition started.
I think he lost interest in building cars and running an actual car company. That's why the pivots to AI, Robotaxis, Cybertruck, Mars, Twitter, Robots, energy, solar etc.
It's amazing watching the house burn and whether Tesla can put the fire out and recover. I don't have any stake in Tesla but I have dabble in and out of the stock over the years but it's entertaining.
AiX, RobotaXi, TwitX, RobotiX, EnergX, SoluX
I'm open to consulting work branding his new companies with his moronic letter. Call me Elon.
Tesla was brilliant back at the launch of the 3 and Y. It’s weird to see what’s happened.
Yeah. I pretty much loved everything up until the announcement of the cyber truck. Only downhill from there.
Jumping from the development of an early majority market for EVs, where most of the money is made in adoption, to switch and try to single handedly develop the tech and the market for robotaxis for early stage innovators is mind blowing (and not in a good way). This is why you need a strong board of directors and active shareholders. The guy is trying to make a second S-curve by himself, before the first one pays off. Huh?
SEVERAL YEARS
Uh, have we got some news for you lol
He lost the plot years ago when he spent a fortune buying Twitter instead of throwing it into Tesla to realize the entry level car, and further down the deep end with pushing forward with that stainless steel abomination for his ego.
If anything, I suspect Ford or Rivian would realize a compact EV truck first, WAY before it becomes a glint in a Musk controlled Tesla's design studio.
He lost the plot when he moved to Texas and was spending lots of time around conservative politicians trying to court them for SX and Tesla subsidies.
All of those products would have hinged on Tesla achieving high production scale, high energy density, and low cost on their own battery cell production. Basically everything that they promised back on “Battery Day.”
Right now they can’t add any new models in the US that would both achieve high volume and meet the federal tax credit requirements, without taking batteries destined for other models like the Model Y or Cybertruck. Maybe they will pivot if Cybertruck sales fall off once they work through the initial backlog.
Minivan, please!!!!
Tesla stock
I've always been certain that while the stock may come back down to reality, Tesla the company will be fine.
In 22 alone Tesla paid Elon about as much as the company has made in total in its history. Now he is asking for the other even more massive payout that a judge nullified be reinstated.
He is moving AI out of Tesla to a new separate company.
He is abandoning the 'affordable' model.
And his drug use and insanity seems to grow day be day.
Not as confident that a decade from now Tesla will still a viable independent company.
I also sold my Tesla stock a month or two back and I'm so glad I did. I love my model Y, but I don't like a single thing I've seen from the company in recent memory, other than them lowering the subscription price of FSD.
Yeah, it is weird that the company isn't trying to compete in all segments.
Then again, right now it would require domestic cell production to compete, and they haven't been able to scale that sufficiently to cover their current lineup. Without that, maybe it makes sense to push back vehicle introduction a bit.
That low pirced car idea was taken out back and shot weeks ago by Elon. So it ain't happening. And then you have to consider how much he has lost on the useless truck that he was not allowed to sell in most of the world with it. The current aid package that Tesla needs is up for a vote. Some of the bigger investors have said they will vote no for it already. So time will tell if he will get it or not. The last time they did this, 73% approved it.
Norway, one of the biggest investors already said they would say no. Mostly because Elons statement about him being uncomfortable with making Tesla the leader within AI with only 13% stake at the company, he wants 25%.
Weeks ago. Tesla has a new long range plan now. Then they will have another long range plan in a few weeks.
that low pirced car idea was taken out back and shot weeks ago by Elon
well it’s literally an identical platform to what is being unveiled later this year so i’d say this is pretty generous. they’re literally just going to attempt to ship one with and one without a steering wheel
It really wasn’t that hard for Tesla to continue to be profitable, or at least to have a good plan in the face of competition.
At this point, replacing Musk seems like the best option.
If I'm being charitable to Musk, I think what happened is that they realized that they cannot do a 25k car at the moment. Their other programs supporting it are not moving fast enough. So they've paused it to go all in on robotaxi - which is supposed to have the same base as the Model 2. Robotaxis can be sold for higher margin.
User deleted comment
1mo
The mere mention of a Robotaxi gives those politicians who might be on the fence about investing in mass transit an excuse to pause the processes needed to construct badly needed infrastructure because "Tesla will make it all obsolete in a few years". It's little more than a long con. Tesla never needs to deliver a useable Level 5 Robotaxi for the program to be successful, it just has to keep mass transit from being built because offering long-term transit alternatives to automobile dependence will hurt profits in the long run. It's a strategy that almost succeeded with Hyperloop, so he may as well try again.
It makes Zucks's Metaverse play look smart
Agree, they haven't even registered in any States DMV for self-driving certification. Also the bigger question to ask why are they developing an entire new vehicle? When they could have just repurposed Model Y by removing steering wheel and other controls. Tesla already has sufficient scale and capacity for Model Y, why create an entire new production line for this?
What ever happened to “with FSD your car can earn money in taxi mode while you work from home” are they scrapping that?
So throwing away the strategy that requires fewer inventions, and would be received well - small car - for a major gamble predicated only on we can charge a larger margin seems dumb to me, but I'm no super-genius like Musk.
If you think that a software improvement is achievable to allow FSD, that is much less costly than a significant ramp-up in battery production capacity and drop in battery prices needed to produce cheaper cars in volume.
That was what “Battery Day” was about, and it seems like those plans have not come to fruition on Tesla’s planned timeline.
Now there’s a good chance the software improvements needed for FSD don’t come to fruition either. Elon has thought or at least publicly stated that it would be happening soon since 2016 and every step closer seems to show how far away they still really are.
Yes, the unknown of self driving, and other software like payment and security could be less than ramping up production, but one can be pinned down, while the other is a big unknown.
Eight years and no closer with no end in sight versus supply chains, and physical engineering of known quantities.
I agree, I can just see how failure to execute on battery scale-up could lead to "putting all the chips" on the software breakthrough. Especially for Elon.
That scamp, Ellen!
Moderator removed comment
1mo
Contributions must be civil and constructive. We permit neither personal attacks nor attempts to bait others into uncivil behavior.
Robotaxis are contingent on self driving that can actually drive without human assistance, including level 4 autonomous driving when Tesla hasn’t even really managed level 3.
They don’t even legally have permission for a level 3 vehicle, and they literally just recently settled out of court over someone who died using FSD. The robotaxi is a 10 year pipe dream at minimum.
Sure. I'm not saying he's right to focus on robotaxis. But Musk has always been operating under the belief that they'll figure out FSD sooner rather than later.
The settlement was for regular Autopilot user, not FSD
Robo Taxis can't be sold at all, because the technology isn't there yet. Elon is delusional.
So what rivian is doing?
Fuck it’s worse than that. There’s a line that may go unnoticed: “Musk said that Tesla would be spending “several billions of dollars” on NVIDIA compute power this year to train its self-driving system.”
Sounds like there’s also problems with Dojo and the inhouse compute Tesla was building. Could be a ramping issue but even still very interesting that they’re going for Nvidia compute.
Tesla needs a $25000 small car, a small Maverick-sized pickup, and a minivan. The growth would be astronomical.
Completely agree, and they could get there pretty quickly. Automated driving is a solvable technical problem, getting a billion plus people to give up cars is a much harder problem. EVs are going to get very inexpensive in the next 5 years. Why would I pay a Robotaxi 40 cents per mile when I can own a car for under 40 cents per mile?
Yep the core vision was a great roadmap. I do think Autopilot/FSD is a good differentiator but they are to focused on robotaxi. The montra for FSD should be a relaxing driver assistant first, robotaxi a far target for the future.
And a robot that’s played by human
A smaller car is needed. It's needed not just for Europe and everywhere else. It's needed for the US and North American market. The whole ethos of small cars not being viable in the US can be overturned with a hugely popular and cheaper model.
Or get this crazy idea. Do both.
It's not simply the software, it's the hardware that Elmo is refusing to use and without that there's no self-driving.
Tesla has already lost the momentum it's too late to do anything about it. The legacy manufacturers have caught up and in many case overtook Tesla plus offer much better quality and reliability.
All Tesla has is Tesla simps that keep popping up the stock no matter what, pouring money into Elmo's pocketses.
‘All in‘ assumes that other things will get abandoned like developing new cars and updating existing models meaningfully? I don’t see the upside for this. Best case in a few years they will be able to register for official trials with the likes of Waymo and Cruise, then more years pass with no revenue and they will be one of many providers of driverless tech. Do they think they get around this regulatory process and just offer taxi service without a driver? Puzzled.
He thinks that regulation doesn't apply to him. I took an interview at Neuralink about 6 years ago and they told me that they would have full human use FDA approval for their brain implant within 5 years. When I pointed out that this was an absurd goal and they'd be lucky to get it in 15-20 their response was just "Elon will find a way."
Yea, the bastard thinks he is god.
To be fair, they have implanted their first human now. So their 5 year estimate were pretty spot on.
No, that estimate was for full commercial use approval. Which is a WAY different thing than first human implant. They are still probably at least a decade away from commercial approval, if things go well for them.
It's all about keeping the hype and the stock price up.
It's not sustainable. Investors have moved to NVDA as their darling stock now, TSLA is last year's hot stock.
and Nvidia is going to actually deliver cutting edge usable chips, not rebrand chips that at best are half the power and pretend it's worth double the money.
I am no Tesla fan at all but even I was waiting for the 25k Tesla to maybe replace my wife’s Toyota Hybrid. And now? Should I order a Robotaxi? :-(
Citroen e-C3 is supposed to get a sub 30k€ (including tax) version next year.
Hmm, so technically they will let the auto part of Tesla slowly fade away and focus on a fantasy that is vague. The part that provides 90% of the profits? It sounds like he doesn’t even want to do anything with the auto business. They laid off service employees where service has been declining and needs the most help. There aren’t plans to fully update the existing lineup with new architecture and models.
Tesla needs to come to terms they are a car company.
eVeRyThInG cOmPaNy
It is concerning, as someone who is about to pull the trigger on model y, I really don’t like the notion of buying from a brand that most certainly stop selling cars and instead focus on robotaxi instead.
I wanna own my cars.
Tesla's lack on focus and changing plans should be a concern if you want to keep a car for more than a couple years. The company needs to have a long term commitment to the consumer, but it seems they only look forward. And not very far forward.
Model Y highland should’ve been here to be honest.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. The way they’re fixated with “breaking away from the normal” is just weird. Like the turning signals, the more than 5 years refresh. Though I do like their no commission dealership thing.
I have to pause my model y purchase because it just doesn’t feel good supporting a company that will eventually stop selling cars for consumers and opt for robotaxi instead.
I’m probably gonna go ID4 now or Mach E
don’t listen to people on reddit. this will not happen lol.
buy the car, they’re great
Yup, it's a reason Frisker and Lucid fell so fast. Customers want reassurance that the company will support them for years after buying the car. That's why brand loyalty is a big thing and why the OEMs have repeat buyers because they have served the buyers well over decades. Tesla seems to be going in the other direction and shi*ing on the existing customer base.
Tesla is not a Frisker or Lucid but their recent business strategy doesn't inspire confidence for consumers to keep buying their cars.
Why would a 2018 Model 3 owner pay for the upgrade if the recent model is 90% similar to the 2018 model with a slight difference in looks? The current model has lost some features of the 2018 model too.
Now that electric cars are becoming normal, they aren't exciting anymore. Eventually Tesla will be just another car company with thin profit margins.
I don't think Musk is suited for that sort of environment. He'd rather see himself as an innovative tech guru. Hence the focus on emerging tech, rather than the current business sitting in front of him that needs his attention. Honestly, he should just resign as CEO of Tesla and focus on his other businesses.
It's in the best interest of Tesla for him to step aside and let a supply chain/manufacturing/operations expert take over. Someone like Tim Cook who relishes in the boring side of the business.
I get the feeling he wants to be known as a Jobs, Bezos, Zuck, Jensen Huang, or Gates instead of Akio Toyota or Mary Barra and whoever the F guy is lol.
It really does look like he doesn't have interest in day to day running of a company. His strength is grand ideas, innovation and starting new companies. That's where he should be.
Instead of making a mass market EV that would sell by the millions...
A $25k car, a $50k minivan and a $35k small truck.
Seriously, why is Tesla so fixated onto the robotaxi!?
American consumers want to own cars.
The reason he is so fixated by robotaxi is that if he sells a car he makes maybe $5000, but the same vehicle will make $25,000 a year for at least five years as a robotaxi. Plus, he only needs to make a few thousand robotaxis to recover his investment as opposed to having to sell millions of cars to make the same profit. Which one would you choose?
Problem with your statement is that Waymo got him beat and they have to keep themselves check because regulators will axe them if they’re not too careful.
Tesla won’t have the capability anytime soon for robotaxi….
I don’t know how much you have researched this, but waymo is very limited and where it can go, and totally dependent on having constantly updated maps showing obstacles, which makes adding new service areas extremely expensive and nonscalable. On the other hand, Tesla is taking a totally different approach, actually having an AI learning how to drive by watching tens of millions of hours of video from Tesla cars being driven by customers. This learning is tested by people using FSD software in their cars and indicating when they needed to take over from the software. As the model gets better and better, the robotaxi will be able to go anywhere, even places where a Tesla has never been, just like a person.
elites want American consumers to own nothing and subsist on system of paid services for every aspect of life
what is being discussed here is the same platform as the $25k car, likely just without a steering wheel
Remember when he said Reuter was (always) lying because their inside sources told them that Tesla was putting the budget car on the back burner and going all in on robotaxi…then proceeded to do just that?
What I’m wondering is how Tesla actually has a corporate board and they can’t see Musk is their biggest liability
the board is not independent which should really scare investors but doesnt seem to worry anyone
It has scared many investors, which is why the stock price isn't doing great
The board is made up of friends and family so it’s tough for the board to be unbiased
Weird way to make up a board on a publicly traded company
Sadly it’s more the norm. Boards are rarely chosen for competency.
He's the biggest single stockholder so has a lot of votes in picking the board. And there are probably a lot of Muskovites who own a small number of shares individually and follow his lead (or don't vote at all)
Hasn't a court recently found out that Musk basically controls Teslas corporate board?
Agreed. They’re also positioned to become the dominant charging network in the U.S. It’d a real shame to lose something so practical and valuable to EVs broadly while chasing robotaxis and halo vehicles.
It’s because the stock is propped up on hype, so he can’t afford let the hype end. A cheap car doesn’t get hype.
A cheap car would’ve been an incredible hype-generator.
The Bolt is under $10k in some states with the current rebates… have you seen any hype? I haven’t.
Yeah but it’s not a Tesla. I would never even think about a Bolt. But a Tesla….. yep.
It does if it helps Tesla sales grow globally.
If their stock price was based on car sales it would be MUCH lower, even with a successful cheap EV, and Musk doesn’t want that
No he’s not. The stock is hurting and he’s running his gums to try and counter the slide. He’s a flim-flam man and has done this many times before.
Putting aside what's good or bad for Tesla as a company, this is bad for EVs as a whole. We are running out of early adopters and the industry needs more mass market appeal. We need more Bolts/Model 2s not more EQS/Cybertruck type of vehicles.
Yeah, especially since their stated mission is to "accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy"
Exactly. Good news is, it’s just not Tesla anymore. I know quite a few people that are entering EVs through other manufacturers
As a longtime Tesla fan and booster, I completely fucking agree
This feels like getting excited after putting it on red and doing it again thinking past luck is a predictor of future results.
I love my car but pretty sure my stock is going to be worth a lot less in the future.
I think the demand for Tesla vehicles has plateaued due to a variety of reasons. I surmise the model 2 could not be produced and sold for a profit at $25k. The earnings for Q1 2024 won’t be good (and possibly not so good earnings in subsequent quarters as well). So certainly going “all in” on robotaxi may keep large institutional investors interested and “buy” the growth story ???
Yes, all in just like Musk was all in on the $25,000 car.....until he ran off in another direction. Most US companies only focus on quarterly profit. Musk can't concentrate that long.
Making a $25k car is boring. Making a robotaxi is exciting. He should resign as CEO and just focus on the emerging projects that interest him. Leave the hard work of managing a large commodity car company to those better suited to it.
If that happens then investors will bail on Tesla and it will be priced 1/3 of what it currently is and the false dreams will die. It might be going that way anyway if they keep failing to live up to his promises.
There is no possible explanation on how Tesla is valued more than Toyota, VW, BMW or Porsche other than hype and false dreams. They don't sell more than them and their profits aren't 5x more than them.
Meta is actually 10x higher than all the other social media companies because it actually is 10x bigger than them combined and they make 10x more than them. Tesla is not Meta but it's priced like one.
Agreed. Feels like the stock is going to get corrected eventually to where it's in line with other car manufacturers. Unless Musk can somehow turn it into the next Apple by expanding into stuff outside its core mission, which risks distracting from the fundamentals.
Maybe this is all a ploy to keep stock up by maintaining the illusion that it's a magic tech company rather than a boring car company. Robotaxi doesn't have to work, it just has to prop up the illusion, as you say.
That sounds like a death spiral. Bigger players than Tesla haven't been able to crack Level 5 vehicle automation, Apple bowed out, and the Waymo and Cruise robotaxis are causing havoc in SF. Not to say that I don't think self driving cars aren't in our future, I'm just not sure that Tesla is the company that's going to crack is, especially with their mandate to do it solely with cameras and not LIDAR, hell they can't even make the auto wipers on the Model 3 work reliably with just a camera.
Mercedes managed to get level 3 autonomy before Tesla.
VW and Ford are not that far behind either.
Tesla, on the other hand, will never surpass level 1.5/2 autonomy so long as they rely on their stupid vision-only hardware.
Mercedes Level 3 autonomy is not level 3 autonomy to the layman’s eyes. They’re just restricting the parameters to abide by a limited 40 MPH max speed stop and go traffic with a required lead car within a 100m of it.
Tesla FSD still has a long ways to go but as a IMHO as a user of their FSD offering, it’s the best I’ve seen at achieving autonomy at scale.
Tesla FSD still has a long ways to go but as a IMHO as a user of their FSD offering, it’s the best I’ve seen at achieving autonomy at scale.
I was with you at one point, but then they got rid of USS and decided to go all in with vision-only hardware. Unless they make a 180 ASAP, FSD is doomed to fail imo.
From my experience so far, my Tesla Model 3's FSD is far more reliable thanks to the USS it still has than all the vision-only cars I've test driven. In fact, my getting a Tesla with USS was a major priority because of how shit my experience was when driving vision-only cars. To add to that, and again, based on my personal experience, even the Chevy Bolt EUV's Supercruise was far more reliable than vision-only Tesla's!
Why Musk made the switch and called it "smart" is beyond me.
I do think it is achievable with cameras but the HW3 cameras are like an Alibaba special and while the HW4 cameras are better they're still mediocre and appear to be actually worse at night. Tesla put expensive hardware in their cars on the premise of selling expensive FSD to drivers at a later date yet I doubt the photographic hardware is actually capable of fully reliable, unassisted snoring-driver FSD, especially in inclement weather. I don't see how an engineer could think a poor 768p-grade dashcam sensor could do. It is also tricky to support camera-based FSD when you're trying to support different cars with three different grades of photographic sensor at the same time.
I'm not sure HW5 will have the kind of high end bespoke sensor needed for fully reliable FSD, either. High resolution, high pixel pitch, very high dynamic range and high frame rates are needed and I'm not expecting to see all that. The technical demands for doing things properly for the sake of edge cases and night driving are insane. Maybe Tesla should've restricted FSD hardware to the X and S and gone all out on the hardware specs until they got the software side of things working.
FSD is ultimately only highly valuable when there's no competition. When there is a competitive market it is worth next to nothing in margins and becomes a cost liability like a reversing cameras.
I don't think level 3 or above will be achievable with just cameras alone. Don't forget that bar is not as safe as a human driver. Bar for self driving cars is way higher, they have to be near perfect.
One pedestrian accident and you can be rest assured that the approval will be gone quickly even if it was a case where pedestrian jumped in front of the car.
I think if you're going to go with vision only, they should be using cameras that operate wider than the visual spectrum we're using now. Really open up that IR part of the spectrum to allow cars to see heat as well as light. FLIR feels like it would be hella useful at night.
Those huge sensors on Waymo at San Francisco are pretty impressive alongside their self driving. I don’t think Tesla can catch up to Waymo.
Apple didn’t event get off the ground, as building cars is just a capital intensive endeavor.
Self driving taxis were supposed to save Uber. That never happened. FSD will eventually happen, but there's no reason to think Tesla will hold a competitive advantage in it, and there's no telling how long it will take to develop and get approved by govt agencies.
Tesla needs a solid plan for right now. For sure, invest in FSD, but don't lose sight of the needs of the company today.
Gambling his fortune and a valuable company away on a gimmick. They should axe him from tesla while tesla is still a thing.
They can't get past level 2 autonomy and regulatory approval is going to take years. What is his plan exactly?
Rely on others to do the work then fire them for cause for not being able to achieve impossible results.
I definitely won't be getting in. Jesus.
Idk man, I feel like Waymo will do that first. They have actual experience with robotaxi versus whatever beta shit Tesla is trynna do.
Yeah, let's not focus on making cheap, reliable EV's for customers to make the EV transition or to simply keep moving when most are simply trying to make ends meet. That seems smart. Poor Cybertruck press for the continued numerous catastrophic failure events and trying to push a self driving level 3/4 function onto limited hardware that cannot support the function is going to do damage in additional the the shit salad he spews out of his mount every 5 minutes on Twitter. Fucking read the room.
You couldn't pay me to get into a self-driving Tesla, and I take autonomous Waymo rides without a second thought.
Probably watched "Blade Runner" for inspiration. By now, it should be obvious that having a single person capable of absolutely controlling a massive corporation that impacts millions of live is a really bad idea. This applies everywhere, not just to Tesla.
Stupid
And if they don’t get regulatory approval… then what happens?
Lol.
Companies done.
I say again.
Lol
Thank you for choosing Johnny Cab!
That sounds like a business decision slightly better than to charge X, previously known as Twitter, users.
He just keeps making progressively worse decisions. When will they drop him?
Where does the idea come from that there is a choice between robotaxi and cheap WV? They are the same vehicle, other than the robotaxi not having manual controls, which with ‘steer by wire’ is an easy production option to install them or not, not a different vehicle.
IDK why self-driving is so important to Tesla. I've used FSD, recently, and even if it was perfect, I'm still going to prefer to drive instead of using FSD simply because I'm more confident when I'm at the wheel instead of some other entity. Unless it drives exactly like how I want to drive, and it's not a mind reader, I'm going to take control. Unless it can drive me long distances while I recline in the chair and have a nap, it's not worth it. And in that latter case, I'd rather be on a train.
Because they need hype about something to justify the over inflated stock price.
Yes, please go bankrupt
Vaporware made him the titan of industry he's become. Why change his M.O. now?
If you read Musk's biography, you would not be so surprised by this. He looks at the big/future picture where we won't buy a car at all, just call up a robotaxi to get where we want and the car continues on with a max service schedule that's all Ai managed with respect to where and when the car will go next. These cars in that Ai managed scenario would run at efficiently at a very high capacity. In his mind (and I'm not disagreeing necessarily) the economics of this scenario "should" be far cheaper than owning/maintaining/insuring our own vehicles. It does make sense. As far as cameras only nav, not sure how the car will work in a snow storm, or even 5 minutes after seeing a salty road :-) His engineering staff have resisted the camera only scenario from the get-go. Perhaps he's focussed more on where the majority of the population resides where perhaps snow/sand/salt is not more of an issue.
Also, companies like BYD are already making cheap EVs that are quite good. We just won't be able to buy them anytime soon in NA due to the fact that they are inexpensive, and apparently quite capable. The NA automotive industry would likely get buried in a hurry.
I don't have doubts about the technical ability of self-driving once they get it working. What I am questioning is who is this for and whether it will be widely accepted? We have millions of companies with vested interests in keeping the status quo of personal transportation. Car markers, car insurance, auto financing, used car market, petroleum, services, dealerships, suppliers, material companies, mining, etc. They are all intertwine together and won't just lie down and let Tesla take all their business and profits away. These are very powerful groups with deep pockets.
I think self driving will become a better version of Uber. There is a market for the services, but I just don't see it taking over every aspect of personal transportation like Musk thinks.
The irony that Elons entire self driving / robotaxi vision is already done better by existing tech: a little thing called TRAINS
I think people forgot what "all-in" means. It means it may lose it all and the company goes bankrupt.
Making the Model S was an all-in bet. So was Model-3. If either didn't work, the company is done.
If FSD is a completely failure with no real world application whatsoever, Tesla would still be making Model Y (the world's best selling vehicle) and make a positive margin on every car sold. It would still be the largest or 2nd largest EV maker with strong cash flow and no debt.
At the absolutely worst, it will set back Tesla's EV growth by a couple years. It's significant but nowhere near "all-in" bet. People need to chill out.
I have fsd for a month and it sucks. I would not at all feel safe taking these taxis.
What a mess
for years he's been saying "tesla is worth nothing without FSD", so at least consistent. I still think he's wrong and too optimistic on the FSD timeline.
Meanwhile, Chinese brands are addressing what really matters =affordable EV for the masses as they did with phones a decade ago!
To really improve Tesla's self driving, they need to add LIDAR to enhance their software. It's really sad that there are multiple luxury chinese brands that have LIDAR which goes a long way to making their "auto pilots" very very good, but Tesla abandoned plans to add LIDAR years ago to save a tiny bit more $$$. Anyways, we'll see what they come up with.
How about an ebike? Or a phev collab with a traditional auto maker?
To play the devil’s advocate, suppose that Elon sees the economic chaos of the AI jobpocalypse is going decimate the low end new car market, but people are still going to need transport even if they are poor. He might also be comparing the risks of making 10k robotaxis at existing factories vs spending several billions to make the factories to make millions of $25k cars that he will only make $5k each on, if he can sell them.
Moron. If they focused on an ultra cheap EV they’d print money. I’m convinced they can’t get their WC under control so the focus on robotaxi is a result of that. Nobody will care about panel gaps on taxis
Looking forward to the Robo taxis coming to Japan, probably somewhere near the year 2055
Teslas without lidar are quite literally bouncing off curbs with the last update. Get real dude
Ah geez. I'm not one of those Musk-haters, and I own a Model Y, but this feels like the wrong time to go in this direction.
Tesla needs a $25000 small car, a small Maverick-sized pickup, and a minivan. The growth would be astronomical.
Instead they are building the weird Cybertruck and now self driving cars with software that clearly isn't close to being ready for several years.
I bought $5k of Tesla stock in 2017 when they were ramping the M3, glad I sold it a month ago