Tesla's Robotaxi event still not started after 40 minutes [video]

[pcbro141]

Waymo already beat Tesla to Full Self Driving. I use Waymo frequently in SF and it's great. It makes this Tesla robotaxi with an undefined release date not very interesting.

[0max]

Based on some of the viral videos out of SF lately, I think we need Delamain from Cyberpunk 2077 more than Waymo at this point. I've been in a Waymo with other drivers trying to test its intelligence (trying to cut into the Waymo's lane with the signal on while right in the blind spot) and it's not fun.

[Ankaios]

They're currently discussing how difficult it was to design a credit card reader for the Robotaxi that would reliably fail whenever it detects cash in the passenger's wallet.

[paulryanrogers]

Is this a joke? Do they prefer the taxis get paid in cash?

[Animats]

The event has started. They have some Teslas driving slowly around the Warner Brothers lot with no people in them. Musk is talking.

The closed captions are running ahead of the talking.

[muglug]

He talks about the tyranny of parking lots, but this is a solved problem! The whole presentation is an exercise in steadfastly not talking about public transportation.

[marcusverus]

He actually did address public transportation, saying that fully autonomous, on demand taxis will be the equivalent of individualized public transportation. He's right. Why would I want to stand outside in the elements for 20 minutes waiting for a bus when I could hail an autonomous taxi and be on my way?

"Just ride a bus" is the "640K ought to be enough for anybody" of the current cycle.

[bryanlarsen]

They just announced a bus.

[Teknomancer]

After seeing the Chinese company Unitree tease this https://youtu.be/GzX1qOIO1bE, Optimus seems very unarticulated and clunky. And Unitree claim it would be a bit more than half the projected cost of the Tesla offering. Time will tell. My bets right now are not on Elon leading a Tesla supremacy in anything in the future—and that is unfortunate. I wish an American company could pull it off.

[sidcool]

That looks like CGI. Pretty good one, but CGI.

[cs702]

I can only imagine the kind of last-minute drama the Robotaxi team is going through, behind the scenes.

Hopefully they will pull through and get started soon enough.

[minwcnt5]

Will their robotaxi team even have jobs tomorrow? The demo is over, they delivered their project.

[noncoml]

My simple mind can't understand what's the advantage of having a two seater vs four or five seater. Any insights?

[ec109685]

They can use “we’re working on the chassis” as an excuse for why it’s not ready yet.

[silok]

With autonomy you do not need a one-fit-all vehicle that support many different use cases.

Instead you have access to a fleet of specialized vehicles that are optimized for different tasks. Eg many trips might still be with only one or two passangers, and then a small two seater makes a lot of sense. If you need larger capacity you simple order a ride from a suitable vehicle class.

[BurningFrog]

That vast majority of car trips is for one person. Most of the others are for two.

So building it without dead weight that will almost never be used makes sense.

If you're a bigger party, there will probably be bigger robotaxis to summon. Or take two cars.

[Animats]

Walking humanoid robots.

Also videos of more humanoid robots that move better than the ones shown live.

[Animats]

Presentation is over. They're having a party.

Overall, this demo looks a lot like the self driving vehicles at Guangzhou Bio Island. They have slow self-driving buses and taxis in a somewhat controlled environment.[1] That sort of thing has been working for about five years now.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3sCm1GGC5I

[Animats]

Inductive charging. Robotaxi does not need to plug in.

Pictures of robotic car interior cleaning, but no mention of that.

[porphyra]

It was a medical emergency. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1844567949144883345

[reallymental]

What a bizzare world we live in. He's promising some version of the thing he did in 2016 [0], he's promising a lower than $30k price point, also the famous "unsupervised full self driving" (how many more adjectives does one need for autonomous vehicles?).

Perhaps he's made another deal with the board for a better $100B pay package so he can lie to the shareholders (who'll eat it up) and he'll dump subpar products onto these people who are heralding him as another "genius" or whatever.

He's just another run-of-the-mill, out of touch conman at this point. He was great, but he didn't hold onto his own greatness.

edit: Something about a park ride?! ... Jesus.

[0] - https://qz.com/elon-musk-tesla-robotaxi-timeline-1851664786#....

[reallymental]

Well he's now got his robots dancing. It's all a joke people, let's wrap it up.

[davidbarker]

It disappoints me when otherwise intelligent people take him for his word at this point. Even ignoring his descent into political madness and conspiracy, he's simply not trustworthy.

Fool me once, shame on Elon. Fool me 194 times, shame on me.

[Animats]

Teslas "fully autonomous in Texas and California next year" using Model 3 and Model Y.

Cybercab before 2027.

[pcbro141]

He's been promising "full self driving in a few months to a couple years" since 2015.

Reddit comment with his predictions:

https://old.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/n6nsmt/elo...

[oxqbldpxo]

Jump Elon jump!!!

[Animats]

There's a 20 person bus version.

[Animats]

"We expect the cost to be below $30,000."

[zzleeper]

Lol those cyclists surely looked terrified