Tesla Talk

More photos:

https://www.caranddriver.com/photos/g62573940/tesla-robotaxi-gallery/

I assumed they'd build an automated charger or two at each of their superchargers to start where the car navigates to the charger, parks itself and the an arm reachs out and plugs the car in and then unplugs when full. That to me would be far cheaper and faster to implement than building large conductive charging bays.

Damp squib but still encouraging to know that there will be self-driving cars by the time my faculties fail me in old age.

the proposed business model for operators of this car just doesn't seem credible.

Uber drivers on west coast USA are already leaving as the pricing model is a race to the bottom and they would be better off as bellhops.

Renault Mobilize Duo and Bento were more exciting news than this Tesla Robotaxi yesterday.

Quite probable with the caveat that it will be limited (at least to begin with) to small highly urbanised inner city areas with well developed infrastructure. Large-scale city-wide deployments would be some time off, as the technology with regard to security and safety standards need to be implemented, along with regulatory support. Then theres the whole public acceptance thing. Its a lot more than the cars themselves.

Modern Asian cities where the state exerts significant control, like Singapore for example, will probably be leading the charge on this. The CBDs of large cities like London, New York etc could well follow as public vehicle traffic becomes more restricted also.

Stock down 10% since the start of the week so this unveiling hasn't had a positive effect unfortunately.

it was as only unveiled last night after the market closed..

It's down in premarket

224.95-13.82(-5.79%)Pre-Market: 5:04 AM EDT

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/

I dont think having just two seats is that bad. Here in Ireland, the average number of passengers in a taxi is just 2-3. That includes larger cabs too.

Cars take up disproportionately large areas of our cities compared to other forms of transport. They make inefficient use of space by needing car parks. They are also underutilised most of the time where only one passenger may be in a four seater vehicle. So a smaller vehicle taking up smaller city space like the robotaxi could be more acceptable.

But yea, I agree, Elons timelines and promises are closer to astrology than anything concrete.

It’s absolutely fascinating that a 700bn MarCap mega-corp can pull a literal stunt like this and get away with it over and over.

It stinks of more musk smoke and marketing showmanship.

As for that humanoid robot bs, for about €300 you can get a robotic vacuum that uses lidar - I saw one work at an Airbnb recently and it was actual witchcraft. They’ll be €200 next year probably.

The human form has long since been proven to be a terribly inefficient robotic starting point too.

Again, it all just stinks and let’s face it, we kinda knew things what was going to happen when he pulled this out of his ass the day the model 2 was canned and the SP fell of flat a cliff.

current taxis can scale, from 1 to e.g 9, where 9 is a Mercedes vito or similar.

This concept car takes up roughly the same space on the street as those current taxis, but has a maximum of 2 pax. now that I think about it, with limitations on FSD it’ll probably need bigger gaps between other cars/margins of safety, and actually take up more room on the streets.

God there’s so many example of where this concept car falls over - say at surge times after games or concerts, airport runs, you can pretty much name any corner case - except for a simple 1-2 person journey from A to B with minimal luggage. So it will work for maybe 30-40% of journeys.

Most of what’s in the press today isn’t even the concept car, it’s polished generated imagery of the concept car on a nice American brownstone suburban street.

Autonomous taxis will certainly happen - but when they do, this certainly won’t be one of them.

Why does it look like a coupe? It’s meant to be a taxi that rarely exceeds 50kmh and the shape seems to militate against it being wheelchair accessible… I assume Dublin isn’t the only city in the world where taxis being wheelchair accessible is a big thing!

Tesla is dead, that farce looked like something from the apprentice!

I would have thought taxis to be private transport, not public transport!

Am not getting why the focus on a literal definition (regardless of whether right or wrong) has any bearing on the topic as we all know what a taxi is (whether you regard it as public or private)

he’s calling it a robotaxi (or a cab) - and it’s not really a taxi, most of the time. Hence the discussion on what this is actually replacing.

But it’s a fair point - this whole discussion is moot anyway.

Just realised we haven’t even mentioned the bus thing he showed - which the whole concept and its presentation could’ve been pulled together with a few ChatGpt requests in 5mins.

“Show me what a 10 seater bus might look like in 2050 if it had no driver”

I’m not even joking 🙃

Indeed. They have 1.5 mass market models which are rapidly aging and have had costs cut so close to the bone it's at a point where safety may be impacted, and no timeline on replacement models. Profit margin gone from industry leading to just about hanging in there and price slashing required to keep sales up in the face of ever improving competition. FSD et al is a load of bollox which will never deliver what has been claimed, and priced into the share price. The entire edifice is simply a gargantuan stock market vessel at this stage, and it's rapidly taking on water. Politically I'm on Musk's 'side' but he's quickly becoming a liability for Tesla and I can see him being forced out within the next year.

I'm a Tesla owner BTW lest I be labelled a hater!

I suspect that the Mules are Tesla model 3 chassis worked over. wheelbase length looks about right.

Baidu and other Chinese manufacturers along with Waymo are working on their own Robotaxis. I see B2B sales from those companies to prospective operators as more likely than Tesla sales to operators.

Only people I can see Tesla selling these to are FIRE Bros (Financially Independent Retire Early). Elon will happily relieve them of their capital stakes.

I agree. A cheap and cheerful 2 dr with sharp looks (and a steering wheel) might just be what the world needs now. How many capris, mantas, celicas, mgbs etc sold before the world decided everything needed to be an suv. An efficient Bev powertrain would be ideal for the class of car too!

They havent killed the S or x though

the S and X have contributed 2% to vehicle revenue now since 2020 or so. they’re dead, or NA market only.

Your storyline of their strategy over the past decade is fully correct - but all 4 were normal cars, just with better software and a different means of propulsion - and the strategy was to get to mass market volumes

Today, right now, they have 2 ageing cars with global mass market appeal, and nothing in the next 3 years (at least) to add to the line up and crucially - sell in mass market volume.

that means they need to keep selling the 3 and Y for years and then give those Tesla owners something to change into. This cybercab thing isn’t it, not for mass market anyway.

The semi, obtimus, cybertruck, cybercab and so on and on, are all niche expensive luxury products.

Even the cybertruck hype train is massively running out of steam already. Values dropping hard, and the move to introduce the cheaper non-foundation model last week means they are running out of orders for the expensive Foundation model. That’s a pretty big red flag for future sales volumes. And it’s a NA model only.

what new model will Tesla deliver in the next 5 years to the mass market? The obvious answer used to be the m2, but I think their price cuts have meant the m3 is now an m2+

Gotta agree with you there too 😀

Mind the Model Y was the best selling car in the world last year (as I predicted 2 years ago to much ridicule in this thread and others) and will likely be the best selling car this year too. And I'm not sure if Tesla / Musk has much appetite to take on fierce Chinese competition in the lower ends of the car market. Tesla is not a car company after all.