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Transportation AI

Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Unveil Its Robotaxi on August 8 (cnbc.com) 154

Posted by EditorDavid from the rise-of-the-machines dept.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Tesla "is poised to roll out its version of a robotaxi later this year, according to CEO Elon Musk." ("Musk made the announcement on social media saying 'Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8.' His cryptic post contained no other details about the forthcoming line of autonomous vehicles.")

Electrek thinks they know what it'll look like. "Through Walter Issacson's approved biography of Musk, we learned that Tesla Robotaxi will be 'Cybertruck-like'."

8/8 (of the year 2024) would be a Thursday — although CNBC adds one additional clarification: At Tesla, "unveil" dates do not predict a near-future date for a commercial release of a new product. For example, Tesla unveiled its fully electric heavy-duty truck, the Semi, in 2017 and did not begin deliveries until December 2022. It still produces and sells very few Semis to this day.
"Tesla shares rose over 3% in extended trading after Musk's tweet."
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Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Unveil Its Robotaxi on August 8 More

Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Unveil Its Robotaxi on August 8

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  • Fail, learn, improve, repeat (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @12:38PM (#64374898)

    This cycle was great for rockets. I look forward to seeing how it works with taxis full of and surrounded by squishy humans.

    • They tested on apes first like neural link.

    • He's just pumping the stock (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @12:58PM (#64374958)
      He is so far behind what Google is doing he can't hope to catch up. And his rather unpleasant managerial style has chased off a lot of good engineers so he's not going to be able to catch up. The best he can hope for is to get some patents you can use to protect the company in order to hold off a patent War. And that is an important thing to be doing in our fucked up patent system.

      But the real reason this is coming out is because it's leaked that they've given up on the affordable electric car and are going to cede that entire market to Hyundai and Kia. Meanwhile BMW and Mercedes are starting to roll out serious electric cars that aren't just meant to meet government compliance requirements.

      I've been saying it for years but Tesla is on borrowed time. They're build quality just isn't good enough and their cards are running off a 5 year old platform that they just don't have the resources or the engineers to modernize and update. The other companies were waiting for some battery tech to become commercially viable that was coming out of the public universities so that they didn't have to pay for the research themselves. That tech has hit and it's now perfectly practical for them to build cars to compete with Tesla and they're starting to do that.

      It doesn't help that his purchase of Twitter and his open support of right-wing extremists going right up to White supremacists and neo-nazis has turned off a lot of consumers. Or that he's wasting huge amounts of time on xitter instead of trying to attract better engineers so they can update his car platform for him.

      What really made SpaceX take off is Elon Musk has a persona he's built up and it attracted a shitload of engineers that wanted to work for him instead of the other companies. That persona is really all Musk ever had besides a bunch of government contracts and at least in the electric car space those government subsidies have dried up because electric cars are pretty common place now.

      Like I said on my other post I wouldn't tell you to sell your Tesla stock just yet but you should be keeping an eye out for when you need to do it or you're going to get stuck holding the bag like all those GM stockholders did.

      I can't be the only one old enough to remember major car companies collapsing. I don't expect to see Elon Musk get a bailout like they did because we bailed the car companies out to maintain their manufacturing capacity in case we needed it for world War III and we have that manufacturing capacity from all the other car companies. We don't need Tesla's factories and he's become so controversial a figure that it would be intensely controversial to bail him out.

      And even if we did all the small stockholders got screwed when GM collapsed

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by AlanObject ( 3603453 )

        But the real reason this is coming out is because it's leaked that they've given up on the affordable electric car and are going to cede that entire market to Hyundai and Kia.

        By announcing plans for a $25,000 car and committing funds for a factory to build it. Makes sense.

        Did you know you can buy a sub-$10,000 all-EV car already? Just look it up on alibaba. Why hasn't Tesla's sales in China (and BYD's for that matter) been destroyed by that? Maybe you need to think about how the sticker price is not the only parameter driving the market.

        I've been saying it for years but Tesla is on borrowed time. They're build quality just isn't good enough and their cards are running off a 5 year old platform that they just don't have the resources or the engineers to modernize and update.

        The Model Y is the top selling car in many market regions and the #1 car in more than one region. On top of that it is satisfactory to

        • Are you from another timeline? (Score:4, Informative)

          by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @02:44PM (#64375164)
          this entire article is about a leak clearly indicating they're not going to build the sub $25k car.

          Sure, maybe in your time line Elon doesn't promote Nazis on Twitter and is on track for a sub $25k car, but here in mine Tesla makes about $8k on every car. $7500 of that can be attributed to a government subsidy that is going to get cut as soon as EVs are common place, which is the next 5-10 years.

          Oh, and Musk just cut prices by $4500 because of unsold inventory...

          Tesla's car platform is 5 years old. He needs to be working on something that can make money when that subsidy goes away, or even if it just gets cut.

          As for SpaceX, ignoring the fact that he's still riding on NASA tech (who did all the hard, expensive basic research and then let him profit off it because Musk is the world's greatest welfare queen) again, he's riding on his hype to attract talent and the fact that NASA is a shadow of it's former self. All it takes is the US military saying "we don't trust this guy" and a few more Democrat administrations to turn that around and his subsidies are pulled and the engineers go work for NASA instead.

          I know I've said "don't sell your stock" but in your case you should. I don't think you'll see it coming when the company collapses, forms a new business entity and makes your stock into worthless paper. Just like how my buddy got stuck with a grand of worthless GM stock.

        • Did you know you can buy a sub-$10,000 all-EV car already? Just look it up on alibaba.

          The ones on Alibaba are mostly just golf carts. A few people on YouTube have bought them expecting to get a real "car", to hilarious results (both in the poor build quality of the vehicle and how much money it actually costs to import one of these things).

          I did manage to find an article about someone who successfully imported a Wuling Mini [oklahoman.com], and they claim it's not really practical for driving above 37 MPH. In the USA at least, that "city car" may as well still be an actual golf cart.

        • Re:He's just pumping the stock (Score:4, Insightful)

          by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @06:58PM (#64375676)

          Did you know you can buy a sub-$10,000 all-EV car already? Just look it up on alibaba. Why hasn't Tesla's sales in China (and BYD's for that matter) been destroyed by that?

          You know BYD actually sells cars in China sub 100000yuan right? I.e. $13k, and well outsell Teslas in that market right? Sticker price is absolutely something very important, and Tesla knows it.

          • that things are cheaper in China because they can use borderline slave labor, have zero emissions and environmental standards, laxer safety requirements for the cars themselves and don't have to ship parts from China, right?

            None of that translates to the United States. Which is what we're talking about here. Musk can't make a drivable care for $25k. Even a subcompact like the ones BYD is making in China. Maybe he could in China *if* he had access to the same cheap labor _and_ better processes and engine

            • Errr yes. What's your point, other than that you didn't read the context of the conversation?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              The main reason the cars are cheaper in China is because they have such a well integrated supply chain there. It also helps that people are fine with smaller batteries too, and China has the best battery tech so can reduce costs on those considerably simply by having fewer warranty issues. They also produce more of them than anyone else, so get economies of scale, and are already able to reuse and recycle EV batteries so that helps offset the up-front cost too.

              Labour cost is a very small part of it, and act

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Teslas sell well in Europe because they are heavily discounted when bought through schemes like salary sacrifice and finance. Most of them are white, because white is the cheapest colour. People get them because of the hype and because they are the cheapest option in the semi-luxury segment, when bought through those schemes.

          Fortunately Europe has a healthy EV market with a wide variety of cars on the market.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        He is so far behind what Google is doing he can't hope to catch up.

        There's no question whether Tesla is years behind Waymo. But nobody else other than possibly GM is even in the running, so as long as Waymo and Cruise continue their plan to make full self driving be for fleet vehicles only, rather than sold to individual consumers, it really doesn't matter how far behind Tesla is, because the companies Tesla is actually competing against are still years behind Tesla.

        But the real reason this is coming out is because it's leaked that they've given up on the affordable electric car and are going to cede that entire market to Hyundai and Kia. Meanwhile BMW and Mercedes are starting to roll out serious electric cars that aren't just meant to meet government compliance requirements.

        Tesla hasn't cancelled anything (or at least Musk has flat out denied that this is the case, and as the CEO

        • that's not how things work anymore. The way things work is that whichever company gets their first gets all the capital and owns the market.

          Large companies aren't allowed by their investors to compete. It's a side effect of having the top 10%.

          Donald Trump famously ran two casinos out of business by letting them compete with each other. That top 10% doesn't let that happen anymore, and the weak anti trust law enforcement and lack of cops on the anti-trust beat means they can and do get away with it.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Tesla is not leading the consumer driving aid pack either. Nissan launched hands-free autopilot years ago, back around 2017 if memory serves. Other manufacturers have systems that work much better than Tesla's, they just don't allow customers to beta test stuff that the car can't reliably do.

          A lot of the tech comes from Mobileye. They don't have anyone like Musk to hype their products, but they do actually work. In terms of actually working, reliable technology, they are ahead of Tesla. As are some of the C

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Tesla is not leading the consumer driving aid pack either. Nissan launched hands-free autopilot years ago, back around 2017 if memory serves. Other manufacturers have systems that work much better than Tesla's, they just don't allow customers to beta test stuff that the car can't reliably do.

            Unless Nissan has some higher-end system than the one I've tried, having driven both Nissan and Tesla cars within the last two weeks, I can say that at least in my opinion, this is not remotely the case.

            Nissan's system, with its weak lane tracking, feels borderline useless as a driving aid. You can't absentmindedly keep your hands on the wheel until it makes a mistake and then correct, because if you try, you'll end up in the wrong lane when the road curves too much. You're fully driving.

            With Tesla, you'r

    • Re:Fail, learn, improve, repeat (Score:5, Funny)

      by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @02:08PM (#64375092)

      This cycle was great for rockets. I look forward to seeing how it works with taxis full of and surrounded by squishy humans.

      SpaceX launched 98 rockets in 2023.

      Tesla is hoping the Robotaxi will launch at least as many humans in 2024.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        gosh, is he putting the ejection seats in just to get his eyepatch?

        and does this mean a convertible model, or a power passenger side sunroof? :)

        hawk

  • The last I heard about the taxi idea, they mentioned they were considering letting people send out their cars as taxis when not in use, and thus owning a Tesla could actually make you money.

    That does depend on true self driving to work but it seems like they are pretty close now.

  • He's panicking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @12:50PM (#64374944)
    Because he can't make an affordable card and BMW and Mercedes among others are moving in on his luxury car market. He can't possibly compete with them on build quality, prestige and marketing. He's always needed to pivot to affordable cars but he can't do that because his company isn't well enough run to contain costs while maintaining build quality in order to compete at that price point. Hell he's sitting on 150,000 unsold cars right now...

    I'm not saying you should sell your Tesla stock immediately. But he did just try to extract 55 billion from the company. I wouldn't call that a good look. I'd say you need to start paying attention because otherwise you're going to get caught with stock just as worthless as that GM stock from when they collapsed.

    Buddy of mine had about a grand in GM shares that he got caught holding the bag on when they folded...

    • I'm not saying you should sell your Tesla stock immediately.

      Considering the stock has lost over 50% of its value [marketwatch.com] in two years, you might be on to something.

      • I'm hesitant to call the stock price falling to more reasonable levels to be indicative of much - Even Musk was saying Tesla stock was overpriced.

    • BMW and MB catching up?? Not even close.

      • Catching up? Far surpassed. BMW and Mercedes always had much better chassis and interiors than Tesla, now they have the electric motors, too. Teslas have the build quality of a GM and the price of a BMW.

        • Yeah, that is why BMW and MB are outselling Tesla by HUGE numbers. Shesh. Right now, the ONLY interesting Germany EV is the taycan. The rest is expensive POS.

      • Close to what? The luxury market is dominated by BMW and Mercedes. They both have multiple EVs with an extensive line-up and unlike Tesla who have their vehicles backing up at lots, BMW and Mercedes aren't able to meet demand with both extensive backorder lists (colleague just ordered an i5, delivery time expected some time in 2025)

        Or maybe you're talking about technology? There's a car company out there selling consumer vehicles with Level 3 autopilot that is approved for use on US roads, and it's not Tesl

    • The decision to develop the cybertruck before an affordable commuter car just baffles me.

      I know pickups are the most profitable segment in the US, but they just aren't a natural fit as an EV - neither functionally nor culturally.

      PHEV makes the most sense for pickups but Tesla is not the company to do that.

      • There's little profit in low-end cars. It only makes sense if you can sell a lot of them. But commutes are long enough and charger availability scarce enough in the US that those cheap, short-range micro vehicles are not practical for many people here.

        Real pickups are where the big money is, because they are cheap to make and people are now willing to buy up-content ones for large amounts of money despite the high fuel prices. But this vehicle is not cheap to make, so I do agree it is a perplexing strategy.

        • Indeed. My BIL spent about 80k on a truck and then another 30k having it customized at a speciality body shop.

          The only visible changes: it's raised a bit but not dramatically, new tires to match the raise, an American flag on the back. SMH!

      • The decision to develop the cybertruck before an affordable commuter car just baffles me.

        I'd always assumed that it was to eventually lead on to battery driven military vehicles.

        I mean, those exist now, but only as little buggies and dirt bikes. Not great big heavy things.

        • Current battery tech can't run a modern military. You can't stop fighting for a few hours to charge up. The enemy is not that generous.
          As opposed to 2 minutes pouring fuel in the tank and going.

          Maybe some non combat vehicles no where near the enemy for, I dunno, delivering mail on base or driving the general around the golf course. But not for real military stuff.

          • On the other hand, the fuel tends to be extremely dangerous in combat zones, and the noise reduction can be very advantageous at times. That said, I tend to picture hybrid military vehicles.

            • Hybrid maybe but pure battery, no. I'll take a tank battalion running on liquid over batteries every time. The last thing the battery tank crew will hear is the loud fuel tank coming over the hill to blow them up while they're charging (charging from what, btw?)

              • Except that the liquid fueled tanks would be shot by the hidden BEV tanks when they crest the hill, from ambush. Without the noise, heat, and emissions, the BEV tanks would be able to hide better. With a longer charge time, they'd have every incentive to hide while fueling.

                And you can hide the charging cables.

                Worst case, they just move, where a fueling tank is more vulnerable.

                • Tanks are spotted by radar and IR and satellite and drones. By the time a tank can be heard it's likely already shot at you a few times as the m1 Abram's has an effective firing range of almost 2 miles. Can you hear a tank from 2 miles away? My guess is no.

                  And again, what exactly is the electric tank using to charge from in the field?

                  We're not talking World of Tanks and other video games where the tanks are so close the crews can throw rocks at each other. We're talking real world combat. My liquid tan

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )

          the profits on light trucks dwarf those of economy models. GM makes money on trucks, corvette, and cadillac. Ford on trucks and (maybe) mustang. the rest are close to breakeven.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Because he can't make an affordable card and BMW and Mercedes among others are moving in on his luxury car market. He can't possibly compete with them on build quality, prestige and marketing.

      Tesla isn't a luxury car, and never has been one. It's a mid-range workhorse car like the Camry or RAV4, but all-electric. And it is priced accordingly, which is why the Model Y was roughly the #2 car (not including trucks) in America in 2023 (behind the Toyota RAV4 only slightly), and the Model 3 also holds its own pretty well. Tesla doesn't really need to compete against BMW and Mercedes. It is already competing against the high-volume sellers like the Toyota Camry.

      He's always needed to pivot to affordable cars but he can't do that because his company isn't well enough run to contain costs while maintaining build quality in order to compete at that price point.

      Tesla's most likely pivot options, s

      • And their prices are in line with a Lexus. As for the supercharger market in order to keep those subsidies coming Musk was forced to open the network to other manufacturers and he won't be able to close it again. Which is a fair deal because a lot of the money for building out that that work is again coming from the government. Remember Elon Musk is the biggest welfare Queen in human history.

        If 150,000 cars was no big deal musk wouldn't be cutting prices by 4,500. The reason he has that backup of inven

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          And their prices are in line with a Lexus.

          It's expensive, but that doesn't make it a luxury car. It is expensive because it has a giant lithium ion battery pack. EVs are more expensive. If you subtract the $10k to $15k EV premium, prices for the Model 3 and Model Y are comparable with the Camry and RAV4. And you easily make up the EV cost difference over the life of the vehicle in lower operating costs.

          As for the supercharger market in order to keep those subsidies coming Musk was forced to open the network to other manufacturers and he won't be able to close it again. Which is a fair deal because a lot of the money for building out that that work is again coming from the government. Remember Elon Musk is the biggest welfare Queen in human history.

          Not really. Exactly none of the money for Tesla's Supercharger network built prior to mid-2023 came from government subsidies. That's somethin

    • GM went bankrupt. Your friend is a clown if he rode GM into bankruptcy. It's not like it was a big secret they were fucked. He got greedy, bought low, thinking the court would save them with tax dollars and got caught with his pants down. Boo hoo.

      The Motors Liquidation shares still trade on the pink sheets at about 32 cents right now, btw. 32 cents a share is more than your dumb greedy friend deserves. (C'mon, tell the truth, the friend is really you, right?) Anyway, being bitter 15 years later about

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Why can't Tesla improve quality standards, or match Germany luxury interiors?

      Chinese brands have done it. Check out Bjorn Nyland's reviews of them on YouTube, they are very bit as premium and well made as the German ones. They even have the same awkward software that you immediately want to replace with Android Auto.

      If the Chinese can do it then Tesla should be able to.

  • How will it do in precipitation? (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @01:05PM (#64374974) Journal
    As an owner of a Tesla, the biggest problem in Seattle is rain, esp for 4 months a year. During that time, our AP does not work.
    If tesla has not solved that, than precipitation is the killer.
    And it would smart to add back USS and add a hi-def radar. Sunlight blinds cameras as well as eyes.
  • Hope you enjoyed the ride!

    Seriously, Elon is trying to make Total Recall a thing, with Neuralink, SpaceX and wanting to get his ass to Mars, and now Tesla auto-cabs.

  • Guess Musk Needed a Bump in Net Worth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tempo36 ( 2382592 ) on Saturday April 06, 2024 @01:43PM (#64375052)

    What's that? Tesla stock needed to bump a few percentage points? Maybe Musk can make an unsubstantiated and random promise on X! Just like the right-around-the-corner-FSD promises he's made now for ~7-8 years!

    I'll be holding my breath!

    (p.s. As a longtime-but-not-anymore Tesla owner who loves EVs in general and loved my Tesla but holy cow did Musk ever jump the shark and lose his connection with reality a while ago...)

  • I highly doubt it will be based on the cybertruck, as with a taxi you want as much range as possible, and you want it as cheap possible to replace damages. So it will possible be a model Y based version with even cheaper ways to replace stuff/battery.
  • ...is it Robocop's preferred taxicab company ?

  • Is this going to be another person in a robot suit? I can't wait!

  • Didn't Elon-Gustav announce in 2019 that he has launched a whole whopping million in December 2020?

  • Elon said... (Score:3)

    by pesho ( 843750 ) on Sunday April 07, 2024 @12:34AM (#64376006)
    Elon said Tesla will have a fix for the auto-wipers on their cars in two months. This was two years ago. Elon says a lot of things. Some of them are engineering stuff that eventually may happen albeit not on his timeline. Stuff that involves living an a human society like dealing with other humans, regulations, democracy and freedom of speech is foreign to him. Anything Elon says that involves other humans should be taken with a huge grain (aka rock) of salt. On one hand we have the issue with regulation and certification that not going to resolve themselves simply because Elon said so. On the other, you have the issue with humans vandalizing and abusing the driverless robotaxis because they compete with taxis/ridesharing, because they hate Elon, or simply because they can.

  • Not seeing them in my neighborhood with unmarked streets and limited cell signal.

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