Robot axis: What will they tell us about the future? Commentary on Musk, J.D. Power, and Canaccord Gianarikas
There are a lot of things riding on the success of the car. Musk is pivoting the company to robots and autonomous systems just as the company’s EV sales have faltered.
An idiosyncratic billionaire takes to the stage (with, perhaps, a humanoid robot by his side?) to unveil a futuristic technology that he promises will transform the world — a vision alternately celebrated, mocked and feared.
Musk is attempting to steer Tesla away from its core business of making and selling EVs toward one that produces robots and AI. All of the other global automakers have a similar market cap. Much of the company’s stock price is based on Musk’s promise to solve autonomy by releasing a revolutionary vehicle that can drive itself anywhere it wants.
Analyst George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity Group notes that Musk’s approach requires billions of dollars of upfront investment in AI, but much cheaper hardware on vehicles. That’s a combination that is expensive now, but would pay off if there were, say, millions of robotaxis on the road.
“The value of a fully electric autonomous fleet is generally gigantic — boggles the mind, really.” he told investors in 2021. “That will be one of the most valuable things that’s ever done in the history of civilization.”
Still, Gianarikas notes that while there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a Tesla robotaxi fleet, Elon Musk has a track record of eventually proving skeptics wrong.
Still, Tesla is lagging behind companies like Waymo and Cruise, both of which have racked up millions of miles of on-road testing with their driverless vehicles. Many incidents of blocked vehicles, traffic jams, and even a handful of injuries have been done by robotaxis over the years. Federal safety regulators are probing several major players to discern whether the technology powering these vehicles is safe or should be recalled.
Even for those companies, robotaxis aren’t profitable yet. The auto market research giant J.D. Power recently surveyed people who have ridden in robotaxis and found that while passengers generally liked the experience, they don’t find the taxis practical. The service will remain novelty until it is cheaper and covers more ground, according to the pollsters.
A heavily camouflaged and weirdly shaped yellow car was spied on site that may have more than just cameras. The company did buy a bunch of lidar sensors from Luminar in order to validate its robotaxi testing. Musk insisted that the camera-based Vision system is the way forward after he called lidars a “crutch”.
“Tesla uses a ‘train and pray’ approach, where you fix a problem by throwing more data at the system,” Aurora CPO Sterling Anderson said in a webcast, quoted in Aurora’s email. In a safety critical industry you need to have confidence and proof that you have fixed the problem.
Anderson helped launch the first partial-automated system atTesla, where he used to work, the Aurora email says. Waymo just snagged a former Tesla exec for its team, too.
Self-Driving Robots Aren’t Safe: Regulation Constraints from a Safety-Preserving, Semi-Informative Cabin
State and city regulators set the boundaries of what companies can and cannot do in the US because there is no federal laws governing self-driving.
Musk has always acknowledged that achieving full self-driving is not just a matter of technological innovation; if regulators aren’t convinced a robotaxi fleet is safe, it isn’t going anywhere.
Before therobotaxi goes into production, it will need approval from the regulators, which means it will have a steering wheel and pedals. The design was futuristic, with doors that open upward like butterfly wings and a small cabin with only enough space for two passengers. There was no steering wheel or pedals, nor was there a plug — Musk said the vehicle inductive charging to regain power wirelessly.
Software may be affected by governmental concerns. Gianarikas says regulators who dig into the coding of a system built by “end-to-end” deep learning might not like what they find.
“You can imagine a scenario where [regulators] just kind of have this moment, like ‘What? You don’t … have any hard-coded software rules?” He said so. “‘How do you control it?’”
“We, Robot”: a Novel Story about Human-like Robots and Tesla’s Humanoid Optimus, a Future Student-Autonomer
The event’s name — “We, Robot” — is a nod to a classic Isaac Asimov short story collection exploring the ethical and psychological implications of building increasingly human-like robots. It’s also the title of a very vaguely related Will Smith action movie.
Tesla’s humanoid Optimus robot is also likely going to get some time in the spotlight. The robot is supposed to be able to perform useful tasks by the end of the year. It will be a product by the end of the century, said Musk. Take it with a grain of salt, but there will be an update to the game on Thursday. After all, the event is called “We, Robot.”
Dan is a long-time bull of Tesla and will be in attendance. Musk needs to demonstrate a fully autonomously driving vehicle that works, otherwise he doesn’t care about them at all.
Musk gave the company more time to work on the prototype of the car so they pushed the release date to October 10th. There could be surprises for the company. Could a cheaper Tesla be coming? Maybe there’s time being set aside to reveal the rumored “Juniper” Model Y? Possibly a self-driving van.
Instead of creating a cheaper platform, which would be similar to Gen 3, it’s possible that we’ll get a more affordable Model 3. The cheapest vehicle under $40,000 was no longer available fromTesla.
Autonomous Cars: What the Musk Means at the Tevatron or A Motorized Superautonomous Vehicle Experiment?
The robot will be the focus of the show. It will be interesting to hear what Musk has to say about the future.
During the event, Musk pitched the idea of autonomous cars as primarily a time-saver. “Think about the cumulative time that people spend in a car,” he said, “and the time they will get back that they can now spend on their books or watching a movie or doing work or whatever.”
But Musk has a track record of coming from behind to pull off impossible victories. Two recent examples of Musk surprising expectations are the Model 3 production and the Cybertruck.
Musk said that autonomous cars are expected to be 10-20 times safer than human-driven vehicles and could cost as low as $0.20 per mile, compared to the $1 per mile for city buses.