Tesla’s Robot Taxi: Where the Profits Come From? How An Idiocentric Billionaire Sees the Value of an Electric Autonomous Fleet
On Thursday evening, around 7 pm PDT, Tesla is slated to unveil the newest vehicle in its lineup: one that will be able to drive itself. A purpose-built Tesla robot taxi—a “Cybercab,” in the electric automaker’s parlance—is meant to establish the company as less a manufacturer of cars than a maker of pathbreaking robotics technology. In April, Musk stated that the way to think ofTesla was almost entirely in terms of solving autonomy and being able to turn on that autonomy for a gigantic fleet.
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.
The profit margins on the cars that Tesla sells are always in the double digits, so it makes money selling electric cars. Musk is interested in the software industry’s profit margins.
George says that the upfront investment inArtificial Intelligence needs to be billions of dollars while cheaper hardware on cars is needed. If millions of robotaxis were on the road it would pay off, but that is pricey right now.
“The value of a fully electric autonomous fleet is generally gigantic — boggles the mind, really.” He gave a speech to investors in 2021. “That will be one of the most valuable things that’s ever done in the history of civilization.”
There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical about the fleet of cars being used byTesla, but there is also a track record of proving skeptics wrong.
Companies like Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise, meanwhile, have already sent driverless taxis onto streets — although Cruise put human “safety drivers” back behind the wheel after a crash last year. If a car gets stuck, the systems will have someone on call to help. But that’s a far cry from needing constant oversight: According to data it supplied the state of California, Waymo drove nearly 1.2 million fully driverless miles last year with a total of 14 “disengagements,” or times the software required manual control.
Those companies aren’t profitable yet with robotaxis. In a recent survey by J.D. Power, passengers tend to like the experience of riding a robot axis, but they don’t find the taxis practical. Until they’re cheaper and cover more ground, the pollsters concluded, “the service will remain a novelty transportation method.”
Musk is adamant that Tesla’s approach is superior. “Our entire road network is designed for biological neural nets” — that is, human brains — “and eyes, so naturally cameras and digital neural nets are the solution,” Musk told investors earlier this year. Tesla also has enormous amounts of driving data from its vehicles on the road today.
This approach is dangerous, according to other companies. Ahead of this week’s events, Aurora sent reporters bullet points about exactly what they object to. There are systems of checks and balances that are concerned about making sure that a system learns good driving behaviors and not bad ones.
Anderson used to work at Tesla, where he helped launch Tesla’s Autopilot software, its first partial-automation system, the Aurora email notes. Waymo just snagged a former Tesla exec for its team, too.
What Do Regulators Think About Robotic Self-Driving and the Risk of Taking a Risk to the Limit? An Example from the Cruise Company
The United States still has no federal laws governing self-driving, so a patchwork of state and city regulators set the boundaries of what companies can and cannot do.
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.
That has implications for the physical design of vehicles. The Cruise company decided to return to a more conventional design that a human could operate, because of the risk of being sued by regulators.
And governmental concerns could also affect software. Regulators might not like what they find, if they dig into the coding of a system built by deep learning.
You can imagine a scenario where the regulators had a moment like that. You don’t … have any hard-coded software rules?” He says so. How do you control it?
We, Robot, and Tesla’s Implications for Self-Driving Autonomous Autonomy (with an Appearance from Dan Ives)
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.
In a kind of way, the black and white robot with a smooth face is able to walk. Tesla has shared videos of it sorting objects, standing on one leg and dancing.
The long-time bull Dan Ives will be in attendance at the event. He’s more interested in what Musk can do with a fully autonomously driving vehicle.
Tesla was originally planning to reveal the robotaxi in August, but Musk pushed the date to October 10th to allow for more time to work on the prototype. The company could also have some surprises up its sleeve. Could a cheaper Tesla be coming? Maybe there is time being set aside to discuss the rumored model Y. Perhaps a self-driving van?
Instead of creating a Cheaper Gen 3 platform, they could release a cheaper Model 3 to fill that market. Tesla recently discontinued the standard range Model 3, which was its cheapest vehicle under $40,000.
Robot Axiom: Whence, Where? Where? Who? What? When? Where do we go? Where are we going?
But the robotaxi will be the star of the show. And with so much riding on its success, it will certainly be interesting to hear Musk outline his vision for its future.