Tesla’s reveal of a robotaxi designed as a low-slung, two-seater, sporty coupe - quite the opposite of a typical taxi with room for several passengers and luggage - flummoxed investors and analysts.
But in true Musk style, he skipped over expectations of how a two-seater robotaxi would serve the needs of families headed to a restaurant or to the airport, or if he expected these to appeal only to a niche clientele.
Investors jeered the design and the lack of financial detail, with Tesla stocks tumbling 9% on Wall Street on Friday.
“When you think of a cab, you think of something that’s going to carry more than two people,” said Jonathan Elfalan, vehicle testing director for the automotive website Edmunds.com. “Making this a two-seat-only car is very perplexing.”
It looks like they were working on the new roadster and Elmo told them they were switching to a driverless cab.
If it were a sports car it would probably sell really well because it’s got the doors that open like this
On a related note…
Full Self Driving coming next year? Or the year after that? Or after that?
Musk and “FSD is coming next year” is like Trump and “I only want to be dictator for a day”.
We’ll have FSD as soon as we get those flying cars with AGI I’ve been told are a few years away my entire life.
Space colonies too.
There are self driving waymo taxis in San Francisco, it is only a fiction for Musk
Those also use a combination of many different sensors to see the road around them, while Tesla stubbornly refuses to use anything except vision because that’s how humans do it. Nevermind that even with our best AI models, we’ve never even approximated how the human brain works.
Along with what @Bassman1805 says, San Francisco has a small footprint and most of it is laid out in grids, making navigation easier.
Plus, it’s not a problem-free implementation by any means.
On top of that, it’s way too easy to make them stop working. Not too easy for passengers, too easy for everyone else.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/26/1195695051/driverless-cars-san-francisco-waymo-cruise
The real problem that he failed to show any progress on self-driving. Self-driving has been 2 years away for the past 6 years and that’s the only real thing that will pull Tesla out of a downward spiral. Tesla stock is stupidly overpriced and competitors are catching up.
With nothing but empty promises, people are starting to realize that the emperor has no clothes. And really, who wants to see Musk naked? …that’s a bag nobody wants to be left holding.
I’ll take the bus, thanks. At least I will arrive alive at my destination.
But think of the opportunity cost here, you’d be wasting a chance to run over a child or a poor person!
It may only have 2 seats, but didn’t they notice the tires are painted gold. That’s an awesome design decision right there! /s
The 2 seats are probably meant to keep the death toll low. 😋
But if they thought the robotaxi was weird, that was nothing compared to the robovan. Almost no clearance and almost no windows, and then Musk exclaimed: Yes! We are gonna build it like that! It’s siiick.
neither robo- taxi or van are likely to be moneymakers. They’ll be a sinkhole of development cost, that will never come to market.
But more are probably finally catching on, with an event causing the stock to drop 9%.
It’s kind of hilarious that Enron Musks attempt to pump the stock failed so bad. 😋
