A robot is at the event
Why didn’t Tesla start in 2021? An Insider’s Reaction on Musk’s Vision of a Transforming the World
If robotaxis are already present, why doesn’tTesla have this tech? There’s a big difference between how other companies — like Waymo, Cruise, the driverless trucking company Aurora and a host of startups — approach autonomy, and how Tesla is trying to do it.
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 its cars are good, and it makes money selling electric vehicles. But Musk has his eye on the much fatter profit margins of the software industry.
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.
It’s hard to believe the value of a fully electric fleet. he told investors in 2021. “That will be one of the most valuable things that’s ever done in the history of civilization.”
Musk’s become infamous for his overly enthusiastic estimates of how soon Tesla robotaxis will arrive. He’s even taken to poking fun at himself for all the times he’s been wrong.
Robotaxi: 5 Things to Know Before Introducing a Robotaxi, Inc. Source: Tesla is expected to unveil a robotaxi tonight: 5 things to know
While Cruise put human safety drivers back behind the wheel despite a crash last year, companies like Waymo and GM have already sent self-drive taxis onto the streets. The systems often have someone on call to assist remotely if a car gets stuck. 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.
Even for those companies, robotaxis aren’t profitable yet. J.D. Power surveyed people who have ridden robotaxis and found that while the passengers enjoyed the experience, they didn’t find the taxis practical. The service will remain a novelty until it is more affordable, according to the pollsters.
Musk is pretty certain that his approach is better than the others. Musk told investors earlier this year that cameras and digital neural nets would be the solution for biological neural nets. Tesla also has enormous amounts of driving data from its vehicles on the road today.
This approach is dangerous, say other companies. Aurora took the unusual step of preemptively emailing reporters ahead of Tesla’s event this week to share bullet points about exactly what they object to. Those included concerns about making sure a system is learning good driving behaviors — not bad ones, like running stop signs — and that there are systems of checks and balances.
Anderson helped launch the autopilot software at Tesla, which is the first partial automation system, notes the Aurora email. Waymo just snagged a former Tesla exec for its team, too.
Self-driving taxis can be hard-coded, but you have to know what you’re doing, and what you can do about it
The United States doesn’t have any federal laws governing self-driving cars, so a patchwork of state and city regulators set boundaries for what companies can and cannot do.
If the regulators are not confident in the safety of the taxi fleet, full self-driving won’t happen.
That has implications for the physical design of vehicles. Cruise returned to a more conventional design in order to reduce the risk of running afoul of regulators, after abandoning their plans for a futuristic robotaxi car that did not have a steering wheel.
Software could also 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.
It is possible to imagine a scenario in which regulatorys just kind of have this moment. You don’t have hard-coded software rules? He says so. How do you control it?
Source: Tesla is expected to unveil a robotaxi tonight: 5 things to know
The We, Robot Event: A Tale of Two Robots and One Robot, One for Every Task, Two for Every User – Dan Ives
The event, “We, Robot”, refers to a collection of Isaac Asimov stories that explore 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.
There is a chance that the reveal will include a robot that is capable of repeating tasks, like the one being developed by Tesla.
Dan Ives is a long-timeTesla bull and will be at the event. He’s less interested in androids and more in whether Musk can demonstrate a fully autonomous vehicle that actually works.
The lighter and faster Gen 2 bot was revealed by Musk. And in an April earnings call he said Optimus will start performing “useful tasks” by the end of this year and could be sold “externally by the end of next year.”
After the presentation, livestream footage showed people interacting with Optimus robots at tables and in crowds. Still, the robots weren’t doing much other than waving in the style of Astro Bot. The table of drinks was filled with drinks but the Optimus bot only held a cup of ice. A bot could play rock paper scissors with guests and hand over small gift bags. And there was an enclosed gazebo with a bunch of dancing robots inside.
The Musk project: walking, babysitting, aperiodic meals and sopping drinks for an animal lover’s charity fund
Musk said it can do anything and that it has examples like walking your dog, babysitting your kids and serving you drinks. He said it will cost up to $30,000 over the long term.
