Make your robotaxi predictions for the 8/8 reveal

So Elon says that Tesla will reveal a dedicated robotaxi vehicle on 8/8. What do you think we will see? Will it look like this concept art or something else?

I will say that while this concept drawing looks super cool, I am a bit skeptical if it is practical as a robotaxi. It looks to only have 2 seats which would be fine for 1-2 people who need a ride but would not work for more than 2 people. I feel like that would limit the robotaxis value for a lot of people. Also, it would likely need a steering wheel and pedals for regulatory reasons even if Tesla did achieve eyes-off capability.

So I think this is concept art for a hypothetical 2 seater, cheap Tesla, not a robotaxi.

Could the robotaxi look more like this concept art but smaller? It could look a bit more like say the Zoox vehicle or the Cruise Origin, more futuristic box like shape IMO and seat 5-6 people.

Or maybe the robotaxi will look more like the "model 2" concept:

Other questions:
- Will the robotaxis be available to own by individuals as a personal car or will it strictly be owned by Tesla and only used in a ride-hailing network?
- What will cost be?
- Will it have upgraded hardware? Radar? Lidar? additional compute?
- Will Elon reveal any details on how the ride-hailing network will work?

Thoughts? Let the fun speculation begin!

 

[JulienW]

Tesla teases the robotaxie app with pics.

Just to add Tesla is now saying they are going to produce the "Model 2" also. This should help placate Wall Street and TSLA.

We have been investing in the hardware and software ecosystems necessary to achieve vehicle autonomy and a ride-hailing service. We are currently working on ride-hailing functionality that will be available in the future. We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App.

Tesla teases its upcoming Uber-like self-driving ride-hailing app

Tesla has teased its upcoming self-driving ride-hailing app, previously called ‘Tesla Network’, that the automaker is positioning as a Uber...

electrek.co

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[JulienW]

We have updated our future vehicle line-up to accelerate the launch of new models ahead of our previously communicated start of production in the second half of 2025. These new vehicles, including more affordable models, will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms, and will be able to be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up. This update may result in achieving less cost reduction than previously expected but enables us to prudently grow our vehicle volumes in a more capex efficient manner during uncertain times. This would help us fully utilize our current expected maximum capacity of close to three million vehicles, enabling more than 50% growth over 2023 production before investing in new manufacturing lines.

Proof the Robotaxie will be an all new vehicle and will NOT be our consumer cars.

Our purpose-built robotaxi product will continue to pursue a revolutionary “unboxed” manufacturing strategy.

 

[DrChaos]

Proof the Robotaxie will be an all new vehicle and will NOT be our consumer cars.

This defers decisions about hardware needed for full autonomy for a later date, but there's little chance of achieving good unit cost figures with a bespoke robotaxi-and-nothing-but platform. Nobody has so far. Robotaxi sales will not be tremendous; they will be slow to ramp. There is a custom (human driven) London Taxi car platform (TX4 - Wikipedia) but that is a culturally peculiar and specific application that only works with the fairly large number of taxis in London & UK.

I suspect it's more likely that they'll end up adding sensors and compute to their mainstream high volume car first, which I presume is a modification of current 3 and Y. Probably more like the Y -> Hyundai Kona/Bolt EUV size.

If they're pursuing a revolutionary 'unboxed' manufacturing strategy, which will surely be expensive to start with, there's little value achieved (minimizing unit production cost) unless the volumes are the largest possible. Henry Ford understood this. It's arithmetic.

So the unboxed robotaxi should be simultaneous with an unbox design human driven car, with different modules attached. The robo will need more sensor washers and hydraulic/electric door openers and closers.

 

[spacecoin]

So Tesla is all-in on a robotaxi with vision only. All execs are quitting including the Head of IR in light of this "bold" bet.

No new plan, no secret sauce, just the same old "the next version will blow you mind bla bla bla".

This will not end well.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Robotaxi sales will not be tremendous; they will be slow to ramp

You got that completely ass backwards.

Robotaxis will be slow to ramp, and then the sales will be tremendous.

And then self driving will become illegal.

 

[electrifyme]

It'll be some cgi based on a vision, a work in progress app, and a model taxi that doesn't work as a robotaxi.

 

[Daniel in SD]

You got that completely ass backwards.

Robotaxis will be slow to ramp, and then the sales will be tremendous.

And then self driving will become illegal.

Self driving is legal here in the birthplace of Tesla.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Large numbers of self driven robot vehicles will not coexist with humans driving in the minority for very long at all before the only car you can buy has no steering wheel. Steer that.

Once there the insurance will take care of the rest. Insure robocar $$. Insure oldsmobile $$$$. Make insurance compulsory.

End of self drive except for a few rich lunatics. After a few fatal crashes caused by said lunatics they are banished to private raceways.

I may live to see it but doubtful.

Still, we are only one tech breakthrough from kicking it off and then it would only be 5 years I reckon to no steering wheels in anything new.

 

[spacecoin]

Large numbers of self driven robot vehicles will not coexist with humans driving in the minority for very long at all before the only car you can buy has no steering wheel. Steer that.

Once there the insurance will take care of the rest. Insure robocar $$. Insure oldsmobile $$$$. Make insurance compulsory.

End of self drive except for a few rich lunatics. After a few fatal crashes caused by said lunatics they are banished to private raceways.

I may live to see it but doubtful.

Still, we are only one tech breakthrough from kicking it off and then it would only be 5 years I reckon to no steering wheels in anything new.

No, where's not "one tech breakthrough away". Perhaps 2-3 major around more efficient training, explainability/validation, reasoning and also more robust sensing (if we're talking vision only from 2d cameras alone) and plenty of small improvements over the years. If 1% of all cars are generally autonomous, as in drive wherever I want to go on public roads in 15 years, I'll be pleasantly surprised.

If we're comparing to modern medicine, ML in safety critical applications is yet to reach penicillin, and people talking about the equivalent of personalised designer drugs and nano-robots when they hopium has kicked in.

It's unfortunately still science fiction, and we don't know when we'll get there.

Most personally owned cars will have a, perhaps retractable, steering wheel for a foreseeable future. I need to use my car to put my boat into water once a year. That is something AV's won't do in my lifetime.

My position after listening to the earnings call last night is that 2024 is the new 2019 and nothing has changed.

 

[QtownTaxiGreg]

Make a computer smart enough to accurately interpret stereo 2D images and it's All On Like Donkey Kong to develop the driving algorithms.

 

[spacecoin]

Make a computer smart enough to accurately interpret stereo 2D images and it's All On Like Donkey Kong to develop the driving algorithms.

I think we've been in that phase for quire a while and DK is still not rocking it. Perception isn't the main problem anymore (if you have sufficient sensing). The main challenge is to reach the reliability and guarantees needed for safety-critical applications in a larger and larger operational domain. Waymo has been on the "march of nines" for ten years.

A computer is sort of already "smart enough to accurately interpret stereo 2D images" most of the time. The challenge is to do it with high enough precision and reliability in non-optimal conditions such as fog, rain, snow, low sun conditions, when blinded by other vehicles et.c.

 

[JulienW]

It seems Wall Street is VERY happy to hear (at least as of now) that Tesla is no longer abandoning (or delaying) a 100% sure fire money making "Model 2" over aspirational robotaxies. I'm also happy too. Want Tesla to prove everyone wrong (including me somewhat) and produce a robotaxie in a couple of years BUT in the meantime make a car that will likely sell in the millions world wide.

 

[HitchHiker71]

It seems Wall Street is VERY happy to hear (at least as of now) that Tesla is no longer abandoning (or delaying) a 100% sure fire money making "Model 2" over aspirational robotaxies. I'm also happy too. Want Tesla to prove everyone wrong (including me somewhat) and produce a robotaxie in a couple of years BUT in the meantime make a car that will likely sell in the millions world wide.

Given they also announced the start of the rideshare network using manned vehicles just like Uber/Lyft today, the more Tesla vehicles (as well as any third parties who buy the FSD licensing that was also discussed) will be on the road to support the supervised rideshare network until unsupervised rideshares actually become feasible - whether it's one year or 10 years. Seems like a prudent path forward. It's also obvious that the unboxed manufacturing process is not as far along as originally indicated, since the product comments indicate this nextgen manufacturing method will eventually be introduced in entirety only as part of the robotaxi manufacturing line yet to be built. Meanwhile, Tesla will reportedly borrow certain improvements from these nextgen processes and use them on existing manufacturing lines to further improve COGS - and also apparently introduce new models using this same approach - on existing lines somehow. Perhaps given demand for existing models is waning - they will repurpose some lines for the new models? The details on this were a bit fuzzy to me at least - especially with regard to what Tesla meant by actually accelerating go-to-market for new less expensive models. That said, overall I felt the Tesla investors call yesterday was actually one of the better run calls over the past few years. Now it's time to deliver though.

 

[mborkow]

It seems Wall Street is VERY happy to hear (at least as of now) that Tesla is no longer abandoning (or delaying) a 100% sure fire money making "Model 2" over aspirational robotaxies. I'm also happy too. Want Tesla to prove everyone wrong (including me somewhat) and produce a robotaxie in a couple of years BUT in the meantime make a car that will likely sell in the millions world wide.

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I think it’s a lot of short-sellers hedging their bets.

 

[diplomat33]

Not sure if anyone noticed this but in the earnings call, Elon dubbed the robotaxi vehicle the "cybercab". Does that hint that the vehicle will have a cybertruck type look?

 

[jabloomf1230]

Not sure if anyone noticed this but in the earnings call, Elon dubbed the robotaxi vehicle the "cybercab". Does that hint that the vehicle will have a cybertruck type look?

Although it makes sense to co-opt as much of an existing design as possible, I would think that the weight and passenger capacity of the robotaxi would dictate which existing Tesla model would serve as the template for the robotaxi. If the robotaxi is a smaller wheelbase vehicle, then it would draw from the Model 3. If it is larger, than possibly the Cybertruck would be the basis.

I haven't read anywhere as to definitely whether stainless steel exterior panels are less expensive to manufacture than painted metal, but if they are, the Cybertaxi could look like the CT.

 

[diplomat33]

I haven't read anywhere as to definitely whether stainless steel exterior panels are less expensive to manufacture than painted metal, but if they are, the Cybertaxi could look like the CT.

Yeah, I am thinking the cybertaxi will look like the CT. But I hope I am wrong because I personally find the CT to be a very ugly vehicle.

 

[Joey D]

As a Tesla shareholder, I hope Cyber Taxi has a unique look. (Doesn't matter if it is "like cybertruck" or not to me..just that it's unique, and will be readily identified as "A Tesla Robotaxi." What matters for the taxi is that Inside it meets / exceeds passenger expectations for comfort and flexibility.

When you hail an Uber today...as a passenger you don't really care what it "looks" like. You just want it to show up, be comfortable, and efficiently get you to your destination.

Tesla will WANT people to identify the Robotaxi as "A Tesla".

As a consumer product....polarizing exterior aesthetics are risky. But as a fleet operator who is serving rides to customers? What really matters is durability, cost efficiency, and customer comfort.

 

[DrChaos]

Make a computer smart enough to accurately interpret stereo 2D images and it's All On Like Donkey Kong to develop the driving algorithms.

The perception has already been there for a while. There's a huge tremendous road from there to L4 autonomy with adequate performance and safety

 

[enemji]

This RoboTaxi will be a Model Y with HD radar.

‘nuf said