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!

 

[kpanda17]

And it saves some resources currently used to produce cars that end up sitting stationary in parking spaces - but it does require some super-reliable autonomous technology, which is what the race is all about. And it's the level of this technology that determines the type of autonomy that a car can offer. Which is why if this presentation is just about a shockingly looking new car that still has HW4 then, frankly, it's not very relevant for that vision of the future that you present.

Let’s hope it’s the ecosystem demo and timeline all the way to a pilot city, Austin or Fremont, in 2024.
They’ll show the end to end experience, person’s day, they summon a vehicle with the app, their profile already set the music and climate for the arriving vehicle, it drives to them, takes them to their destination, drops them off, and they rehail another after their stop
In that experience, maybe there is a profound detail, such as pivoting seats going face to face with two people that converse, play a game/old style and analog such as Velcro checkers, or something else we all would like to do during a trip one day.
Remember Elon plays 4D chess, always outside the box in his thinking
Exciting possibilities

 

[aronth5]

How many potholes in your area? A major pothole developed in a freeway near me and there were lots of Tesla's disabled on the side of the freeway because of this.

Your making the assumption I think Tesla should implement L3 now. Not yet. There are still a few edge cases that need to be resolved. I live thru New England winters and haven't seen a highway pothole capable of disabling cars in the last few years. Of course doesn't mean it hasn't happened just that I haven't encountered one that bad. On City/Streets I've seen huge potholes and have complained a lot on these forums about them.

 

[aataskin]

Let’s hope it’s the ecosystem demo and timeline all the way to a pilot city, Austin or Fremont, in 2024.
They’ll show the end to end experience, person’s day, they summon a vehicle with the app, their profile already set the music and climate for the arriving vehicle, it drives to them, takes them to their destination, drops them off, and they rehail another after their stop
In that experience, maybe there is a profound detail, such as pivoting seats going face to face with two people that converse, play a game/old style and analog such as Velcro checkers, or something else we all would like to do during a trip one day.
Remember Elon plays 4D chess, always outside the box in his thinking
Exciting possibilities

But then this will be a totally empty presentation. All of this is so much easier to implement than autonomous driving, and all of this is so useless if the autonomous driving problem is not solved that it's not really interesting. I still hope there will be some kind of autonomous tech breakthrough announcement, otherwise it's just another sci-fi movie.

 

[JulienW]

Let’s hope it’s the ecosystem demo and timeline all the way to a pilot city, Austin or Fremont, in 2024.
They’ll show the end to end experience, person’s day, they summon a vehicle with the app, their profile already set the music and climate for the arriving vehicle, it drives to them, takes them to their destination, drops them off, and they rehail another after their stop
In that experience, maybe there is a profound detail, such as pivoting seats going face to face with two people that converse, play a game/old style and analog such as Velcro checkers, or something else we all would like to do during a trip one day.
Remember Elon plays 4D chess, always outside the box in his thinking
Exciting possibilities

Let's see what we can check off the list here:

• Fabing AI5 chips, HW5 subassemblies and camera hardware
• Building the line to make the Robotaxi on (much less starting production)
• Finishing and bring online the Robotaxi data center
• Developing and proving out a reliable L4 software stack

Actually it looks like NONE of the above.


Also I highly doubt Tesla will make another "it's not a pusher" video like they did in 2016.

 

[aronth5]

For those who enjoy a little nostalgia. Here is Tesla unveiling the battery swap video where they raced the battery swap in real time vs filling an Audi with gas. Was fun to watch 9 years ago. Just an example of how Tesla loves to surprise. Same for Semi and Roadster 1 unveiling. Feels like 8/8 could also have fun twist.

So besides unveiling the robotaxi vehicle I wouldn't be at all surprised if Tesla does a live demo of the end to end rob taxi experience just using a Model 3 or Model Y. However if they used the actual vehicle in some limited way I wouldn't be surprised. No matter what 8/8 should be entertaining.

 

[Dewg]

For those who enjoy a little nostalgia. Here is Tesla unveiling the battery swap video where they raced the battery swap in real time vs filling an Audi with gas. Was fun to watch 9 years ago. Just an example of how Tesla loves to surprise. Same for Semi and Roadster 1 unveiling. Feels like 8/8 could also have fun twist.

So besides unveiling the robotaxi vehicle I wouldn't be at all surprised if Tesla does a live demo of the end to end rob taxi experience just using a Model 3 or Model Y. However if they used the actual vehicle in some limited way I wouldn't be surprised. No matter what 8/8 should be entertaining.

People are so worried about batteries - the technology has evolved rapidly in just a few short years. Now there are major breakthroughs in Solid State batteries, with a few companies ready for testbed trials on short-range EVs. In a few more years we could be seeing Solid State batteries in EVs with charge rates in the single-digit minutes vs double-digits we have now.

Then we'll hopefully see improvements in wireless charging. You pull into work, or a shopping center, or your home garage, and park over a charging pad which just starts charging for you - no more plugs.

If too much time/money is spent with all this battery swap systems, that'll be wasted time/effort, just like all the natural gas stations that popped up, and then quickly began shutting down a year or two later.

 

[aronth5]

People are so worried about batteries - the technology has evolved rapidly in just a few short years. Now there are major breakthroughs in Solid State batteries, with a few companies ready for testbed trials on short-range EVs. In a few more years we could be seeing Solid State batteries in EVs with charge rates in the single-digit minutes vs double-digits we have now.

Then we'll hopefully see improvements in wireless charging. You pull into work, or a shopping center, or your home garage, and park over a charging pad which just starts charging for you - no more plugs.

If too much time/money is spent with all this battery swap systems, that'll be wasted time/effort, just like all the natural gas stations that popped up, and then quickly began shutting down a year or two later.

Remember the video was from 9 years ago. For awhile on this forum posts on this topic skyrocketed. Faded away once it became obvious battery swapping was not going to be a thing and Tesla let the topic die a slow death. Most owners agreed. It was a fun evening watching the race.

 

[ThomasD]

So they disconnected the cooling lines and connectors dropped the Battery Pack then installed the new Battery Pack and hooked up the cooling lines and electrical connectors in 3 minutes? That would be way better than sitting and charging. Why didn't this take off?

 

[stopcrazypp]

So they disconnected the cooling lines and connectors dropped the Battery Pack then installed the new Battery Pack and hooked up the cooling lines and electrical connectors in 3 minutes? That would be way better than sitting and charging. Why didn't this take off?

The costs and logistics to stock the batteries and also how to handle the battery ownership model (like if it was a rental model where on return trip you get your battery back, or do you keep the battery, in which case there is worry on both sides of getting a "bad" battery).

Better Place used a similar idea and failed. Nio so far is the most successful example, but they were heavily subsidized by local government. It remains to be seen if they can replicate and scale that in places that don't give them subsidizes.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a46010199/nio-battery-swap-stations-europe/

 

[diplomat33]

A new company called Verne, founded by Bugatti CEO Matt Rimac, showed off their prototype robotaxi which is also a 2 door car with no steering wheel. It will use Mobileye's L4. It looks eerily similar to the concepts of the Tesla robotaxi.

 

[enemji]

A new company called Verne, founded by Bugatti CEO Matt Rimac, showed off their prototype robotaxi which is also a 2 door car with no steering wheel. It will use Mobileye's L4. It looks eerily similar to the concepts of the Tesla robotaxi.

How good is Mobileye L4?

 

[diplomat33]

How good is Mobileye L4?

Sadly, we don't know since there are no stats. Mobileye does not do testing in CA so there is no CA DMV disengagement report. And Mobileye has not released any metrics that I know of. Mobileye did release the stat that Supervision on highways has a MTBF of 50 hours. But I think it is hard to extrapolate the MTBF of their L4 system from that. How do you go from highway MTBF to city street MTBF? SuperVision and Drive do share a lot of the same components but Drive has the extra radar and lidar. We don't know what effect the extra radar and lidar have on the MTBF or if Drive has more advanced software than SuperVision uses.

2 years ago, Mobileye did release this 40 mn demo of their L4:

 

[kabin]

A new company called Verne, founded by Bugatti CEO Matt Rimac, showed off their prototype robotaxi which is also a 2 door car with no steering wheel. It will use Mobileye's L4. It looks eerily similar to the concepts of the Tesla robotaxi.

They put some thought into making it a nice experience not just a utilitarian, bare bones money maker. It will be interesting to see how 8/8 compares.

 

[petercc9]

Less likely:

1. Would be cool if there was a center joystick option.
2. Sliding doors? Automatic doors makes robotaxi easier.

I think this is simply a basic requirement due to idiot passengers not closing the doors properly when they get out.
Sliding doors the easiest to control. Doors that open up or out more likely to be damaged.

hmm this makes me think the Model 3 or Y not possible to use.

A new company called Verne, founded by Bugatti CEO Matt Rimac, showed off their prototype robotaxi which is also a 2 door car with no steering wheel. It will use Mobileye's L4. It looks eerily similar to the concepts of the Tesla robotaxi.

Ah notice how they did indeed squeeze sliding doors onto a tiny car! I knew this would be a requirement