Elon Musk's Self-Driving Promises Are Getting Old
Elon Musk has been making lofty predictions about robotaxis and self-driving cars for nearly a decade. Is this time any different?
On Tesla's latest earnings call, Elon Musk made it very clear that self-driving cars and other forays into artificial intelligence will be the automaker's main focus going forward. Sure, he talked a bit about the mysterious new models Tesla plans to release next year, but he declined to elaborate on those plans when pressed. It was striking given that Tesla is, at the end of the day, a car company that makes most of its money selling cars.
More than ever, what Tesla's CEO really wanted to talk about were the company's efforts in purpose-built autonomous taxis, self-driving subscriptions and "sentient' robots.
Musk has preached basically the same buzzy goals and predictions around self-driving cars for the better part of a decade now. He just hasn't delivered on his promises.
Take Tesla's proposed enmtry into autonomous ride-hailing, for example. In Tue's earnings release, the automaker said it was working on a ride-hailing business. It shared some sleek previews of what that might look like in the Tesla app. On the call, Musk added that Tesla would operate its own fleet of robotaxis which would be supplemented by participating Tesla owners' self-driving vehicles. It would be like a fusion of Airbnb and Uber, he said.
It's a neat idea. But not a new one. Way back in 2016, Musk's "Master Plan, Part Deux" outlined the same thing. "You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app and have it generate income for you while you're at work or on vacation," the manifesto said.
He reiterated that vision in 2019 at Tesla's "Autonomy Day." He even showed off some renderings of ride-hailing in the Tesla app. "Next year, for sure, we will have over 1 million robotaxis on the road" he told investors. Clearly, that didn't happen.
The promise that Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" software, or FSD, would make its customers very rich once it's complete has been kicking around for years too. It's financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla,” Musk said in 2019, adding that each vehicle on the ride-hailing network could generate USD30,000 in annual profits. On Tue, he claimed that when Tesla beams out true self-driving capabilities to its fleet, that "might be the biggest asset-value appreciation in history."
Thousands of Tesla owners have shelled out up to USD15,000 for FSD over the years under the impression that the software would relieve them of the drudgery of driving sometime very soon. After all, that's what Musk has been saying. But FSD is still very much a work in progress.
On Tue, Musk hyped up Tesla's latest iteration of FSD, V12, and forecasted “a step-change improvement in the car" in "three to four months." That sounds encouraging, but also eerily similar to what Musk has been saying for a long, long time. For years, Tesla has supposedly been one mind-blowing software update away from cars that drive themselves without human intervention.
In 2016, Musk tweeted that you'd be able to summon a Tesla from across the country within two years. "Tesla Full Self-Driving will work at a safety level well above that of the average driver this year, of that I am confident," he tweeted in 2021.
Musk has claimed that FSD would be truly autonomous "this year" or "next year" so many times that it’s become a meme among those who follow the company closely. And yet, Tesla owners trying out FSD still aren't able to read a book or take a nap at the wheel in 2024. They need to closely supervise the software as it attempts to navigate the world. Because, as Tesla itself says in a disclaimer, FSD "may do the wrong thing at the worst time."
Creating safe autonomous vehicles is a wickedly difficult and expensive problem to solve. But it isn't impossible. Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, operates driverless Jaguars that ferry paying passengers around multiple American cities.
The holdup may be Tesla's approach, which some experts say is fundamentally flawed. Tesla is determined to save costs and make cars that drive themselves without the array of expensive sensors and highly detailed maps that autonomous-vehicle companies typically use. Musk thinks that if humans drive with eyes and a brain, then cars should be able to drive themselves anywhere using just simple cameras and AI. Many experts say a vision-only system will always be at a disadvantage compared to those that incorporate radar and lidar data.
And yet, the hype train barrels onward. Musk recently set a date in Aug for the reveal of Tesla's purpose-built robotaxi, which is expected to lack a steering wheel or pedals. He said on Tue that Tesla is in talks to license FSD to a major automaker. He will need to deliver something concrete on the self-driving front soon if he wants to convince the world that Tesla truly is an AI company - and not just another car manufacturer.
Maybe Tesla's forthcoming "Cybercab" really will compete with Waymo and Uber. But after all these years, anybody who's been paying attention has to wonder whether Musk's self-driving dreams will materialize anytime soon.
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Stock_Drift : It was the “more affordable” Tesla that I liked hearing. ??
bullrider_21OP Stock_Drift: I doubt Tesla can make a robotaxi, yet more affordable.
Stock_Drift bullrider_21OP: They said more affordable “car” not robtaxi
0218365 : Bro just dump your short already Jesus
bullrider_21OP Stock_Drift: They say they will unveil the robotaxi in Aug. Unveil means show the plans only. Actual launch could be many years away.
Skuba bullrider_21OP: Yes and they said the semi would be out in 2018 and 2019 and 2020 and so on. I don’t get why anyone takes anything Elon say seriously. His track record is horrid.
bullrider_21OP Skuba: Tesla bulls just follow him blindly. Everything is positive about Tesla.