Anybody know why the autonomous taxi isn't just a model 3?
I don't see the point in a purpose built two seater with no steering wheel or pedals and I don't know why regulators would approve an autonomous car with no way to manually override it.
I don't see the point in a purpose built two seater with no steering wheel or pedals and I don't know why regulators would approve an autonomous car with no way to manually override it.
2 seater - smaller car
No wheels or stuff - saves money on the build and parts.
And people are creatures of habit and highly social so version 1 of robotaxis will 100% look like normal cars. Regardless of whatever benefits you can come up with on paper. Once it's normalized then you experiment.
He can't even to FSD in a 2.4 mile TUNNEL after years
It seems certain they’ll correct that with their massive expansion coming
For human drivers were a little overkill with no real advange besides parking in small spaces) but they would be probably more usefull.
But the fact that they are a little too complex remains, maybe making them semi standardized and modular would help
There is logic in this design being cheaper to manufacture but I would think that it would be a long while before you "broke even", so to speak, compared to using a design that you already know exactly how to make.
He said in the video it's cheaper through the economics of reuse, not through it being cheap itself
If people are willing to pay extra for comfort and style already, why would they stop?
I feel like so much of this discourse is dominated by people who hate cars. Most people like their cars! That's why they bought them.
Maybe easier to clean, or wash out vomit, or even warn of forgotten items.
Now speculating for the moment, from Elon perspective you probably want things to be more cyberpunky as that is how future looked in his childhood and he is trying to build it. Also, engineers / designers were likely mandated to handle all of the maintenance and possibly production by Tesla Bots.
sort of Kentucky Fried Movie style :)
Groovy ;)
1. What is important for a vehicle optimized for large scale robotaxi fleet from manufacturing and operational perspectives.
2. What is important for me if I get an into autonomous vehicle.
People are starting to wake up to the (shitty) new reality that Big Tech created for us. The cynical nature is just the natural reaction to a serial grifter becoming the world's richest man.
I don't think anyone but the most naive actually believes anything in this PR piece will come to market.
But sure, your Tesla has a good infotainment system so that's cool.
Surely they should be using facebook, that's already proven to be great at helping with genocides
The simple fact is that Musk is a bad actor, an asshole with a huge ego, with a history of over promising and under delivering.
Is it so surprising to you that the supremely-unlikeable boy who cried wolf is being met with cynical skepticism?
BYD sold 131k in 2020, 321k in 2021, 911k in 2022, 1.6million in 2023, and in 2024 q1: 300k q2: 444k q3: 443k, total: 4.15 million
The Zeekr vehicle they're testing now, and presumably the Hyundai they're starting to develop, will have self-closing doors.
[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...
Tesla sold a bunch of cars to Hertz which turned out to be terrible for Hertz, but great for Tesla.
They very much care if they are selling their cars to an entity that is striving to make them irrelevant.
Think about it: If the world moves to a car sharing system where any type of car is available on demand and no one actually owns a car, do you think anyone will actually give one hoot about the badge on the front of the car? That puts manufacturers into the worst possible business model. Competing solely on price...ie a commodity.
So the manufacturers will either not want to work with them, give them whatever junk they can't sell and then tell them to go away...or they expect to get something big in return maybe like some technology sharing or a exclusive partnership.
Why else has Waymo partnered with the bottom of the barrel OEMs up to this point? Why not a Toyota or a Mercedes or hell even get the good cars from the OEMs they have partnered with?
They’re one of the few companies mass-manufacturing affordable EVs in the US.
Toyota doesn’t make many EVs and none in the US? Mercedes doesn’t make affordable cars in general?
Waymo is clearly focused on cost reduction and EVs. Hyundai is clearly focused on selling as many Ioniq 5s in the US they possibly can (and most to consumers directly!). I don’t know, seems pretty clear cut to me.
I also don’t see any future in which Waymo builds a metaplant?
What does one have to do with the other? The I-Pace was built in Austria. They dont seem to care about where it was built.
>Toyota doesn’t make many EVs and none in the US? Mercedes doesn’t make affordable cars in general?
The Chrysler Pacifica was a gas powered vehicle, The I-Pace had a starting MSRP of ~70k. They didn't seem to care about propulsion method or cost of vehicle either.
What they do have in common is that they were both poorly selling cars made by manufacturers that were desperate to sell.
>Waymo is clearly focused on cost reduction and EVs. Hyundai is clearly focused on selling as many Ioniq 5s in the US they possibly can (and most to consumers directly!). I don’t know, seems pretty clear cut to me.
Any evidence to prove this assertion?
Going back to my previous comment I mentioned that an OEM could want to partner with them if they got something meaningful out of the deal. Seems like thats what Hyundai is getting: Waymo Tech transfer/possibly an exclusivity agreement.
>I also don’t see any future in which Waymo builds a metaplant?
I never said or implied that they would.
Waymo optimizing for cost: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/08/meet-the-6th-generation-waymo...
Circling back to my point, this does not really explain why they are partnering with Waymo. Waymo is a rounding error in sales for Hyundai.
If Waymo was solely focused on cost, then they should have stuck with the pacifica which is cheaper or gotten something even cheaper like a Toyota. It makes no sense to go with Hyundai which is not even the cheapest for the features that it offers(compared to id 4, Niro EV, Hell even Kona EV). It is a smaller car compared to the Pacifica and the i-Pace and is far less equipped in terms of comfort and space.
We dont even know if they specifically wanted to go with an EV. Thats just something you just asserted without evidence.
It sure seems like their self-imposed constraint is EVs. Their goal beyond that is cost reduction. It seems like the actual key right now might be volume:
“The team at our new manufacturing facility is ready to allocate a significant number of vehicles for the Waymo One fleet as it continues to expand. Importantly, this is the first step in the partnership between the two companies and we are actively exploring additional opportunities for collaboration.”
https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/waymo-and-hyundai-enter-partn...
but to your point, Hyundai may see this as an opportunity for “future collaboration” to get autonomous driving tech into their vehicles. But selling a “significant number of vehicles” is also very much in Hyundai’s interest.
If Hyundai was making the Niro or Kona EV in the US, then they may have been an option, but they’re not. They are not eligible for the tax credit. Toyota won’t make EVs here until 2025 or 2026.
The ID.4 would meet that criteria, though, and I wonder if Waymo considered going with Volkswagen.
Again given their strange choices in the past and their backpedaling on previous initiatives (having Chrysler produce special Pacificas and then going back to retrofitting them by hand themselves, going from commiting to purchasing 65k pacificas to NOT purchasing 65K Pacificas, getting Magna to go a custom design of the iPace for them to not having them do a custom design) I dont see this as a deal that Hyundai got into without major concessions.
>The ID.4 would meet that criteria, though, and I wonder if Waymo considered going with Volkswagen.
If my theory is correct I suspect they are not getting a warm reception from many manufacturers and they have to pick whatever they can get. I'd imagine their ideal company is Toyota. They have experience with those cars from the early days, they make cars that can help minimize downtime due to their reliability and costs can be reduced. There is a reason so many taxis are prisues. Why not apply that common sense cost savings to Waymo's fleet?
The upward opening doors will also be able to open anywhere, and for anyone, even with canes or bags/luggage.
It's so Enron Musk can say it's still 2 years away.
The point of this presentation was not to spell out technically how they are going to accomplish this. Agreed, a fleet of model 3s would work great.
The point of this presentation was to look like a cool visionary tech company that is going to change the world, to justify that your Market cap is now larger than EVERY OTHER MAJOR AUTOMAKER COMBINED!
Same reason the prototypes need to look like they were lifted from Blade Runner.
With all the changes you would have to do to M3, its basically a new car.
This Robotaxi will have all the drive-by-wire architecture of the Cybertruck. The new electronics architecture and Ethernet bus. And things like wireless charging.