robotaxis

It's going to be a disaster. Tesla "FSD" is glorified cruise control on level 2 on the autonomous driving scale.

semi

It's already a disaster. The economics don't add up and the few on the road break down all the time.

Good riddance. Nazis dont deserve to be rewarded. They deserve the worse of the worse.

The interesting thing is, Tesla is perhaps the most obvious and extreme example, but they’re not the only auto manufacturer this is happening to right now. Nissan is in a bit of a tail spin as well.

There are so many problems slamming in to the auto industry right now. Even beyond the tariff instability.

In the US in particular, As cars have gotten more reliable and longer lasting, the market for new “budget” cars has dried up. Car buyers who might have once bought budget are now buying used cars that probably have a good many years left. The sales of new cars have been declining since 2016 but new car price have been skyrocketing, keeping up revenue growth for automakers.

This seemed ideal for automakers as it meant they could drop the lean margins of cheap cars and focus on higher margin markets, which looked much better to shareholders. Those companies that focused on this budget market have suffered, the best example being Nissan. The ideal for automakers is that people will buy “up” the value chain over time, buying higher end or “less used” vehicles when they trade in their old vehicle, going from a twice used, to a once used and eventually to a new car.

This kind of came to a head during the pandemic. Not only was the supply of lower end used vehicles dwindling as less and less entered the market due to less being made a few years back, there was also a shortage of new cars due to supply chain break downs and an increase in demand. Many people were taking out insane financing on massively over priced cars, both new and used. Now a lot of people are underwater on those auto loans from the pandemic because the trade-in/sales price is less way than what they have left on the loan. Many are also defaulting on those insane pandemic auto loans and their repossessed cars are ending up back on the market, increasing supply in the used market.

Many who are underwater on their auto loans but can still make payments can’t afford to make even larger payments, so rolling over the principle from the last loan into a new loan on another car is impractical. So they aren’t buying, let alone moving up the market to buy new or higher end. The demand being suppressed in the used market and the supply being bolstered by repos means used prices are massively depressed. This depressed used market carries over to the new market in turn, as most people buying new probably couldn’t afford to do so without trading in their old car, so a depressed used market hurts their purchasing power. Why would someone buy a new car when the only new one the could afford is probably worse than the existing car.

Tesla is getting a lot of focus because of the political entanglement of their high profile CEO, but the whole industry is under strain. Nissan is frantically looking for buyers to help them out of the debt hole they’re in, and groups like Stellantis (owners of Chrysler, Fiat, Jeep, Ram and Dodge) are desperately chasing new revenue streams as absurd as ads in the central console.

Not a single tesla vehicle has ever been profitable as an actual vehicle.

This honestly couldn't be further from the truth.

Tesla's vehicles once ramped have always been extremely profitable (except probably the CyberTruck as it hasn't properly ramped due to low demand)

Any losses you see are due to their aggressive growth involving capital expenditures and research and development. It's not that the vehicle isn't profitable.

The ZEV credits are just bonus money that they can then leverage to expand faster.

Edit: If you want to try and see this another way that might make sense... The Model S and X were very profitable, but they didn't make enough money to fund the expansion for the Model 3 and Y. Ditch the Model 3 and Y, and remain a boutique luxury car company, and they would posted profits instead of losses. It wasn't the cars losing money, it was the growth. The ZEV credits accelerated that growth immensely by giving them more breathing room.

I tried fsd demo this spring and it’s getting pretty good. I wouldn’t use it but it was perfect on well marked roads. The thing is it made me realize just how poorly maintained our roads are and everything is an edge case. For example it didn’t stay in lane at one Intersection but the intersection was a weird offset plus the lines were all faded away. Although I also disnt give it any chance to recover so I suppose it could have been ok: Im not risking it not recovering

It might surprise everyone but mostly by staying in a well maintained well mapped area, like Waymo did. There’s no way it fulfills the claim of self-driving everywhere without more improvements

The robots is will have the next generation computer and higher resolution cameras which may help. However that also allows more overhead for the next ai update

You have just argued against the article itself. Should we believe you?

I get what you mean but it's still stuck at level 2 and it always will be. No matter how good it is, if you move your eyes from the road, it will eventually kill you. Cameras alone are not sufficient enough for autonomous driving.

Cameras alone are not sufficient enough for autonomous driving.

I disagree with this assertion, because they’re correct that the only being that can currently drive is relying on vision. Vision alone is sufficient for driving.

But autonomous driving really hasn’t succeeded yet. We still have no idea what is required for autonomous driving or whether we can do it at all, regardless of sensors.

So you’re implying that we can definitely do autonomous driving but can’t do it the way humans do, whereas I say we won’t know the requirements until we find some that succeed, and we may never

Yeah sure. If you want the same bad results as humans deliver, in terms of crash rates, than it's possible. I wouldn't trust it. Also human vision and processing is completely different from computer vision and processing.

Presumably we have the intelligence to set requirements before something can be called self-driving - that’s usually what the fuss is about, whether the marketing is claiming it’s something it’s not.

If they fail with their approach, I’m fine with that, just like I’m fine if Waymo fails with their approach. Of either succeeds, why should I care how? Obviously there’s a problem if it runs over some old lady at a stop sign and drags them down the street but that’s clearly a failure for them

The Nazis actually made good cars. Tesla is all the worst parts without the good cars.

Volkswagens aren't that great but I get your point.

Presumably we have the intelligence to set requirements before something can be called self-driving

We already have that https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

...nah man, that's on the domestic dealers + automakers choosing not to market small affordable cars in favor of big profitable road-tanks, and it's not the first time they've priced themselves out of the market like this...

Volkswagens aren't that great but I get your point.

Not a single tesla vehicle has ever been profitable as an actual vehicle.

This honestly couldn't be further from the truth.

Tesla's vehicles once ramped have always been extremely profitable (except probably the CyberTruck as it hasn't properly ramped due to low demand)

Any losses you see are due to their aggressive growth involving capital expenditures and research and development. It's not that the vehicle isn't profitable.

The ZEV credits are just bonus money that they can then leverage to expand faster.

Edit: If you want to try and see this another way that might make sense... The Model S and X were very profitable, but they didn't make enough money to fund the expansion for the Model 3 and Y. Ditch the Model 3 and Y, and remain a boutique luxury car company, and they would posted profits instead of losses. It wasn't the cars losing money, it was the growth. The ZEV credits accelerated that growth immensely by giving them more breathing room.

Ah, so the actual reason for the loss is that they can't expand capacity without squandering vast amounts of money. That's much better.