Tesla’s The June launch of the long-awaited “Robotaxi” requires a lot of qualifiers: it is supervised, open to only a few invitees and includes between 10-20 cars.
this Stocks jumped On the second day after launch, some participants and observers called it a success. Since then, stocks have given this gain to a large extent.
“I think it’s all very smooth. Everything we see,” said Dan Ives, a Wadebush analyst. “It’s not just from a safety perspective. The mobility is impressive. I think it’s actually better than Waymo’s coming out of the gate. I think that’s 8 out of 10. I think it’s 10 out of 10 relative to our experience.”
Other experiences are less smooth: a car in The wrong side On the road, a car parked in the middle transportationone Suddenly brake On the 40 mph street, another car descends in the middle of one intersection.
“Tesla released last Sunday was not a robot last Sunday,” said analyst Gordon Johnson, an analyst at Glj Research. “This is a robot baby and it needs constant supervision to stop it from hurting itself or others.”
Since 2016, CEO Elon Musk The Tesla, which has always had hope, is on the cusp of complete autonomy.
Tesla’s master plan part Deux envisions a future where every Tesla owner can “add your car to Tesla’s shared fleet by clicking a button on the Tesla Phone App and bring you income while you’re working or on vacation, and sometimes exceed monthly loan or rental costs.”
He said in October that all Tesla cars will have the hardware they need to drive completely autonomously.
He said that Tesla will have 1 million robots by 2020 in 2019.
So far, none of these predictions have been achieved. Many researchers and competitors have objected to Musk’s claim that Tesla already has all the hardware needed to fully autonomy.
Electric car manufacturers are taking the path of working with all other major companies towards fully autonomous vehicles. It does not use radar or lidar – laser-based equipment that maps the environment around a vehicle.
The company likes it letter’s Waymo and Amazon‘ Zamx Each uses radar and lidar. Instead, Tesla mainly uses cameras. Musk said he believes the software can make up for the difference.
“What I think is both frustrating and confusing within the self-driving car industry is that you know, everyone seems to be on the same page,” said Ed Niedermeyer, a journalist who has covered Tesla for years and has written a book on the company. “You talk to almost any major expert and they’ll say, what Tesla is doing is fun. It drives the technology forward in some ways. Is it? It’s like teaching a dog to drive. It’s really impressive if you can teach a dog to drive some small ways.
Another key difference is that Tesla has long been promoting what Niedermeyer calls a “general solution” to fully autonomous driving. This means every Tesla can drive in any situation anywhere in the world.
That’s almost what Musk said in Tesla’s second master plan: “When true autonomous driving is approved by regulators, it will mean you will be able to summon Tesla from anywhere.”
This presents a huge technical challenge.
“If your field of operations is the whole world, how do you get enough miles to know that you have covered everything you will see in all situations in the world?” Niedermeyer said.
Everyone else took the Waymo route – deploying the fleet of vehicles to a small inclusion area such as Austin, Texas, Phoenix and parts of San Francisco.
Tesla’s choice to deploy robots only in a portion of Austin instead of letting them roam around is one of the reasons Niedermeyer said the company kind of proves Waymo takes a more feasible approach.
“It’s funny because Tesla wants Austin to be a show, and the show shows, ‘Hey, like, we do that, we can do driverless, right?” “But, it’s actually doing it, Waymo has been right all the time.”
Musk still has fans and believers.
“Tesla is the future,” said Austin resident Darko Protich, who spoke to CNBC at a local coffee shop.
Protich said he owned several Teslas and rode similar self-driving cars from Waymo, and he said he became more and more fond of them after worrying. He has also ridden on robotic cars in China and has less confidence in these cars.
“They aren’t that safe,” Protich said. “They are smaller. But, honestly, I believe in Tesla.”
Another fan is Michael Simon from Buda, Texas.
“I just think what Elon is doing is amazing,” he said. “When I see the robot active, I think, I want to ride.”
Neither Protich nor Simon have ridden in the initial release model, but they both said they were looking forward to the opportunity.
“Elon has made a huge investment in the Austin area and if I was young and still working, I would definitely write a resume for Tesla, try to work for them and be part of that exciting technology and future,” Simon said.
