Image Source: Pexels

Tesla (TSLA) is hammered after hours on a much weaker than expected earnings report. In addition, Musk delayed his announcement on robotaxis from August 8 until October.

Earnings Fall Short

CNBC reports Tesla Reports 7% Drop in Auto Revenue as Earnings Fall Short of Wall Street Estimates

Revenue increased 2% from $24.93 billion a year earlier, Tesla said in an investor deck on Tuesday. But automotive revenye dropped 7% to $19.9 billion from $21.27 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Auto revenue included regulatory credits of $890 million, more than triple the figure from last year.

CEO Elon Musk said, in opening remarks on Tuesday’s earnings call that Tesla will host a robotaxi unveiling event on Oct. 10 Originally, he said the event would take place on Aug. 8.

Musk was asked in the Q&A portion of the call when shareholders can expect “the first robotaxi ride.”

“I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year,” Musk said, after first noting that his predictions have been “overly optimistic in the past.”

We have heard Musk promise full self driving “next” year, every year for at least 8 years.

Flashback January 10, 2016

In ~2 years, summon should work anywhere connected by land & not blocked by borders, eg you're in LA and the car is in NY

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2016

In about 2 years you will be able to summon your car to drive to you.

Apparently, a Tesla would know how to charge its battery by itself when summoned from LA to NY.

1,000,000 Robotaxis by 2020

This is why it’s possible for Tesla to have a million robotaxis by end of 2020 if we upgrade existing HW2 fleet of ~500k & make at least ~500k FSD cars

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2019

Robotaxi Unveil

Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024

April 8, 2024: MishTalk

My Reply: Tesla’s Robotaxi August Launch Will Be More Elon Musk Vaporware

On August 8, Elon Musk will make an announcement on robotaxis. Tesla lags Waymo so badly that Musk is not even near the ballpark.

Technical Perspective

Here’s an interesting set of facts from Reddit.

The primary technical difference is that Waymo/Cruise use multiple sensor modalities: Lidar / radar / camera, while Tesla is camera only.

In a vision-only system it is much harder to (1) infer distance / depth of perception tracks, (2) have redundancy in the system, (3) validate using sim or otherwise that your system would do the right thing across a broad range of scenarios, simulating what cameras would see is more difficult.

Technicalities aside, Waymo/Cruise are L4 robotaxis, Tesla is an L2 driver assist for personally owned vehicles.

Another Reddit Comment

Tesla only uses cameras. The idea is to train the car to drive based just on what it seems with cameras, similar to how humans drive based on what we see with our eyes.

Tesla is now trying to do “end to end” which means training a single neural network to drive directly from video. Waymo uses a series of neural networks that are interconnected and trained separately.

The Tesla approach is a lot harder. For one, only using cameras and no detailed maps, means the car has no redundancy if the camera vision makes a mistake. This can be a problem since cameras can be blinded by the sun, occluded by objects or get dirty. And vision can make a mistake. It might misidentify an object or get a false positive or false negative.

That is one benefit of Waymo also using radar and lidar. Radar and lidar are active sensors, so they tend not to fail in the same way cameras do. And radar works great in rain or fog where cameras are less reliable. So having radar and lidar provides that secondary source to make your perception more reliable. And with more reliable perception, your car has better info to make decisions.

Translation

Musk wants to do this cheaply as possible and lags in technology because of it.

Levels of Driving Automation

Levels of Automation from Synopsis.

Musk and the Tesla cult claim that a camera-only system is better but drive results show otherwise.

Claiming superiority of L2 over L4 is a joke.

Robotaxi Demonstration Coming Up

Please note that Musk Plans Coast-to-Coast Self-Driving Demonstration by End of Next Year.

Also note the above story is from 2016.

Tesla plans to do a Los Angeles-to-New York drive “without the need for a single touch” by the end of 2017, Musk told reporters Wednesday on a conference call.

Musk Promises 50,000 EV Semis a Year

That won’t happen because there are 4 Million Semis on the Road But Only 35 Class 8 Truck EV Charging Stations

For the 5th year, Musk is hyping 50,000 electric semis without having a factory to produce them.

Electrek says Tesla’s giga factory is only about 30% complete and Tesla hasn’t expanded the facility for years.

Tesla Robotaxi Conclusion

The Tesla robotaxi is nothing more than vaporware and it will remain so as long as Musk remains committed to unsafe, stand-alone technology.

Tesla is many years behind Waymo.

Musk says “I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.”

I would be shocked if Musk ever delivers any promise within two years of making one.

More By This Author:

Existing Home Sales Drop 5.4 Percent But Median Price Hits New Record
Signs Of Severe Credit Card And Auto Loan Stress In Generation Z
Three Top Reasons Mortgage Delinquencies Are Rising