I Visited The Tesla Diner. It Was A Bit Of A Disaster - Inside EV’s

You know you're in a cult when you visit a diner without getting food.

Tesla has its own radio station where Tesla drivers listen to someone telling them they have great taste in cars. It is a cult and these people are proud to be in it.

I kinda feel sad for people thinking Optimus will be a useful thing any time soon.

A disaster? Oh no. Who could have foreseen that?

What kind of reporter doesn’t try the food and uses the excuse of time? lol

[deleted]

A reporter who doesnt work the dining beat?

Love the guy trying to charge his Ioniq 6 who keeps getting errors on the app so can't even start a charge. All the Elongelicals keep claiming the software is the best part..... Oh and Optimus has failed already. So much winning.

But… but… the popcorn

Elon just claimed that soon they‘d make a billion of them for like 30,000 each. And in the comments they were like..oh…that’s quite a lot, maybe half is more realistic in the long run. Tesla won’t sell more than 10,000 Optimus in the next ten years. It’s a fucking dumb product, inferior to almost all other robots. They‘re already trying to pivot to the service industry because they’re absolutely useless in anything „production related“. Companies want a robot that does one task really fast, really well and all the time. Not a humanoid robot that needs charging every two hours and isn’t much better than a human. And in the service industry even, service robots are better because they’re not on two legs.

<MASSIVE CORN CLOG IN PORT SEVEN>

You're one sexy man, [[U/LITHIUMDEUTERIDE]].

I think you’re absolutely right 10,000 sounds like a reasonable number because it’s a novelty toy. In order to do anything useful, it probably needs to be tethered to a power supply and trained on one specific task. And I don’t see it navigating a home and doing things like taking out the trash, cooking meals, or doing your laundry. Also If this follows previous pricing estimates $30k is more like $55k. As if there are a billion people with $55k sitting around to blow on a toy. Even $30k is outside most people’s budget. Maybe he think we can just fire one of our maids to buy one.

If it does what it’s promised, it’ll probably see the same price change as a Cybertruck. Go from the promised $30k to $100k or more per robot.

Just the resources and logistics of building a complex machine a billion times in a year is insane. Things we can somewhat easily build a billion a year are like: plastic bottles, coffee pods, cans with drinks, etc. If they made a billion Optimus a year, they’d have to make like 32 Optimus **per second**. The whole year. No stoppage. No shutdown of a line. No part shortage of any kind. Totally delusional.

Optimus will likely fail but not because it isn't a good idea. > Companies want a robot that does one task really fast, really well and all the time. This is how robotics has functioned for a long time because universal robotics was not possible. Note that many of these companies employ humans because there are a large number of tasks that it doesn't make sense to have a single purpose robot for. There is a strong market need for a robot that can do nearly everything. The problem for Tesla is that we still aren't there yet. We will be in 20 years. Maybe even 10 years, but not in 2025. Even if we solved most of the problems by 2030, it wouldn't make sense to scale up production because we would be making advancements are too high of a rate. I don't think it is a bad move that Tesla is trying to build humanoid robots. They are learning quite a bit, but it is a mistake if their business strategy is built around success in the next year or two.

It's just like the cyber truck. Elon will never understand that the number of people in this world who share his vision of coolness AND who have that kind of money to throw away on a novelty is very small.

“Move fast and break things“ is the ethos I want for someone preparing my food

We‘ve seen it at my company, while the older devices we‘ve built had to be partly hand assembled the newer ones are almost exclusively built by a long automated production line. Much like in car production if you already take automation into account when designing the production line you can forego the humanoid robots doing tasks.

I kinda feel sad for people thinking Optimus will be a thing ever. Optimus will never be a real product for sale. It will never make Tesla a dollar, other than a hype piece to pump their shitty meme stock. If Tesla ever manages to build a working, deployable unit, its uptime will be measured in minutes. Disney animatronics will be more reliable than an Optimus. Seriously, why do you think they had that "influencer event" with supposed Optimi walking around, talking to people, serving drinks, etc. Now that the shitty "Diner" is open, all they can manage is a remote operated torso sort of crappily serving popcorn at a snail's pace? Come on. What happened? Where's the untethered, popping, locking, dancing b-boy robot from the Twitter videos with beyond human speed and dexterity? It's all a giant con.

Humanoid is a stupid form factor for a robot. It's like thinking airplanes should have flappy wings. Even the Jetsons figured it out and gave Rosie tracks. But hey, humans drive with eyesight so we just need two cameras. Humanoid just reeks of that same "logic".

*"If it does what it’s promised"* Yeah. That's pretty much the most unlikely thing that will ever happen, in line with his other ridiculous proposals. I love the optimism though.

Humanoid is useful form factor because it is designed to replay human workers and operate in environments build for the human form.

This is the same math that makes him think that Robotaxis will earn 3X their purchase price or that Tesla will be a 10trillion dollar company on the backs of robotaxis and Optimus robots.

Wait really ? How do you access it?

I think you are right. Costing as much as a car, who will buy it and why, has never been properly articulated. It has a novelty factor. Beyond that, I can’t see anybody saying, I totally rely upon my Optimus, and I simply cannot do without it. What makes people think that a useful device needs to look like a human being? We are not machines, but we probably need flexible and efficient machines to do what we can already do, and a lot more. For example, why does it need legs to move? Why not wheels, which are more efficient and faster, when it comes to move from A to B. Also, why only two hands? Why not multiple hands to do multiple jobs at the same time. May be arms that extend, unlike human arms, for longer reach. Making it look like a human, is only playing on people’s emotions, to make it look acceptable. Beyond that, it is not necessarily the best form for a robot.

Segway unit sales are probably a good predictor of the Optimus. Similarly hyped, eventually relegated to very niche industry (city tours). Segway sold about 140,000 units from 2001 to 2020 when it was discontinued. Segways were one-sixth the cost though inflation might put that closer to a quarter, but I bet in classic Elon style the first Optimus bots will be $45-60K and the $30k will be coming soon.

Two arms and symmetry? And if everything is going to be robots why build for the human form? Six legs, wheels, tracks for the win.

I don't.

I think Optimus is way behind but there are a bunch of companies working on humanoid robots, for good reason. Companies want a robot that does one task, when they have one task that has to be done all day. It's not efficient to have the robot sitting idle. Companies still have lots of humans in factories because there are lots of tasks that aren't done enough to justify a specialized robot. If you have a general-purpose robot, then you can automate those tasks too. If you want a robot that does lots of different tasks currently done by humans, then the one form factor you know will work is a humanoid robot. Aside from efficient utilization in a factory, there's a cost factor. The more of something you build, the cheaper it gets. If you build a billion robots all the same, then each one will be very cheap. If we make a billion robots, they'd better be humanoid, because all our tools and infrastructure are built for humans. I think Tesla is behind because for all their supposed expertise in AI, every impressive-looking Optimus demo has been remote controlled by a human. Also a report came out recently saying they were having problems with battery life, motors overheating, and durability. They put someone new in charge of Optimus, but the new boss is a software guy, implying their software problems are even worse. Meanwhile, Figure showed two robots autonomously cooperating to follow verbal instructions, and a company in China has humanoids that can swap out their own batteries.

I agree. There are so many problems with the whole concept. One is that our bodies self-repair. Even if you could otherwise get these things working, they'll keep failing, and the whole thing will have to be carted off to a repair shop. Then there is cleaning. Think what will happen if you get one to peel and chop carrots for example. Bits of peel will get into the joints. Who is going to clean it, and how? Save one minute by getting it to chop a carrot for you, then spend fifteen trying to clean the thing with a toothbrush? Same problem with so many kitchen gadgets to be honest. But the real problem is the AI. So it's chopping a carrot. The cat jumps up onto the work top. What happens next? How does it respond to the cat? Does it chop off its paw? Or your fingers when you then try to rescue the cat? At least when FSD screws up the customer is generally inside a steel cage protected by airbags, even if others might be at greater risk outside. Back to our carrot-chopping cluster-fuck scenario, and now the cat is being dismembered, and the customer is on the wrong end of a knife! Perhaps you are over-pessimistic, though. He might be able to train some to do not-a-sieg-heil-salutes and sell them to Richard Spencer to greet visitors to his secret lair.

Ketamath

If Elon didn’t exist they’d probably two disjoint sets, but they are both small numbers of people to begin with - I suspect Elon especially overestimates the number of people in the “share his vision of cool” set.

Backwards compatibility and path dependency. No one upgrades all at once unless they are building from scratch.They hadd robots to a factory, then they upgrade the factory, then they add new robots.

Factory? Who would use humanoid robots in a factory. That's specialized and not general purpose. And they already have robots in factories and have for at least the last forty years. Why would you use robots that are more expensive and worse at assembly?

For all the stuff you use people for. Obviously not in a lights out environment.

Tesla designers are just paid to have fun, however, the CEO and the fan boys are all completely delusional. There is no reality in anything that is being reported. Even this Samsung deal will eventually prove to be a bust. End of story.

Could be good for scrambled eggs…

You can now buy a humanoid robot that can do cartwheels for less than $6,000 from China. Today. Delivery in about a week.

I don't understand who is designing these supposed Tesla chips. You need a massive department of a company just to do the design. What do the chips go into? That's another huge task, packaging the chips. I thought Tesla just used off the shelf cheap tablets in its cars.

I believe they “design” their own custom chips for the cars and potentially for other future products like robots. The designing can be done in a variety of ways and much of it can be outsourced. It’s actually not a big deal. Many companies do it to have the chips perform special tasks at higher speed. Tesla is not selling these to anyone and never will. Some people speculating they could, another lie, they will NEVER be like an nvidia. I said Samsung deal will be a bust because it’s an early stage commitment to build chips for a company that has declining car revenues and pie in the sky unrealistic dreams of massive robot production.

> And in the service industry even, service robots are better because they’re not on two legs. It's kind of crazy that even the "it's designed for the human world", you could still build more reliable locomotion for a human's world than a human's two legs. Committing to a human shape is really just nonsense.

> And I don’t see it navigating a home and doing things like taking out the trash, cooking meals, or doing your laundry. Unless we start standardizing what homes look like, there's basically zero percent chance any time in probably my lifetime that a humanoid robot is washing my dishes and putting them away. We already have great robots that wash dishes. Dishwashers. One useless Optimus could buy you your entire house of specialized robots including unusual ones like lawnmowers.

Calculating a rate puts you way ahead of Musk already. Just like the insistence Tesla would produce 20 million cars. It's a number that makes no sense really and apparently even 2 is a massive reach now, but the ketamine kid just picked it for no real reason but it was big.

It's kind of interesting because his idea of "coolness" is really just a regurgitation of the sci fi media he consumed as a kid. Which a lot of people do like. He just combines it with ultra cringy "jokes" and all the lying and assholishness that's the real turn off. The core messages of 60s sci fi apparently never actually made it into the ketamine kid's skull.

> Now that the shitty "Diner" is open, all they can manage is a remote operated torso sort of crappily serving popcorn at a snail's pace? I think it's hilarious even the popcorn server is teleoperated. This is the work of what Musk constantly claims is the world's leading AI / robotics company?

>It’s actually not a big deal. Designing chips is a huge deal, in fact. as is packaging the chip into a device. I suspect these supposed Tesla chips don't really exist. The cars just have Ali Express tablets glued to the dashboards from what I've heard and seen.

>It’s a fucking dumb product, inferior to almost all other robots. They‘re already trying to pivot to the service industry because they’re absolutely useless in anything „production related“. Companies want a robot that does one task really fast, really well and all the time. Exactly right. I'm an industrial mechanic who works for a massive snack food company. Production is largely automated with purpose built machines. Cases of product go the warehouse and are loaded onto skids by purpose built machines. We've got effectively two warehouses and an entire shipping system that are almost entirely automated with ... purpose built machines. That doesn't leave much room for Elon's "I, Robot" wannabe. Maybe shipping? Nah. Company has sunk millions into purpose built trailer loader/unloader robots and, at least for the moment, said it's not worth it. Actual human beings are better at it and far cheaper. Well ... maybe picking individual products to package and send out for businesses who don't order a whole fucking pallet of chips? No. Fuck no lol. I'd be amazed if we're within a decade of a humanoid robot that could do that. Nevermind do it as well as an actual human and for less money. Because at the end of the day all these companies care about is what it costs to get shit out the door.

[deleted]

It will be as useful as Supervised FSD for Autonomous FSD.

You're right! So if the company that makes Optimus is worth $20 trillion, the companies making dishwashers and food processors must be worth quadrillions! Whirlpool Corp to the moon!

People have been making automation for a long time. They don't make human shaped autonomous devices because there is not need to. fElon is just stupid and has so many stupid followers. The novelty act or serving drinks was done 25 years ago. If there was any utility to it and it actually saved the bar anything - every bar would have one.

The disaster being that the lines are to long isn't really what I was hoping for--I was hoping for only a handful of customers. Maybe after the novelty wears off and people realize that it's bad food and service for high prices. Except that the cult members who are willing to put hundreds of thousands into buying stock in a failing company would really balk at spending $20 on a lousy meal.

That vlog was useless (other than finding out the robot was broken)

It took Apple 9 years to sell a billion iPhones and Toyota has only sold just past 50 million Corollas. Do with that information what you will.

Grok says they will need 50-100 factories to reach this production, none of which have broken ground yet.

The prevailing excuse made my fangirls on Twitter is that since the world is designed around humans, the best solution is a humanoid robot. The TAM is factories where humans do repetitive tasks.

Even with a 100 factories, this would mean 1 Optimus every 3 seconds. Round the clock. At 100 locations.

Sure the dude is a bit soft. A little diarrhea ain’t gonna kill you these days.

Tesla people are soooo weird. I can't imagine any corporation being part of my identity.

Just like their entire line of 'cars'. Shitty cheap materials put together by seemingly drunk toddlers.

A billion a year. An important distinction :)

I read a reviewer saying when he finally got in, there was tons of empty seats.. so the line seems manufactured either cuz the kitchen can't handle it or to try to act like a night club

The Wafflebot from Harold and Kumar is infinitely more useful.

I can't drive a car I'm disabled I'd rather have a optimist robot

The only reason you need a human-shaped robot is if it's specifically needed to interact with the same things that humans do. Optimus is "designed" to interact with the world in the same way as a human so it does make sense that a general-use robot like that would be humanoid. If they could pull it off, it'd be revolutionary because it wouldn't be limited in what it could interact with, no more than a human is anyway. But given their track record that seems highly unlikely....

You eat at McDonald’s my guy

Yeah, I didn't get it either. Tesla-sceptics would obviously dismiss the whole thing just because of that $13 Tesla Burger and $12 'Epic Bacon' side-dish (see Rolingstone for the review), but even the Musk fanboys/gals would hate it as well due to it being totally disappointing and abusive at this point. It's an odd cult indeed.

I was around there I’d visit it like going to watch a train wreck. Sure, you might be poisoned by chemicals, but at least I can say I was there! I’m not waiting 4 hours for a burger with a broken down robot tho