Tesla Announces RoboVan

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no mentioned launch date, it'll be another roadster

The part of it I liked the least is how he pronounced "Robovan". Don't like that. Don't like that at all.

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I just want a six seater Model y

20 people occupancy is mindblowing, ten trips 200 people It can go Lots of trips and you can string them together multiple easily providing a sustainable infrastructure transport for thousands of people with no upstart cost.

This whole thing was so disappointing. And I get the feeling most of this will be vaporware. I don't even know wtf Tesla is doing anymore these days.  I'm still waiting to see what the new model Y looks like and then I'll make my EV decision. But holy cow this was bad.

What a disaster.

At least they aren't taking $250k down payments lmao.

The Robovan—as an actual van one could buy today—would sell. Especially in Asia, versus Toyota Alphards. Alas, seems it's more likely to get used as point-to-point transit inside closed spaces (parks and convention centers and ... perhaps the Vegas Loop).

I absolutely love the design, though with the vibes surrounding musk it comes off more dystopian than hopeful art deco.

Don’t worry, that’s coming

I thought that was really funny tbh

The van is an incredible form factor but is ugly as shit

https://preview.redd.it/p4zdg5lax1ud1.jpeg?width=712&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d75255df7eae59674eb9932b2a7e4174406e9b97 ~~Simpsons~~ Futurama did it!

I see robovan getting popular in theme parks. Disney oh wait … Elon burnt that bridge

It doesn't look practical. The real world especially its road are not like Tron. The floor is too low to the ground. Will be very expensive to repair after a few scratches and blends from small potholes. I recall thinking that the Cybertruck, Model 3, Model Y, Model S, etc. were all practical even their concepts. [https://collider.com/tron-legacy-vehicles-featurette/](https://collider.com/tron-legacy-vehicles-featurette/)

Everything he talked about assumes that they easily solve full self driving with no interventions ever in the next few months. That’s what Elon has constantly predicted for the last ten years. They are getting closer, but they’re still very far from zero interventions in all circumstances.

I remember hearing the same thing about the cyber truck. In fact, if I had a dollar for every time I heard someone confidently proclaim they would never roll I could probably buy one.

It’s the paw-patroller!

Is Robovan trademarked or something? I get the feeling that’s the case. But anyway Robovun is NOT going to fly

if the ground clearance is a little better I would love to buy one and live or camp in it!

Can still be in Universal Studio

Cause Disney theme park transports make up so much of the market share, lol.

You mean Ro Bovan

I’d love to have one just travel the country while working my remote job. I really worry about range since no van has really accomplished a travel vehicles worth of range

remind's me of yuri's MCV from RA2: YR

It's for the tunnels.

“Three months maybe, six months definitely.”

way closer, 12.5 on my HW3 3 has been pretty incredible, the comfort factor is huge, haven't had a single intervention yet, still not perfect but it's way different from 12.3 from a butt clench factor

So was that the end of the event? Where do you click to pre order anything?!? The music is still playing in the live stream... Wtf is happening?!?

CyberBus but pronounce it like Cerebus

Too bad whatever they announce doesn’t matter

It’s almost as if it’s a small electric bus

Rehoboam

Felt like a loose reference to Westworld's super AI from season 3, [Rehoboam](https://westworld.fandom.com/wiki/Rehoboam). Only because the names sound vaguely familiar with the weird Robovan pronunciation.

It launched 2 years late for more than double the announced price and with much less range.

So like automated metro?

Clearly you have not seen current Disney people transportation system from parking to conference area / theme parks. It’s archaic and slow.

And high capacity cargo/people moving. But you will definitely see these in the tunnels in Vegas. Do people really think the solution to Vegas transit was drivers in model x and ys?

How do the wheels work if they’re behind the body?

Yeah and it was just “a car” did not require solving autonomous driving

See it as a trailer, imagine converting this to be able to live on it.. a house on wheels that can self drive anywhere

I’ve never been to Las Vegas, but from the sounds of things it should’ve just been a proper underground metro in the first place.

Toaster mobile..

What do you think still needs to improve, I haven’t used it since the trial and it wasn’t that good back then

Sort of looks similar to the tunnel van concept from a few years back...

Robovan exists in Asia it’s called LI Mega and it doesn’t sell well at all

Not really. That is a project which would never have gotten done. It's also not the same as city wide transportation.

Well then if Disney wants a solution, they can get over any gripes they have with musk and get the teslas like bezos and launching kuiper sats on falcon 9, otherwise they can keep their archaic system and Tesla won’t even care or notice the difference in their sales.

12.5.4 was super rough for me. Literally just got done downloading 12.5.4.1, I'll test it out and see if it resolves issues

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I'm on [12.5.4.1](http://12.5.4.1) for reference, i didn't get 12.5.4, think i went from 12.5.3 directly to [12.5.4.1](http://12.5.4.1) and i'm in canada

Robovan is a meh, as the design doesn't correlate with the Cybercab theme, it looks off and isn't as aesthetic pleasing as the rest of the Tesla vehicles. I think a tofu block with wheels would look more aethetic pleasing than this current design. Back to the drawing board perhaps.

To be fair, they’ve also never put this much into developing it. The leaps in fsd we’ve had in the last 6 months are more than the last several years combined. For whatever reason he’s really motivated to make fsd a top priority right now. Imagine if he’d done that since fsd was launched, he might have already been ready to go unsupervised.

Did they have a working prototype at least? For the roadster I remember them actually having a working car, but hey 6 years later seems like vaporware.

>For whatever reason he’s really motivated to make fsd a top priority right now. Well none of the vehicles announced this evening will function without FSD being extremely reliable. FSD to standard Y or 3 isn't a necessity but a convenience.

It only needs to work in areas that are designated for it. Transit systems are essentially the same route. The likely biggest issue will be bum deterrent. A bum can stand in front of a bus and stop it from moving; with a bike; small protest, etc… having effective deterrents will likely be heavily regulated.

Which 12.5.x version are you on? How are U-turns for you? I have a HW3 3 and both versions of 12.5 have hesitated so much on a u-turn that it almost stopped in the middle of the intersection. At one point, it lost confidence while making a u-turn and just made a left turn instead lol

I've heard [12.5.4.1](http://12.5.4.1) is a lot better. I am currently on 12.5.4 and its definitely a downgrade, so I'm hoping to get the latest one pushed out to me soon

like cybertruck or semi or model 3/y vaporware?

And if you said the same for the roadster, I’d probably owe people a roadster. So 1/2 I guess, flip a coin and you have a shot at being half right on the robovan even coming out, let alone on some sort of timeline.

i have never had to do a U-turn yet so can't comment on that, i'm on [12.5.4.1](http://12.5.4.1)

Yeah I loved it.

You ain't pre-ordering shit for atleast 5 years lol

No. I specifically mentioned the roadster. I never doubted cybertruck. But the self driving taxi and van are just like roadster. Too much hype, nothing to show. The pattern is the same.

What were you expecting? Genuinely curious.

When I pre ordered the CyberTruck it was either during the announcement event or immediately following

Seemed very Westworld!

He did say Unsupervised next year for Texas & California pending regulation.

I did watch this RoboTaxi event so no idea what is going on. However, I will say their FSD currently is ridiculously good. I have a 2024 model 3 and I use FSD all the time. Very few if any interventions. It's crazy how good it has become.

I recently experienced FSD for two days in a loaner Model 3. Didn't take note of the version number but my first half hour with FSD was extremely impressive. I was in awe of the smooth driving performance and watching everything the vehicle was tracking on the display. Hundreds of cars zipping by on the left as I drove, many more surrounding me. At red lights I watched dozens of vehicles crossing in front of me. Getting going again I enjoyed seeing the road markings and traffic lights and the rendering of the surrounding environment. I was grinning like a dork the entire time and felt like Tesla was just about ready to take FSD primetime. But after getting back in the vehicle later in the day and trying to use FSD to leave the parking lot and head home I immediately had to intervene when the car displayed a 40MPH speed limit in the crowded parking lot of a bustling shopping center. 😱 The car began to take off like a rocket just as I tapped the stalk up to deactivate FSD. I drove to the exit of the shopping center and turned FSD back on and now the car intended to turn left in a place with a No Left Turn sign but not before rapidly accelerating to race to the stop sign. And the car positioned itself too far to the left which would crowd out vehicles turning into the shopping center. 🤦🏻‍♂️ Tried FSD again on the road surrounded by traffic and it performed well again. But then, even Autopilot can be passable in city driving if other cars sort of dictate how the car behaves. (Though of course it's not intended for that.) I'm not sure what to think about FSD. There's the "Ninety–ninety rule" that goes: The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time. And also I see Waymo vehicles driving themselves around almost every day now. And the rider experiences I've heard about have been very positive. But of course those vehicles are loaded with enormous sensor pods and perhaps a more dedicated focus. So I don't know. Maybe Tesla is ready. Maybe not.

🤯

New technologies take time to develop. The technology that FSD uses today may not have been researched back then.

Until reading this I had no idea what he was saying during the event.

Will this release before or after the 2020 Roadster?

Wow Elon invented a..... bus.

Honestly, if they can work out even a reliable A 2 B only system, I can see Hotel Chains buying these in mass. Airport to Hotel, Hotel to Airport. Nothing more would be needed. The "shuttle" would only have to make those two stops on a reliable path. It could potentially save a single hotel $150k a year.

Yeah, but everything shown here has so many hoops to jump through yet. Be it regulators, technology development, design choices, etc. There's no product for you to pre-order. Just ideas it seems.

Slides, detailed plans of what to expect from A to B. They showed something briefly about inductive charging and a robot vacuum/cleaner? But didn't go into detail at all. Again, I just expected some meat on the bones line with the cybertruck reveal. It's fine if things change by release, but this just felt unfinished and hopeful than reality.

We going to pretend like Elon has never withheld his products from parties he was feuding with lol

One pothole and it’s all over. This thing looks like it has the suspension of a skateboard.

Ro-bovin

Rob o'Van?

Considering my FSD tried to take an off ramp at highway speed and would have flew into the woods hadn’t I intervened, I’m not certain. It’s a very good system don’t get me wrong but it has its moments and some of them are scary.

"shuttle" I like it

Reminds me of that robot carrier/transport van in i,Robot... https://preview.redd.it/es5g9lvd72ud1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3e3b7fa14b95128fba664a1ddbec03ec529d7c73

Fair points. It was light on the details.

I think it’s been a top priority for a long time. They have made enormous progress towards removing 99% of interventions. The last 1% might be much harder than those first 99% though.

I have used FSD for a while now. It's definitely not quite as good/smooth as Waymo. But my biggest concern is that I don't think that vision-only will work for some edge cases. For instance, when I was in SF, the streets are very vertical and sometimes, during sunset, it lines up directly with the sun. Waymo was able to handle that no problem since it has so many other types of sensors. But my Model 3 would only go a couple minutes before yelling at me to take over immediately. If these new cars have no steering wheels, what will happen during these edge cases? Do the cars just stop? Keep going even when the cameras are blinded?

With FSD I would say that 90 percent rule is closer to 95… the last 5% of progress takes 95% of the time. There are just sooo many edge cases, and their “look mom, no hands” approach to training (no code branches!) is getting them into diminishing returns. Just like a normal driver learns, there needs to be a mix of learned instincts (training) and hard rules (branch logic). Neither approach will fully work, but once Elon decides… when he’s right, he’s right, but when he is wrong… he is very wrong.

Trains and ships will always be better and more economical for high capacity cargo. The most I can see for this will be last leg delivery perhaps, but even then you'd currently need a person to actually drop off the package at houses.

You nailed it. Tesla can do 80 or 90% but that’s not nearly good enough for unsupervised like waymo. Waymo can do 100% and when it fails it fails gracefully and just stops or gets stuck. When Tesla fails it causes danger to itself or surroundings

Uhhh…there has always been a third row model y

Who said anything about high capacity cargo? Have you never been in a city before?

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Lol, they barely did that for the Model 3 or Model Y. So yeah Think you're expectations for the social media unveil were definitely unrealistic given what they have historically done at these events. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4VGQPk2Dl8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4VGQPk2Dl8) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb\_Wn6K0uVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb_Wn6K0uVs) This event seems to be MUCH more about the Live In-Person Demos they are giving out. And while the 3/Y they went over the absolute basic specs, the only spec that matters for the Robotaxi is $/Mile. I guess you have a decent point about maybe they should have gone over charging more. But like again how fast it charges is almost irrelevant just like the range it has basically is. Like all the actual important stuff is with the FSD software development itself, and the product unveil isn't a good place to talk about the engineering aspect. Thats why you will likely find anyone actually at the event will have a very positive impression, while people just watching on Twitter will just be like "is that it". Because you already knew there was going to be a new vehicle. The only new info to be presented is the pictures. But the people at the event will actually experience it.

Don’t you know it’s all about AI? Elon’s machines learn a life time of driving in a day. Meaning in 12 more mins it will be perfect and better than you! :/

Still launched though.

This thing doesn't even look like it can clear a speed bump and the visibility looks awful.

He's also cheaped out by relying solely on cameras. If he combined it with LiDAR combined with cameras I imagine it would be a lot more functional, but he's cheap and stubborn so 🤷

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Nah bro, new product and roadster and semi still not in full production.

Back then, Tesla didn’t have AI. They have invested tens of billions into nvidia chips and automated driving now. They will be moving faster than ever to perfection.

Bovine Joni

Tesla has had AI since they hired Karpathy in 2017, 7 years ago. I agree that more GPUs should let them move faster.

> And high capacity cargo/people moving. What did you mean then?

It’s not just gpu’s, the algorithms are much better these days as well. Even ChatGPT and image/video generation has come a very long ways after 1 yr. The pace of improvement will probably blow us all away next year.

I’m on the flip side where 12.5.4.1 is almost unusable through town where 12.3.6 had no issues. The wildly varying experiences version to version and car to car would indicate it has a long way to go.

It is not for sale, for RoboTaxi network only.

They can announce a robo spaceship until it actually comes its ideas

Like 20 people, more than a car

I should have said higher

Elon seemed to imply it would be for sale for purposes like school busses and RVs.

Oh wow that looks like Cybertruck crossed with a Hyundai Staria. Fair enough. Incredible how strong of a hold Toyota Alphard (and its variants) have on the market.

aware seemly knee dam butter water aspiring dazzling station friendly *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev/home)*

Shape kind of reminds me of this: https://preview.redd.it/6fpw7x4ae2ud1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ddfc3513c3df119b12cbab6484f899217236ee44 Are we fooked?

Everything Tesla has done in the last 6 months has been an attempt to pivot to self driving and software as their main driver away from unit production. This is just another chapter in that book. Really I don’t think there is anything to take away from this at all. It was basically a shareholder meeting.

ah I see. Yeah people for sure. I just wasn't too sure about cargo.

Rub off vun

Same.. why did he even say it like that

But will they be wheelchair accessible?

I’m thinking it’ll call someone to take over remotely. But what happens when they can’t see well with blinded cameras either?

The human transport signs at the event said 'Travel to New York' and 'Travel to Westworld'

Or they drop connection.

He literally said “others may pronounce it ‘robo-van’ lol”

You mean for Americans only - rest of the world doesn't have the 7-seater Model Y. Also from what I've seen on YouTube, the 3rd row is tiny and barely usable.

Very far away still.

A $100k truck is a very different product from a $40k truck. I remember the days of the Model 3 and Y debuts, when they arrived on time or even ahead of schedule with better than promised specs. The crazier and more Musk-pet-project the products have gotten, the worse the overpromising has become. And the sales are reflecting that.

Hey, can you try being negative like everyone else in this sub?

[It all makes sense now.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Fw8TVYBKg)

> inductive charging is vapourware too. I can say that confidently thanks to physics. Inductive charging is about 50% efficient. Confidently incorrect. Inductive charging is up to 88-93% efficient, which is similar to regular L2 plug in charging. https://witricity.com/media/blog/why-wireless-ev-charging-is-just-as-efficient-as-plug-in-ev-charging

The third row has never been an option in some countries (eg Australia)

How does it get over a speed bump

I think you mean the Ro Boven and Leon said several times

Imagine FSD road trains, with them all traveling inches apart. If they need 200 people moved 10 robovans just travel nose to tail. But its not just single point to point. Imagine just a few vans happen to be going down the same patch of road, they could link up automatically and form a train to travel super efficiently, but then split up and all go to separate destinations. Regular rail trains cannot do that. Robovan = The end of trains. We can repurpose rail corridors to Robovan high speed thoroughfares where they sprint along at 300kph, then branch off to normal roads at normal speeds for final mile to destinations.

yeah sounds like it might get used just as much as the cybercab or more

Assuming Robocab and all those model S3XY are all autonomous, with the low population density of the US, where can this RoboVan be economically viable? Is this for the China market?

Am I the only one who thinks it looks cool? It doesn't look practical with the fact that it's too close to the ground, absolutely. But idk, it actually looks like something truly futuristic that you see in movies. Though how the hell is it supposed to go over bumpers and things like that? Also anyone here had seen the entire show? Why did they boo Elon at one part? The cut version I've seen brought the last of his sentence, and it didn't seem like something bad or anything.

They should’ve done a minivan. Could have taken huge market share from Toyota and Honda.

Self driving busses is nothing new…they follow a planed route. This already exists on the market

Can we all just acknowledge that the rumors of Elon ego canceling the important projects and pushing the ones with no substance were true? There was basically nothing here but vaporware and the inside reporting 100% predicted it.

It's, uh, a minibus. These things exist now, albeit requiring a driver. For most cities that have a buss network, these won't work. The capacity will be too low. In Finland there's been a lot of trials over the last few decades using minibusses for a more point-to-point experience, i.e. you can/could order one to a stop near you and then some software calculates out a dynamic route for the minibuss, but they just have never worked very well in practice. Most recently they've attempted these things in rural locations, where the population density isn't high enough to support a buss service, and there there's been some minor success but obviously usage isn't high as most rural people already have cars. For in-city use, trams are the most comfortabl and efficient way to move people, busses are second tier. These types of hybrid taxi/buss services just won't really work very well.

Ok but how about just regular van?

Usable is what I should have included.

Absolutely agreed

Has it tho? ChatGPT has been stagnant since March 2023.

The only way Robovan works in that timeframe without a steering wheel is if there's unannounced hardware that brings it on par with Waymo's Lidar. Vision only was a covid-solution to missing parts and shouldn't be the future direction. The human brain and eyes have way more going for them than Elon's vision only so please enough with the "did you use Lidar to drive this morning" argument.

Here’s a weird idea, if you’ve so sure it’ll be here next year, just wait. Wait and show the finished product 👌

And they were right? The cybertruck never launched as advertised and likely never will

I think this kind of scary. I mean I know this will happen for sure in 2040 but man. It’s kind of sad. I really just hope that Elon Musk doesn’t take over the world

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That doesn't need expensive labor unions to drive them.

So he’s submitting the vehicles for testing?

If it really comes to fruition and if it does indeed achieve rates of $0.05-$0.10 per mi per passenger as Musk mentioned, then it could become a serious competitor against government ran flat rate public transit. Some places in Canada and Australia have bus fares as high as $3.00 to $4.00 per ride, even in NYC it's about to go over the $3.00 per ride mark. If it can have a fare model where you can price each passenger that low, then it would spell huge private enterprise competition against government funded public transit buses all over the world.

I’m expecting that most of the info and experiences will be shared by all the tech youtubers that were invited to try out the cybercabs and engage with the robots.

Mr. Bovan? Roe, Bovan? Your digital rectal exam robot is ready for you.

Name another car manufacturer that has promised so much and delivered so little

And its biggest enemy are speedbumps

https://preview.redd.it/okn79qewz2ud1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82b243e5f90b9e92acf172aa22b28fcb3652a05e

Did they refund everyone on that or are they still saying they’ll release it?

Where are the windows? Antihuman design. For cargo - ok, but look at Mercedes Sprinter, when used to transport people, windows are installed.

Multiple sensors tend to disagree on surroundings which leads to digital noise. Imagine if we had 12 eyes around our body and they all see in different wavelengths, distinguishing what is around us can be tricky at times since a lidar can mistake steam for a boulder, but the camera knows it's steam and we can pass through it, but occasionally we might prioritize lidar over vision and come to a halt for a split second. This was the primary reason for phantom breaking. This can be solved, just like Waymo is slowly doing, but the noise introduced from different sensors is a labyrinth or horrors. So relying just on cameras will not only drive costs down, but also simplify the processing pipeline significantly and reduce sensor conflicts down to 0. Granted, to reap those benefits there's a bunch of things they had to do to reach where they're right now. If you have spare time, I'd recommend watching their first AI day which goes much more in depth into all of their autonomous tech.

So... an autonomous bus? Something that several cities have already been doing for a few years now?

I was hoping they'd reveal a "robotaxi" that was a small, 4-5 seater hatchback, with a steer-by-wire steering wheel "for the time being". The long awaited Model 2, Model A, Model @, or however else they'd wanna call it.

Okay so this is just a mini-bus

> Multiple sensors tend to disagree on surroundings which leads to digital noise. FFS, not this again. If the information coming from Lidar and vision is conflicting, that's a case **for** lidar and not against it, because it means the vehicle is picking up new information from the real-world surroundings to base its decisions on. The term you're looking for is "redundancy".

If you haven't noticed a pandemic and a trade war happened so Tesla couldn't realistically get the cybertruck to production with their personal being restricted to their homes and their battery supply being uncertain.

That"s the single motor rear wheel drive trim not the triple motor cyberbeast trim, please get your facts straight.

So what? It’s not like they announce a fucking pizza edition. The regularities takes ages, there are problems and they still deliver but all you people can do is cry. Should they stop doing anything?

Wow all a Reddit user can do is cry

It’s not how it works

They can announce their cars can cure cancer and people would be mad and cry.

2019 to be fair. In 2016 he estimated it is about three years away. In 2017 it was two years away and in 2019 it was one and half year away. Since 2021 it is one year away. We were at six months, but now are back to a year

The difference between 1 intervention and 0 is probably as large of a leap as the difference between 100 interventions and 1. The progress is impressive but there is still a long ways to go.

By what metric? For example, today's models are multimodal, that's a huge step forward... and they're way cheaper to run. But also, the value of an LLM isn't gonna be a chatbot (though I think that is useful) - it'll be hidden in every product you use.

Vision only will definitely not work out. It's crazy that there's still people debating this too, especially when there was no debate to begin with. Literally the entire industry, every expert out there, says you need Lidar and Sonar, why? Because they let you build a high resolution 3d map of your environment with real data for distances between objects, and they can't be interfered with as easily, unlike vision only which has to use photogrammetry to estimate range and can be easily blinded. The only reason Tesla is trying to go with vision only is because Musk things he knows best, that they can just be better than everyone else and accomplish something that others can't, which of course has resulted in them falling behind the competition quite significantly and it will stay that way until they admit they were wrong and change their ways.

"Are we fooked?" alwayshavebeen.jpg

Oh boy. Will Tesla be the next Theranos with phony “unsupervised full self driving”? 🥴

The missing technical redundancy by different systems while ultimately be the nail in the coffin of vision only FSD. There are multiple competitors to Tesla and all of them use more than just cameras in their systems. Once broad legislation in many markets to autonomous driving gets established, I doubt that many countrys will allow systems without redundancies. Even if they do, insurance companies will not (and in many countries, no insurance means no roadworthiness). By that time, it'll simply be too late for Tesla to catch up.

The CT delay was a reasonable one, the whole world got delayed about 2 years almost right after the announcement Edit: but the range being like 1/3 is ridiculous

Elon Vaporware

The moosk has invented the bus. Next invention he will put it on rails and call it the robo-trolley car. Genius

Where is my fucking Roadster?

I never said it's impossible, Waymo is currently leading that approach. But how do we know which sensor is right at any given time? Waymo is most likely using lidar to pinpoint exactly where they are on the map down to the centimeter, but once we start getting into unpredictable scenarios, relying on lidar, radars and cameras to identify a single object in time becomes tricky since you'd need to train a neural network that has to choose between all 3 or average it down which will never leads to a close 100% confidence level resulting in a less comfortable drive. You could use the argument that what waymo is doing is similar to a human using their taste, smell and sight to identify if something is spoiled, but our brains have centuries of neural programming to achieve that in harmony. Given that, it takes faaar more resources to accomplish such a system. If Waymo manages to find a generalized approach, that works with all of their sensor suite in harmony, then they will be ahead of tesla in the autonomy game. Tesla's approach while not as sophisticated, is far more scalable and easier to work on, and they have exponentially more data than their competitors (and data is digital gold) so I currently consider them the leader in this game.

Wait till you go somewhere where it rains. Or gets really dark.

I wonder if they plan to have some sort of air suspension. That adds to the cost but would allow it to drop for ingress/egress and otherwise not be destroyed by speed bumps.

I just don't see how you counter the counter argument to that. Humans drive without lidars, with 2 eyes. I just can't understand why "vision only will not work out", if it works NOW. Maybe we need better camera tech, matching the human eye. Maybe we need better AI, matching the human brain. But once we have those two, it HAS to work, because it does work NOW.

This is what I wanted! Something with the real volume capacity to move 'stuff' be it people or things.

StarCraft reaver

Vision only system with blinding sun or morning dew obscuring the cameras has doomed FSD. All because they refuse to use a few cheap non vision sensors. Every day FSD is degraded for me for sun or moisture blocking a camera. Poor weather affects it as well.

How? There is nothing in common?

This is closer to the direction I've been saying electric vehicles need to go. Instead of focusing on individual cars, it should be all about replacing big vehicles. Buses, semi-trucks, and mobile homes. Mobile homes will be the real game changer if done right. Just set up huge RV parks on the outskirts of cities specifically for these self-driving, electric, mobile homes. Let people rent the space (utilities provided), and be able to drive and dock at any "RV park" they want. When people want to go into town they can just order a Model 3 like we do Ubers. And for any reason you feel like picking up and moving to a new city, it'd be as easy as setting a destination and waking up there the next day. Seeing all these people trying to evacuate Florida before the hurricane touched down just furthers my confidence in this being the necessary future of housing.

Robovin. 😜

>Multiple sensors tend to disagree on surroundings which leads to digital noise. >Imagine if we had 12 eyes around our body and they all see in different wavelengths This is one of the most insane things I've ever heard. Firstly this wouldn't be a problem for us, we constantly use multiple senses at the same time and there are many animals that have far more "data" available to them than humans do with much more primitive brains that have no problem. Secondly, computers are not humans and we literally build redundant separate sensor packages into things like planes precisely so we can get different readings to make good decisions as relying on just one sensor is not safe.

Cameras ability to accurately calculate the depth of & distance to its surroundings is much worse than LIDAR. For now at least. Humans have much better depth perception. As others have pointed out, working 80-90% of the time isn’t good enough.

We now have the Cyber Shortbus!

> I just don't see how you counter the counter argument to that. Humans drive without lidars, with 2 eyes. and two ears. You will hear the ambulance approaching before you see it. So no. It's not "vision only". Also your eyes are mounted on a platform with five degrees of freedom. And they are mounted in pair to give you stereoscopic vision in the large field of view. And your eyes have much, much, much higher resolution. And adaptive focus. Saying a bunch of singular, fixed low-res cameras are equivalent to human eyes is a mistake in itself.

can they just role out their super charger network more that would make me happy.

why not just build high speed rail?

Sure, but I didn't say that. The cameras must be high res. And add microphones to the mix as well. But lidar, radar, etc. are obviously not essential to driving, otherwise humans could not drive.

Again, that's not my point. Humans do not have LIDAR. Humans have depth perception with two eyes. We can replicate that with good enough cameras and good enough neural nets. It's physics, it HAS to be possible. LIDAR isn't needed for driving, because humans do not have LIDAR and humans drive.

Elon said the cybercab is for sale, so why not robovan?

Very far.

Short for rowing bovines


They probably have that version as well. It would be nothing to add to that platform as it's probably wide open for it. I don't think people wanted to see a robo taxi with a steering wheel, when it's supposed to be highlighting the possibility of fsd. What I do want to see is that version made for when people can order these. They probably will have to make it in order to comply with different legalities in areas.

And it's selling quite well. Better than every competing EV

It is. Eventual autonomy is inevitable, and Tesla has a huge head start. I was annoyed to hear true FSD won't reach my HW3 car, and I have doubts it will on HW4 cars either, but eventually, it will get there. People were complaining Robovan will be defeated by rough roads. My car today already raises its suspension on rough roads. People with no technical background complaining about lack of lidar. I have no idea if the stock is overvalued or not, but things are moving closer.


Yesterday’s event was titled “We, Robot” afterall…

We already have regular vans.

Any time Elon says "the future should look like the future" that means him or his 11 year old self drew this and he demands it make it into production as-is. There's no design language whatsoever. That's literally how the cybertruck came to be. Clear as day the taxi is the Model 2 design and the bus is just something he cooked up on a napkin.

The thing stopping buses from being successful generally isn't the fact that people drive them. It's generally poor service, poor infrastructure, and a general lack of care because they're run by people who drive everywhere. Removing the driver from the bus, in most parts of the US, will not speed up service.

No, they are not essential. But we're arguing theoretical vs practical here. Can "vision-only" work? In theory? Some vision-only solution can work. In practice? No. "vision-only" system based on a low-res fixed-position monocular cameras will not work.

Vision only is the only real way forward. Slapping on additional sensors just adds noise, confusion, and isn’t redundant. Amazing people parrot the idea that it is “literally impossible”. Have you ever worked with lidar data before?

OK, now put the van on an average Chicago road in February. I don't think that thing would survive a small bump, much less a potholed road during a snowstorm.

Cant forget about driver visibility on an autonomous car! 🤣

it‘s way easier to get rid of confusing informations from 2 different input sources than it is to make a camera-only based system that works with direct sunlight. Sure, having only one source makes processing simpler, but there‘s not one single type of source that can handle every single scenario you face on the road.

Yes. Car driving just has SOOO MANY edge cases. My favourite example: Going down small, windy mountain roads in Italy when suddenly a Cement truck appears, driving in the opposite direction. You have to be fast, go into reverse and search for the next spot where you can let him pass, he will NOT stop.

Im assuming the cars will try to reroute around these kind of known issues. And then last resort it might pull over and flag an error and refund the passenger. I can think of a endless amount of situations that are annoying as he'll but fsd is good enough now to be safe to use. Comfortable and hassle free? Maybe not yet

If you think he's gonna have FSD ready by the time he tries to release this... I have a social media site worth $13 billion I'll sell you for $40 billion.

Vision only can work in practice. I was replying to a guy saying “vision only can never work”. He didn’t say “current vision only with current hardware and software can’t work”.

So a bus?

Human senses aren‘t just ‚very good cameras‘. a great example why radar is great is the concept of depth. We don‘t grasp depth because we have eyes, but because we have a brain to process visual information. And using radar is a much better way of mimicking the processing part of that information than trying to teach it to a camera via software.

Yes, we grasp depth because of the brain. A vision system also has a brain, that’s the point. It’s not “just cameras”. It’s cameras + visual information processing. Now, AI / neural nets are not at human brain level for visual processing, sure. But they will be.

No it’s not…. It literally cripples the system. If lidar is saying there is something there and vision says there is nothing there, which do you believe. And vice versa? Thats how you end up with lots of phantom breaking. If lidar says an object is 8 feet away and vision says its 6 feet away, you cant just average them out at 7, because that will have you hitting the object most likely. The addition of multiple sensors for the same task will always lead to complexity and instability.

I mean by the looks of it tesla would only release this on their robo taxi network… not as a new car for sale. So yeah I would assume that they would wait for FSD before releasing a car built around the assumption FSD worked….

you know what can be at human brain level of processing depth much easier than a camera software? lidar.

More like a mini bus. Of note this vehicle also fits into hyperloop and is autonomous.

Yeah sorry I was ducking tired and was wrong. I should have been clearer that the 50% efficiency I was talking about was an average. Because slight misalignment brings induction charging from 80-90% to 30-40% really easily.

you decide who‘s right in case of conflict. or you add a third input source. the hypothetical tech needed for a Vision only system to genuinely work reliably is a) very much hypothetical and b) in the best case still very much far away in the future. I‘ll always trust a sensor that *sees* more than what a software *thinks* it sees.

It will appear stagnant between public version updates and releases sure, but it is improving faster and faster behind the scenes.

Relying on cameras means assuming you can replicate human level visual processing and predictive cognition on a consumer sized computer running on silicon, a feat no one has really done and that no one is close to I don't get why people think trying to replicate the way humans work is the best way. We're stuck with just two eyes, computers aren't and can handle far more data streams to compensate for how naturally dumb they are cognition-wise compared to a human driver

That's a lot of assumptions considering how Musk has continually over promised and under delivered on FSD. When did he say it will be fully out this time as opposed to his first promise years ago?

I’m not debating whether or not FSD will work in the long run. I think its funny you can’t grasp the fact that this product will be released on the condition that FSD is solved. Thats all 🤣

Sure, It works NOW... with serious flaws. People crash cars all the time. Why would we offload the work to a computer, then force the computer to perform with the same limitations humans have? Vision only FSD brags that it is 10x safer than the average driver but that average includes all the dangerous and distracted drivers. The safest drivers are probably 10x safer than average drivers. The counter argument is that it takes a lot of time to program and refine an "AI" that only matches what humans can do. Elon might still be trying to figure it out years from now when lidar and sonar sensors are much cheaper and easier to manufacture and integrate in vehicles. At that point, why would you bother limiting sensor input? It's a neat programming problem to try to get self driving to work with the limitation of cameras only. But the reality is it will never be able to outperform a vehicle using more sensors.

Becaue the software behind the eyes is fearsomely sophisticated and adaptive, backed up with motor reflexes and cognitive reasoning. Can it in theory be done via computer software? Yes. It it likely to happen soon? Not really - at least from what I've seen. Either Tesla has some internal vision only models that show great promise, or they're going to take ages to get it right. LIDAR would have given them amazing redundancy while they work it out.

No he was comparing what Tesla advertised as the starting price vs what they released. To be fair they have not released the single motor yet but there is 0% chance it will come at the advertised 40k. They promised the dual motor variant at 50k then released it at 100k. A year later and they remove options lowering the price but it’s still 80k for what people ordered when promised a 50k truck. Cybertruck really is an example of overpromise and under deliver. Hurts to say as someone who loves their last two teslas and pre-ordered the cybertruck but man does this thing look disappointing. It needs the slashing the model Y for two years ago when it was creeping up to 70k.

I feel like the market for this is basically airport shuttles and maybe cities with very flat streets.... for me - this reveal isn't exciting at all. I think they're missing the mark regarding a product that would pull in huge revenue. I think Tesla should focus their efforts on reducing the cost of batteries and then passing those savings on to consumers for all their vehicles. A Model Y at $30k price point would completely dominate the market and so would a $20k Model 3. A Model X would be approachable to more consumers at something like $50k too. Personally I would like to see Tesla take on a Minivan style vehicle that's more spacious than the X and with a standard sliding door like normal Minivans on the market. I know there's a stigma on Minivans but I believe a Tesla Minivan would change that. I own a Model Y and I'm very happy with it. I'm also a shareholder. I don't mean to sound like a shill here but this product isn't exciting to me.

Elon spoke about the Robovan being able to carry 20 people. He didn't say that it can seat 20 people. He probably means that it has 14 seats and 6 additional people can stand. Buses frequently operate in a way in which some people stand and not everyone is seated.

[X](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1844669182354358308?s=46&t=CLT1LcPAHrobfmtEI7j4TQ)

If you aren't limited by the cost of employing bus drivers you can just let the buses drive more frequently and can have more bus routes. Bus drivers are 60-70% of the costs of current buses.

I’ve used Waymo, and had a decent to good experience. I would never use this because I don’t trust Tesla software

They have specifically mentioned in release notes that parking lot updates are coming

Having all those sensors has its own set of problems. They don’t always agree, and then you have to decide which one to believe. Or you wait until they all agree, and your systems reacts late, meaning possible collision.   If one sensor is blocked, fused detection degrades and you need to enter a failsafe anyway. So If you have a blocked camera, the system is not behaving the same. You can’t read lane lines accurately without a camera for example.  That’s why these systems operate in places without snow right now.  Source: work in ADAS development (not for Tesla)

Elon, bless his heart, should spend less time tweeting and more time on product design, I felt exactly as you felt.

Sure, I'm 100% sure that handling of so much information in situations like traffic is incredibly hard and gets exponentially harder the more information is added. No doubt about that. But each system has advantages and disadvantages in different situations, for different tasks and with different environmental influences. But the question is how to deal with the different problems and failures to ensure a maximum of safety and not "Can we just get away with one thing? Because if we don't have lidar, then we won't have problems with lidar”

Did you forget about this thing called inflation,that 40k would be 50k this year,also this was before the us-china trade war heated up so Tesla couldn't count on catl to deliver the cheaper Chinese xiling battery which means they had to make it themselves which drove up cost.

This looks like they designed a bullet vibe for Ayn Rand

Humans drive with vision only (and I guess auditory, but only for detecting emergency vehicles). Vision AI can see 360degrees, 24/7 so it’s still better than a human. All that’s needed with a vision-only implementation is 1) a large training model, and 2) an automatic washer or defogger or heated camera, to deal with things like fog and snow. People have been talking for years about how Vision only won’t work, and yet Tesla is ahead of every US company in terms of self driving, apart from maybe Waymo (which still can’t drive on highways and needs pre-mapped roads).

I think the real reason Tesla is trying to go vision only is because when they started lidars cost $70,000. They're cheaper now but they're in too deep at this point.

100k truck from $79,000 truck it the more apt comparison

I still call it a bus. That ain't no van.

It'll revolutionise bus transport the same way that the hyperloop revolutionised high speed rail.

There aren't really any good electric vans in the western market though.

I’m guessing there will be hydraulics or it will be intended as a mover in an airport or something, or there will be a street version with better lift

Hoe bovan

Jon bon jovie

Mini-buses already exist in other countries. Buses in Rome are all about this size. It isn’t a new thing.

It looked like a toaster and trash can on stage. What’s next a self-driving toilet?

Tesla has never revealed a vehicle without at least a working prototype. There’s at least one prototype of this van that was shown to deliver several people to the stage. There was at least one working Roadster prototype when it was unveiled, and at least one other prototype of it has been seen driving around in the wild over the years. Obviously the Cybercab and Semi are higher priority for Tesla than Roadster.

Instead of making the new products all sci-fi looking and super expensive. How about we just make a bus look like a bus, and a truck look like a truck, and save everyone a bunch of money.

That’s not how it actually works in real life though. If a camera is blocked, you can’t detect lanes, you’re going to get false positives or late detection/collissions. You have to go into fail safe anyway.  Ultrasonic only, radar only, LiDAR only, they all degrade drastically without a working camera. Which is why there are camera only ADAS systems today like what Subaru has but there are zero radar or lidar only systems.   So you’re spending all this processing power and money and electrical power on these systems, which do help in many situations but are not good enough to be backups when cameras fail, unless you are ok with accepting a system that still runs over people but only at a slower speed. The solution to blocked cameras are cameras that don’t get blocked. Or more cameras that overlap and are redundant. There’s a reason why suppliers are getting out of the radar and LiDAR business, and even relying on tier 2’s for the optical portion of the camera. In the end the key is the image processing and path planning, with redundant cameras. All these other sensors just explode the cost and development time.

Robo-Oven

They realized giving away 40 of them to YouTubers for free way back in 2019 was a monumental stupid decision so they delay the roadster until those people all die of old age lol. No idk but that kind of what happened. The first dozens they make would be at huge losses.

I’ll admit, I do like the art deco style. Very retro futuristic

https://preview.redd.it/96y7z6zpf6ud1.png?width=276&format=png&auto=webp&s=e5cf0fbb6fa95cfed3824c8e0a2a63222ddb118c Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler? Someone please tell me this mopdel is named the "Swingline"?

Really? That's awesome. Was it somewhere in the livestream video?

You think he will just run over your car if you stop? Murder?

Yes, I have used Lidar data to rebuild film sets a number of times, ranging from indoor built sets to massive outdoor environments, it's extremely accurate, the only thing that confuses lidar is completely transparent glass objects, and on cars that's only the windows, if they're not tinted, so that's not a real issue. But hey, I'm sure you know better than an entire industry of experts just because Muskrat told you so.

Why do all these vehicles look like they were designed by toddlers?

I would argue it takes way more compute resources to use "vision only" to generate all the required data like depth, distance, and speed. Like trying to use your eyes to taste something. Less sensory input increases the amount of processing necessary before the data is in a usable format. Using multiple sensors may require a clever solution to combine data correctly, but once the algorithm is balanced there should be less processing required.

Tesla is like that weirdo that does the weirdest shit just to be different. The only aesthetic pleasing car Tesla makes is the Model S. Every other car it makes either looks like an egg or a toaster. But now it's like they're trying to flat out make their products as ugly as possible just to look futuristic. Futuristic and technologically advanced with no regards to car design. There's a way to look different and gorgeous. Think BMW E31 850i. There's also a way to have futuristic features and be interesting. Think the dashboard in the Chevrolet Corvette C4. Both cars were technologically advanced for their times. These shits need to stay in the concept stage.

Those Waymo cars can’t go on the freeway and are geofenced to very specific areas. FSD works anywhere.

What connection? The AI runs on the car’s chipset.

Not if someone has to take over remotely

Lol

And I have worked professionally with Lidar and CV. So I understand both segments of tech, not just taking what the “Muskrat” says at face value. I agree Lidar data is accurate, and it tremendous for the use case you outlined above. Things get real tricky when you slap that expensive sensor onto a moving vehicle in a dynamic environment and attempt to sync other data feeds with it. Sure Waymo has proven Lidar + Camera that it can work, locally, for a massive outfitting cost, and unprofitably. But what tesla is attempting to solve, low cost, location agnostic, FSD they made the right move to drop Lidar and ultrasonic and run with a purely vision based system. It’s laughable you are trying to argue this where the actual data surrounding Vision only FSD is improving by leaps and bounds. You seem a bit clouded by your obvious distain for the “Muskrat” that you have fooled yourself into thinking you are smarter than the collective sum of the engineering team working every day on this problem.

Tesla is worth the better part of a trillion dollars and makes 40 cars every few minutes.

.... you realize electric busses that seat more than 20 have existed for many years around the world, right?

> Robovan = The end of trains. Please tell me you're joking. Musk literally admitted that the boring company was made to slow down high speed rail.

>Humans drive with vision only Yes, and humans suck at driving. Not sure how that's a "gotcha" point. And no, what's needed (which literally every other car maker has realized is needed) is LiDAR which is unaffected by weather and other things that limit what a camera can do.

Is it just easier to develop camera that don’t get blocked by sunlight, fog, rain, etc than develop solutions that incorporate the strengths of other sensor types?

LAWL

I'm not saying that Lidar is perfect, just that it's better than vision via normal cameras, and when combined with other things like cameras and sonar you build a very high quality map of your surroundings that cameras alone can't do, and you will have redundancy for situations where one type of sensor isn't effective, or if a camera dies. The fact is that Tesla is behind the competition significantly, Waymo is lightyears ahead but even companies like Mercedes or BMW have level 3 autonomy features that Tesla can't get approved in the EU. Tesla themselves have literally admitted in this in court, that FSD is level 2 autonomy and is behind their competitors. You can say the costs are too high but at the end of the day a full sensor suite results in better performance and more importantly increased safety. I'm not the one saying this, the entire rest of the industry is, everyone but Tesla is saying it. The rest of the industry is using these extra sensors because they help bridges a gap that Tesla will need a miracle breakthrough in AI to make up for. And you're kidding yourself if you don't think Tesla are going down this route thanks to Muskrats ego, there have been a number of things he's said in the past that heavily suggest he's the one making this decision, just like he has openly bragged about making design decisions at SpaceX despite not being an expert. Heck the Cybertruck is proof enough of this, that wouldn't exist without Musk forcing on the company.

Are we sure this just isn’t a metal frame on top of a model 3 or something. Looks fake as hell. Like how would it even go over a speed bump and in what way would it be legal to drive.

r'bvn

It was supposedly an "Elon Joke". I don't get it.

Rub Out van.

Ha good to know, thanks

They said the air suspension can raise and lower each corner individually.

Humans suck at driving because they’re not always aware and looking at all angles, unlike a vision system.

And? We don't need EV minivans, this robovan looks shit anyways. Its like its been transported from another planet honestly

Don’t they already have this in some countries?

Hmm I hope that's the case, since the last time I've seen a waymo ride they were cooling the processing unit like a server rack. I could be wrong about this since I haven't seen a ride demo from them in the recent months. From what I hear they're comparable or better than fsd in terms of driving atm.

It not the RoboVan, it’s the Ruh-bove-in.

I heard they’re having copyright issues already

I've seen the condition of American roads. That robovan won't last a week

The great thing about a prototype, especially one that realistically won’t come to market for like 7+ years, is that there’s plenty of time to change things and modify suspension. If you give that thing an adaptive air suspension with road monitoring technology in 5 years, I don’t see why it wouldn’t last

It looks like a giant stud finder.

Jon bovi

I think they are Hoping to replace the sprinters they use for maintenance with these metallic Twinkies.

Yeah, that’s what they showed in the concept images