Robotaxi Launch party command center

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And so begins one of the largest socio, economic, techno, and stockholder plays on the disruption of human transportation. The past propaganda unleashed against Elon, The Cybertruck, Tesla etc will pale to the shit storm the entrenched interests will unleash to discredit and destroy the Robotaxi future. Update: TSLA 350$. Those who listened to me banked today.

Waymo did it 3 years ago.

This, is on an other level if it works. Waymo cars cost around $200,000. New Teslas has all hardware needed already

Waymo is no comparison to neural net AI at turn key activation via OTA at scale. The very fact you are not grasping this discredits any knowledge you have of the matter. If this works with one command every HW4 Tesla becomes a hive mind robot. Clearly you do not have FSD 13.2.9 to even know how profound of any adversary you are up against. I actually spoke to Elon in 2022 about Tesla DOJO supercomputing becoming the air traffic control of the network, in 3 years my call happened, to answer your sniper attack of what happens in the same period. Waymo was never designed as such a strategic solution.

You kind of know it doesn’t really work without some serious limitations. For the longest time, Tesla customers are the biggest pool of beta pilots of fsd. Suddenly this magical model that never been trialed is going to robotaxi. I hope they are successful, but this sounds all too fishy.

Lol, as if this hasn't already been done better years ago...

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Already made 112 drives with like 10 cars? Woow. Very impressive. This is going to scale to the moon!

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>If this works with one command every HW4 Tesla becomes a hive mind robot. Clearly you do not have FSD 13.2.9 to even know how profound of any adversary you are up against. Poe's Law going hard on this one.

False. FSD13 can easily operate in downpour. The second assertion is a red herring, Waymo is geofenced, while FSD is a general solution working across North America and China operationally, with hamstringed testing by regulators in the Netherlands, Czech Republic, etc in the EU. Again you are out of your league but commenting as if you know.

These bears or "haters" can't grasp this simple IQ test of forward looking on what the impact will be. It's not a question about if anymore, just a question about time and data. The future has arrived. Accumulate as many shares as possible! 2030 and then some will be amazing years for all Teslas ground work they have laid out.

Ah yeah the aircraft comparison. I love me some autonomous passenger craft 😂 As if aircraft have 25 other moving objects flying next to them...and pilots are just there for supervision.

This reads like navy seal copypasta lmao

Waymos likely still do cost more than Teslas, agreed. But it is important to note the 6-figure cost commonly attributed to Waymos is multiple years out of date. In that same time frame, LIDAR has come down from a 6-figure cost to a 3-figure one. Waymo is also reducing the # of sensors in their suite, further reducing cost. Additionally, current Waymos built on top of the Jaguar iPace are unnecessarily expensive to deliver a Robotaxi-equivalent competitor; I believe Waymo is working with Hyundai to use Ioniq 5s which bring down the cost of the total package. Tesla, in their case, doesn't seem poised to take advantage of all the cars they already have on the road as it seems HW4 will be the minimum for true FSD-- the original vision that buying a Model 3/Y years ago to be unlocked as a robotaxi in the future seem unlikely, at least not without a retrofit effort. I see Tesla retaining a lead on per-unit costs overall, but the difference is likely to come down to a 2-3x difference rather than >5x.

But when are they going to give Austin locals invites instead of iNfLuEnCeRs

Propaganda 😂

I am absolutely impressed. Watching multiple streams of people riding in Austin right now. Absolutely a world changing event. I am a Tesla enthusiast and yet I wasn't expecting they will actually launch it today! I thought it would take at least 2 more years. My mind is blown and this event deserves much much more attention than it's actually getting now. What a day. People just don't understand this isn't the same thing as Waymo.

Yes, the misinformation is propaganda. Now if you are falsely accusing me, that is harassment. Chose your next words wisely.

False accusation. Please tell me the source of plagiarism. Guess what? You will not because it was composed by me. Is that your best personal attack? And I am prior military service by the way, the special forces community has nothing to do with this topic whatsoever.

Let's gooo!

Yes the comparison of instrumentation of ACAS and ADAS of aerospace to correspond to ground autonomous vehicles is valid. Again old news as ADAS is already implemented by the FSD team. Oh and you realize Boeing and Airbus autopilots and autoland (and coming auto takeoff) are autonomous systems?

The future is not absurd. You have no idea how profound this is.

False. FSD13 did not exist years ago. There is nothing like it globally. What part of AI driven neural nets do you fail to grasp?

You're sarcasm is Brit level. No Yanks will understand you.

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How much I love the FSD team.

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Please articulate. You can do better than emojis.

It’s going to “influencers” first to get the word out

What does the car do in a massive rain storm? Does it just pull over? Can a passenger get out?

Heard about Waymo ? Relax dude, it's a great milestone for Tesla but not a breakthrough technology. There are others who have done this already.

I think the people who do not find it impressive just don't understand how vastly different this technology is to anything else currently on the market. Sure what Waymo did and is still doing is impressive, and their solution was the only feasible solution at the time. Both Waymo and FSD are impressive in their own ways.

They have not made a neural net general solution. You are completely missing the point. That is not Waymo or anyone. Not even the Chinese have an AI general solution yet. No one has done this. Instead of telling others to relax do basic research before commenting. Do you have FSD13? Were you even a beta tester or trainer for it? I was, and that is why I am both excited and know how profound this is.

I mean it's still definitely too early to call it a victory yet. Let's see how the scale goes before jumping to wild conclusions. I think the biggest thing is getting the unsupervised build on a supervised consumer owned vehicle and getting to test it extensively.

That is why I said this is one of the largest gambles if it materializes.

It’s paid influencers only lol.

It'll probably just continue driving to the destination.

Huge day. Congrats to everyone at Tesla!

Who says they’re being paid?

What does an uber do?

Tell me you’ve never been in a Tesla without telling me you’ve never been in a Tesla.

Thank you. First as I told them, these people replying do not even have FSD13.2.9 to know how mindblowing it is. That said you are fully correct. FSD and Waymo will likely coexist because they are two different market solutions. In a closed limited system (say a few blocks) Waymo has a place. But if you are talking the entire North America, Europe, China, Australia etc from any address to address, FSD is the solution. I think the next higher major investing bet is which OEM will license FSD14/15/16 first from Tesla. My bet is either China’s BYD or Ford.

The cost really isn't the thing we should be talking about here. Waymo is more expensive, but most likely the price can be reduced to compete with Tesla cars. The main difference really is the scalability. Tesla could literally push a button and deploy this thing to hundreds of thousands of vehicles all over the world today. The technology is probably not ready for this yet, but we are closer and closer. Today, a huge milestone was reached.

You are correct my bad, they’re just a select group of influencers. Not paid that anyone admitted.

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By the way, I measured the starting area that they're launching it in and it's about 20 square miles of downtown Austin.

My FSD turns off from lack of sensor data during heavy rain….

Yes, they obviously deleted the code that turns it off when a certain rain threshold is reached. That way it'll keep going.

I don't think Tesla will ever license it. They have the means to produce millions of their own vehicles, and no one else currently has the means to produce anything even remotely close to the FSD model. No one else has the amount of data, and the amount of compute necessary to do this. Once they perfect the model there is no need for most people to own their own vehicle. The entire car industry will change in an unprecedented way // Maybe some Chinese companies can achieve a similar thing, but they don't have much time left.

Haha… yea exactly. Who needs that code… just let it drive without any input validation.

It has inputs lol. Do you think it's literally blind when it rains? Of course not.

Then why does it stop on mine during extremely heavy rain? Just for fun? There will be inherent weather issues that they’ll need ways to manage. While Texas won’t have icy roads… this is another they’ll need to figure out for most of the US population.

1. Because it's overly cautious. 2. Because you're on an older version of the software that's not as capable.

How hard is it for you to see in extremely heavy rain (like the South routinely gets in the summer)? Having lived there over 20 years, I can say there are times you literally can’t see more than 1-2 feet in front of the car. A camera sees the same thing…

You lead into my question the next time I can get to speak with Musk or Robin - do you think as FSD saves countless lives governments will put a gun to Tesla and say either hand over the software keys as a public good or we will antitrust you into oblivion? This is not as crazy as it sounds, FSD may be treated the same way governments price control pharmaceuticals; FSD will be seen an absolute safety requirement for any new vehicle. For many Tesla analysts, myself included, what haunts us as the biggest vulnerability to Tesla and X Companies are anti-tech governments.

If it's really that heavy that you need to pull over, then obviously the car could pull over too. But that level is very rare.

Perhaps in some places. I’d argue that biweekly during the summer isn’t exactly “rare,” but your point is valid that it should pull over. I was just pointing out that it wouldn’t continue to its destination in a common scenario in the South.

That's interesting thought. Perhaps Tesla will be forced to license it. The implications are hard to predict. Don't think the government will just let all the other car manufacturers go bankrupt. I wonder how hard it actually is to fit the model to a completely different car. One analogy to this could be training humanoid robots. You can't really just take the model for let's say Optimus, and apply it to different robots. Everything needs to match perfectly. You would need to open source the exact robot specifications for others to replicate and apply your model.

You pull over every 2 weeks due to heavy rain? Really?

So why does the robotaxi service have the same weather disclaimer?

This level of intensive care required for something Elon promised would happen years ago shows just how quickly it will SCALE SCALE SCALE

What disclaimer? I wouldn't be surprised if at the beginning they pause the service during severe weather until they're confident it can handle it safely, but my point is it's not going to just shut down in the middle of driving like FSD v13.2 does. They obviously deleted the code that makes it turn off like that.

Was looking at some streams now from the event. Seems pretty amazing, you can have all your apps in the car and it seems to work much better than Waymo. It’s not only the car, it’s also the software around it. Hyundai has some serious work to do to be able to create cheaper robotaxis using lidar in combination with cameras on a series produced vehicle.

Waymo has been operating in my area for years now. Robotaxi doesn't seem safe. Lidar is a necessary technology to be safe, and ~~autopilot~~ Full Self Driving is kinda trash. Source: I regularly ride in my family member's car using ~~autopilot~~ FSD and it drives way more dangerously than waymo. Edit: I am talking about FSD, I use FSD and autopilot interchangeably. My mistake with the terms.

My M3H tells me autopilot is unavailable if I drive on an empty road in the dark. I don’t think its too far fetched…

35 cars

What version of FSD? FSD13.2.9 is spectacularly. I am logging thousands of miles of zero interventions other than off roading. Autopilot is not FSD. Either you are confused or just do not have it. FSD13 is multiple orders safer than a human driver.

make you get out and give you a 1-star rating

I've seen OTB (off track betting) outlets with more screens and connectivity.

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My dash cam is unusable in heavy rain. Fun fact, same cameras are used for FSD

Interested to see how the first intervention happens and how the safety person will react. Although the people taking rides are extreme tesla friendlies, so its likely they wont mention it and definitely wont post it.

🤞

Maybe the windshield wiper only goes over the camera super fast. No need for the whole windscreen to be whipped.

This will be a messy disaster and then Tesla’s share price will go up

Autopilot != FSD, Autopilot at this point is 5+ year old legacy software that hasn't been updated anymore. Just because Autopilot does (not) do something doesn't mean it's the same with FSD. It's a night and day difference even on boring things like traffic or the highway.

What about early morning and afternoon driving east or west? That always screws with mine

>Chose your next words wisely. there is no way you typed this with a straight face

bro why are you referring it as “auto pilot”? You should say FSD(Full Self Driving) Looks like your knowledge is old news lol. Auto Pilot is like 3yrs ago. The tesla car needs to be Hardware 4 . Those ModelYs used as Robotaxi are in Hardware 4 or even higher. So Tesla made after 2024 are in Hardware4 to run their latest FSD software. And the one in robotaxis are the Unsupervised version.

I mean they are gonna get X revenue which comes from Elon’s companies so they are kinda paid. And the payout algorithm is completely random so X is free to inflate the earnings however it wants.

Yeah that number on the screen should be the numbers of car yes. I was like quickly counting the rows for the rides at quick glance. Will be nice to hear the first days figures from Elon tonight, if he publishes them. Hopefully he does!

Does not drive in inclienment weather

So you reckon fully driverless taxis need be less cautious than self driving cars with drivers supervising?

The fact that this wasn't sarcastic is wild. I'm still not sure...

Yes. This is another great example. There was a spot on my commute to work that everyday at same spot fsd would flash like crazy for me to take over from sun glare on the camera. My eyes could still slightly make out image and I could use visor… but cameras were toast and couldn’t handle direct sunlight hit. Will be interesting to see how robo taxi handles this…

Except that it excludes downtown itself :P It's the Austin suburbs south of downtown

Maybe he's rightfully accusing you - what's gonna happen big guy?

Let’s goooooo!!!!!!

Of course it's not sarcastic. Why do you think they'd leave in overly cautious code that's not needed anymore and shuts the system down in the middle of driving?

Oh yeah? Post the footage. You won't.

There's also a Tesla employee sitting in the passenger seat. That's in addition to the chase car with two other Tesla employees.

Why is that so upsetting?

Maybe the supervisor or whatever they are calling the Tesla guy in the passenger seat takes over?

Because a bunch of parasites that contribute nothing to society get privileged access to an exclusive launch for a service they themselves will never in the future use.

No, I'm saying it's been way too cautious for a while and probably should've been removed several versions ago.

This could be the most monumental thing ever released on a summer Sunday to select fans with corporate oversight I have ever seen. Well done! It was worth the wait from 2020 when first promised. I believe by now on Elons time frame we would have fusion powered robo taxis on the moon powered by Helium 3 But these regulations are roguh

You sound fun

And by your estimation, the best time to "delete the code" is when launching autonomous taxis? i.e. fully driverless vehicles with literal Joe Bloggs as passengers? Instead of cars with, you know, drivers? This is 100% trolling, I am embarassed to have fallen for it enough to engage with this.

No, the best time probably would have been several versions ago, as I literally just told you. That code hasn't been needed for a long time. I'm not trolling. This is just common sense. If the system is able to drive in the rain, then there shouldn't be code that turns it off when rain is detected. Why is that hard for you to understand?

Can't wait to find out what the average trip price is

Just type out for me: "I believe the best time to experimentally remove safety measures is when there is no operator in the vehicle, despite the abundance of vehicles with willing operators"

You're either not reading what I'm telling you or you're intentionally ignoring it because you want to act like you're right. I literally told you that they probably should've removed it several versions ago. But they've been testing in Austin with the code deleted for many months now, so what's your problem?

My FSD demo said the same thing. Only in rural areas with minimal light pollution though. That was v12 and HW3 but idk how they'd fix it without night vision or some sort of side lighting (besides just ignoring the black side camera feed at night)

Monday as in tomorrow?

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The post on X is that it is a flat $4.20 fee… lol. I’m assuming when it is open to the public, this price is not going to stay.

Yea, knowing Tesla, it will def go up. But even if it's 10 bucks for almost anywhere, it's still not bad.

How does Tesla's passenger seat riding monitor have intervention if needed. Special on-screen controls?

Probably keeps going like mine does in heavy rain…

Can't speak for Robotaxis, but with Waymo it's all managed remotely. If the car can't figure out what to do after a set period of time, it will continue to try but also reach out to command for guidance from a human. I would imagine it's the same since you don't want to give the passenger of these cars control as it probably messes with liability and regulations.

But they get to show it to us, some of which can't even travel to the TX to see it even if we wanted to.

This is incorrect. Waymo's driving highly leverages and has leveraged both neural networks and AI. Waymo's neural network is arguably far more advanced and capable than Tesla's. The area Waymo lacks in is dynamic mapping, which is the advantage Tesla has, but dynamic mapping comes with many disadvantages too. Waymo has published a ton of papers and content on their technology that explains this by the way, so just Google it if you want more info. Edit: I'll also add, FSD13 is impressive. I've been running it and just did a long road trip (SF to LA and back) and today drove from SF, through the San Mateo mountains, and down into Santa Cruz and it performed extremely well. The tech IS impressive. I'm also running it in near ideal conditions though, and even then there were a few hiccups. I didn't need to intervene, but some of what it did made me want to at times. It's come a long way though.

The only thing Tesla has on Waymo is dynamic mapping. Despite what that poster says, Waymo does use advanced neural networks and AI in its driving, and it's insanely good. The big limitation of Waymo is the mapping required.

Thank you for your service

Drive slower, like you'd drive your own car...

Mine drove fine in rainstorm day.

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I don't believe you. After over 100k FSD miles I've only experienced a heavy rain disengagement one time and it was after it safely slowed to a stop with all the other human drivers that also couldn't see through the rain, and even then it sat there for a couple minutes before giving up. I drive in the rain regularly and it's never more of an issue than it is with humans.

Awesome🔥

These problems could be solved with LIDAR, I have no idea why Elon doesn’t do it

I actually get a lot of value out of their content. What are you contributing that makes you so valuable to society?

Bet

Looking forward to it! I suspect I'll find that cars are still visible in the places that matter.

Because if locals are dealing with the risk, at least give us the benefit

That would be an interesting optimization indeed!

There’s like a dozen cars. It would have sucked if it was a free for all. You can wait a little longer.

My motive and theory is not Poe. I am thinking the theories of Moore’s Law ( as an analogy of how computation power will increase by factors to solve AGI solutions like autonomous), and in turn how Moore’s corresponds to explosive S Curves.

My understanding is LiDAR is range finding, it won’t tell you line markings. So if the cameras needed for the rest of it aren’t working, how will LiDAR solve this problem?

Sounds like a real problem that LiDAR can solve. Being blinded by the sun, not so much (different “solvable by LiDAR problem” postulated above).

Literally none of those scenarios would benefit from LiDAR except maybe the pitch black scenario. All of the rest of those require better logic/AI and require cameras.

He’s what you call a crash out.

Yep,  and that's exacting what robotaxis do.

This is probably one of the most underwhelming command centers I’ve seen

You probably should have an idea. This has been explained many times, including by Elon himself. When you introduce another system, you are not just adding more data; it's never that simple. You also introduce more dimensions to your training model. Right now, even with their massive AI training resources, they are at a limit. If you double the amount of data because of LiDAR, you do not just double the resources and time needed, but the additional data increases the compute needed by multiple orders of magnitude. So while I guess you would end up with a better system, your great, great grandchildren would be the ones to see it. And here's the thing: you \*must\* have a visual system. There is no way around that. LiDAR gets brought up to cover edge cases, but those are usually solvable with vision alone, or a better workaround exists. So the additional benefit you get from LiDAR is incremental, but the costs (not of the LiDAR itself, but from the training) are astronomical. Ok, so why do others use it? Well, it \*does\* goose your startup. You can get a system up and running faster by concentrating on LiDAR and trying to tack on visuals later. But as we see from Waymo, this has not quite panned out. Even with all the street scanning that is not really scalable, they can only get 95% of the way there and then hit a brick wall. Their local minima is so deep and so isolated that it’s nearly impossible for training to escape. More powerful compute or perhaps better AI might solve this, but it would also probably solve all the visual problems as well. And to be clear, Elon Musk did not come up with this line of thinking. George Hotz convinced Elon that this was the right way of looking at things.

Even the pitch black scenario is not doable by LiDAR. Sure, it can tell you that there is a surface somewhere up there, but it can't tell you if it is a cliff, a wall, a truck, if it has signs, or anything else like that. You need a visual system. And if it is pitch black, then your visual systems are going to be down.

You appear not to understand the argument. Yes, Elon is terrible at giving time estimates. You are totally the first person ever to notice this. So good job. However, his point about it scaling is that once you \*do\* have it working in one place, it pretty much is going to work everywhere (at least within the same country). Compare to a LiDAR solution that requires intensive street mapping and constant updates. This just does not scale well. Waymo is still running at an insane loss. Q4 2024, they lost over $1 billion. That was for a single quarter. And although the number of rides is going up, the profit/loss per ride is not improving. The most optimistic views says that they \*might\* be able to break even per ride by 2030. This is, by the way, with Waymo charging up to 30% more than a comparable Uber or Taxi. As of March, Waymo has about 3000 people (outside of R&D) running a fleet of about 1500 cars. And actually, only about 800 of those cars are running at one time, and that is at peak usage. So even now, Waymo apparently needs 4 people per running car. (Note that the actual "operators" are much lower. 1 person apparently handles about 10 cars. However, if your company needs 3000 people to operate, I think that is a more interesting number) This is not sustainable, and at this point, I think it is more of a vanity project than actually something that anyone involved actually thinks is going to pan out. However, if Tesla can make this work at all, the scaling will be near-instantaneous. \*That\* is what he was talking about. And honestly, I am surprised that it still needs to be said in 2025.

This, but without the sarcasm or irony.

Already saw one circulating where it drove on the wrong side for about 1 second

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The Waymo NN is a completely different thing. They don't have the same data at all.

See you have a primary source qualified opinion as an end user, the others are who have never even driven it are talking out of their rectums. I have been a beta tester for approaching 6 years so not only have I seen it machine learn, I contributing to its training by constant logging and error reporting.

I saw they don't have chase cars as of launch.

Good point, please note though Ashok and Elon have been able to take HW3 and through data compression allow it to have HW4 similar capabilities. While HW3 may not be Robotaxi level, it would give drivers near autonomy to get them from point A and B with near minimal intervention.

Geohot might be right in principle, but this requires the incoming data to be usable. If cameras get dirty, fog up etc. then you are in an unsolvable situation. One thing is to navigate to the destination another is to safely pull over in the event of a partial or total camera blackout. I unserstand that the weather in Austin is a lot better and has less seasonal changes than where I live. I’m sure they will do fine there. Lidar is not the answer, mmwave is not the answer, radars is not the answe, cameras are not the answer. A combination of sensors probably is.

Can’t wait to hear some dude in India is driving them 😆

Why would a rain storm stop the car from driving? Do humans stop driving in the rain?

The waymo losses is missing context. Waymo is trying to obtain market share right now. People are scared of new things. So Waymo has lowered the price to be 25% less than uber/lyft. Uber/lyft did the exact same thing when they launched. They operated for a decade with profits. Waymo has Alphabet to cover the losses, they dont even need venture capitalism to keep them alive. Once people switch the AV’s Waymo and Telsa will be able to charge more than Uber/Lyft. I’m an uber driver, I would rather take an AV than be in a car with a stranger. I would pay more to be in an AV than take an Uber/Lyft.

Waymo doesnt have to monitor every ride still. And waymo doesnt have safety monitors in their cars. Its a big step for tesla, but its a baby step. Not this giant thing you are making it out to be. The big leap will be when Tesla turns it on for all teslas capable of having it. And they still have to retrofit all those Y’s and 3’s that elon promised would get it.

Just like waymo’s messy disaster?

This is how it works, you offer rides for super cheap, get market share, slowly increase rates. Its what uber and lift did when taking on the taxi industry.

Spying 👀

You’re doing the meme. Cute

You’re exactly right, [this video](https://x.com/teslanewswire/status/1936999241328820558?s=46) showing the wipers only operating on the camera area.

I \*think\* he was trying to downplay it, but somehow managed to fail. There is a strong sense of desperation from the anti-Tesla crowd right now, as they can feel that their strongest critique (as weak as it is) is about to completely crumble.

Whoa. That’s a new trick. Thanks for linking it!

Honestly the price if anything was just to test and confirm the payment system is functioning.

112*4.20=470.4 or the cost of pizza for the team in the Mission Control room

Many if not most of these parasites contribute greatly to coverage and knowledge of Tesla developments, lawsuits, manufacturing, tweets, etc. It's bananas to claim they contribute nothing. Its symbiotic.

I think you may be giving Waymo a bit too much credit here. A few points that might help clarify things: * Waymo rides aren't generally cheaper than Uber or Lyft. In fact, they often cost more. There might be a few cases where they're less during peak Uber pricing, but that's not the norm. If you're seeing numbers like 25 percent lower, those are likely based on selective examples or one-off promotions. * Uber and Lyft did not operate profitably for a decade. They lost billions during their growth phase. Uber has only recently posted modest profits, and even those are debatable depending on how you read the financials. * It's true that Alphabet is covering Waymo's losses, but that doesn't make the business model sustainable. Waymo has pulled back in cities like Los Angeles and is facing increasing pressure to show real results after years of heavy spending. * As for whether people prefer AVs, that really varies. Some might, sure. But whether the general public is ready to pay more for one is a completely open question. Personally, I don’t think Waymo’s model shows much promise. It's expensive, hard to scale, and relies heavily on ongoing subsidies. The tech is interesting, but as a business, I haven’t seen much to suggest it's close to being viable.

And that's fair, but while FSD13 is incredible, it's only because of the dynamic mapping. I still trust Waymo way more, especially on city streets. FSD is still scary at times in SF, where as I'll happily trust Waymo and in 56 rides, it's only needed remote intervention 3-4 times. Applaud Tesla for the dynamic mapping, but everything else they're doing has been done better.

SoDoSoPa!

Let's hope you are wrong. Because if you are right, then self driving cars are 20 years or more away from being even remotely feasible as anything more than a white elephant project. The amount of compute required to train a model that meaningfully integrates all those sensor types is still the stuff of science fiction.

Id give you more upvotes if I could

It doesn’t ‘have’ to be that complicated. Those can be two seperate systems. A primary and an emergency system. There are even off the shelf options, though the best ones are Chinese for now. (Huawei etc.) Newer Chinese vehicles actually use a combination of sensors for self driving and I haven’t heard about any compute issues there. And yes, their self driving systems are competitive.

Weird people are downvoting this. Sure I was a bit flippant but this is literally a _tiny_ test with a handful of pre-selected insiders. It's not really more relevant than using a handful of employees for testing.

Agreed and I guarantee he contributes negative amounts to society

Haters will say it’s fake

Robotaxis that aren’t Tesla’s, yes.

The main issue with adding more sensors is not the hardware. It is what it does to model training. When you increase sensor variety, you do not just add more data. You massively increase the complexity of the model, the training requirements, and the validation workload. Every new sensor type introduces new failure modes, inconsistencies, and edge cases that the model has to learn to interpret and resolve. That means more training data, more real-world testing, and far more compute. And that is a serious problem, because the amount of compute needed to train these kinds of sensor-fusion models at scale does not really exist yet, at least not in a cost-effective, production-ready form. Even major players like Tesla are running into limits with massive dedicated AI clusters, and they are only training vision-based systems. Chinese companies like XPeng, Baidu, and Huawei are making progress, but much of that still relies on HD maps and tightly geo-fenced areas. Some are moving toward map-free driving, but those advances come with even greater training demands. And they are still limited to a small number of cities under relatively controlled conditions. So yes, hybrid sensor setups exist, and they work in certain cases. But saying it does not have to be that complicated overlooks the very real increase in compute and training complexity that comes with it. That is the actual bottleneck.

Seems like an NDA violation to me

Congratulations!! Epic day for Tesla!!

>Compare to a LiDAR solution that requires intensive street mapping and constant updates This is completely untrue and shows you know very little about how the technology works.

> However, if Tesla can make this work at all, the scaling will be near-instantaneous. Except that isn't true at all. Maybe if they were starting in an area with the worst possible driving conditions you could make that argument, since anywhere else would be easier if they'd mastered that. But that's not what's happening. They (like Waymo) are starting somewhere where the weather is favorable to self-driving systems. Even if Tesla's robotaxi nails Austin it can't scale "near-instanteous[ly]" to the rest of the country, especially not any of the large chunk of the country that gets inclement weather on a regular basis. What are they going to do, only run their robotaxi service during the summer?

that’s awesome

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When FSD cannot see well enough, it will disengage and force the user to take over. https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaFSD/comments/1l9j0we/fsd_in_the_pouring_rain/

And this is why Tesla is decades ahead of something like Waymo.

What area of AI do you work in for a living?

Indians in cubicles remote steering the cars? Chess turk vibes. ...just kidding.

Thank gawd. It is nice to hear a well reasoned educated take here for once. Appreciate the effort you put into this comment.

Sandy Monroe once committed that FLIR or thermal imaging could help, but these would be very weird scenarios requiring them.

Once we have a true working self driving system, I could easily see it expanding out to the types of inputs it takes in. My main problem with LiDAR (or anything else) \*now\* is that we just do not have the training compute to handle it all and get a working system anytime in the near future. Once we do have a trained system, improving it with additional inputs is not trivial, but at least I can see a way for it to work within our current amounts of compute.

I just got Gold for it.

Can he lock us in the car and then drive us to a camp? Cuz I wouldn't want that for my car to do, just saying.

Congratulations to the team

Doesn't Waymo already own this business? Tesla will never be #1 in the autonomous taxi business. But, I guess its Uber vs Lyft methodology.

Congrats to the team

Of course it's not the biggest thing, and they are still way behind Waymo in a lot of aspects. But if Tesla manages to perfect the FSD, at least to the Waymo level, then it will be much bigger than Waymo. You probably heard this many times, but Tesla can scale a lot, and it's really important to scale this technology in order to make a dent. I was expecting the first driverless Teslas to start testing maybe next year. They started last week. I am really impressed. It now all depends on their ability to fix issues quickly, and deploy more cars. Waymo is nice, but it makes no difference as of yet. The price for one ride is more expensive than for a normal taxi. The purpose of autonomous vehicles is to revolutionize transportation. Many jobs will be lost, many countries will enter recession, especially countries dependent on car manufacturing.

What’s the plethora of “same mistakes” you’re referencing?

Because OP isn't an influencer