Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
The news media has expended considerable effort researching and publishing information about the robotaxi business. This channel highlights some of the important articles.
AZFamily 5 reports on how a grandmother loaded her grandchild into a Tesla and walked around to the drivers door but was locked out due to battery having died without sending any warning notifications. Such a safety failure could have easily been deadly.
While Waymo has long claimed to the public and to the CPUC that they use only clean energy, it turns out their vehicles are actually embarrassingly dirty. And the worst part is that Waymo is trying to hide information from the public that would clearly show that they are not using renewable energy for their surprisingly inefficient vehicles.
The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League put on an autonomous F1 "race" recently. The hype was impressive. The results: the slowest and crashiest F1 event ever!
CNBC reports on Elon Musk's absurd claims that Tesla could be a $25 trillion company. It also reports on how the Tesla Optimus program has only so far put out faked demos.
Reuters reports that Shanghai is allowing a test of Tesla FSD, but is limiting it to just 10 vehicles.
See original article by Keith Bradsher at NY Times Assisted driving systems and robot taxis are becoming more popular with government help, as cities designate large areas for testing on public roads. The world’s largest experiment in driverless cars is underway on the busy streets of Wuhan, a city in…
NY Times reports on how in China there is greater support for autonomous vehicles, but that the government censors news media and social media so that people are not aware of the crashes and deaths.
Quartz reports on the fantasy that Tesla stock could rise to $2,600 in five years due to their vaporware robotaxi system. Rather shocking that anyone would believe this.
The Verge reports that Wayside mo has issued a software update after one of their vehicles crashed into a stationary pole. But Waymo never mentions why the vehicle crashed into a large stationary pole, which shouldn't have happened regardless of mapping or configuration issues.
CNBC reports that Elon Musk is once again getting sued, this time by The Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island, for artificially boosting Tesla share prices with false information. Surely this will happen again in the future once stockholders realize that Musk's robotaxi claims have all been completely and knowingly false.
The Verge reports that GM is dumping another $850 million into the dumpster fire that is Cruise. This is on top of the $8.2 billion they have already wasted. At year end they will have to make yet another decision on whether to burn even more money or to just close down the fiasco.
Waymo tries its best to hide information from the public. But by closely looking at what little data is available from the California PUC one can see that Waymo vehicles are empty for 52% of the miles traveled. Instead of reducing VMT, they more than double it for replaced automobile trips.
Bloomberg reports that JP Morgan has told clients that for Tesla's alleged robotaxi service that there is no material revenue generation expected for years. The article also points out that Elon Musk's self-driving predictions have never panned out. This all further shows that Musk's robotaxi claims are just a distraction to falsely prop up Tesla stock price during declining sales.
Electrek reports that Elon Musk had Tesla pay over $1 million to the Boring Company to dig a completely unnecessary tunnel on Tesla property. This further shows that Elon Musk is misusing Tesla resources for his own personnel financial gain, just as he has been doing with his robotaxi statements.
AutoEvolution reports that the much hyped (by Elon) FSD V12.4.1 isn't working that well. Clearly Tesla does not have the technology for real AVs that would be needed for robotaxi service. The whole robotaxi hype is clearly just a way of artificially keeping their stock price high.
