Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Are robotaxis the future? Or instead, the past?
Robotaxis are not just limited by weak technology. They unfortunately also don’t make any business sense…
Forbes reports on how Waymo is creating more and more robotaxis. The odd thing is that Google has committed to Jaguar I-PACE vehicles and have 2,000 in storage, even though the car has been obsoleted. And their Chinese option is of course subject to 175% tariffs, making it very uneconomical.
The Verge reports that even though Tesla announced just awful financials their stock rose 20% on the mistaken believe that reducing regulations will help Tesla's robotaxi venture. The real problem is their lack of a working technology, not regulations.
SF Standard reports that Mayor Lurie has opened up a can of worms with his proposal to allow Waymos on the transit only portion of Market Street.
electrek reports that contrary to Elon Musk's claims, the Tesla hardware is simply not capable of handling true autonomous driving.
TechCrunch reports that another autonomous trucking company, Kodiak Robotics, is taking the financially dubious track of obtaining funding via a SPAC. This means that the company will completely fall apart within 2 years.
SF Chronicle reports that King Lurie has decreed that public transit on Market Street shall be replaced by Waymo robotaxis.
NY Times reports a huge sales slump to 337K vehicles for Q1, exactly inline with the robotaxi.news estimate of 335k from a few days ago. This is a true disaster for Tesla. Yet today their stock rose by over 5% due to it now being without a doubt a pure meme stock.
GM Authority reports that the Cruise saga is not yet over. GM and Cruise are being sued for misrepresenting AV advancements, in particular, having achieved level 4 autonomy.
Seeking Alpha reports on how Wells Fargo warns that their stock could fall by 50% after pathetically low deliveries are announced. Plus they are very skeptical about the June Cybercab rollout.
Predictions are only predictions if they are both explained and recorded. So this is official prediction of Tesla tanking in June 2025.
A great deal of ink has been spilled (pixels have been pushed??) on how Tesla received first of the permits needed to run a robotaxi service. Fanboys got excited! But this permit has absolutely nothing to do with robotaxis. It simply is a permit to run an app-based Uber like system with human drivers. This is of course not something that Tesla actually plans on doing. Therefore it is a complete nothing of an announcement. Thankfully TechCrunch clarifies the situation.
Gizmodo reports on how Waymo robotaxis received 589 tickets in 2024 for a total of $65,000. Unfortunately this goes no where near covering the traffic havoc that the vehicles cause.
Reuters reports on how Tesla stock has long defied gravity (also known as investors being fleeced), and points out that it appears the smoke and mirrors might finally come to a crashing close.
USA Today reports on a study by AAA showing that most Americans do not want to use a self-driving car. Kind of hard to have a multi-billion business when most people are simply not interested.
Bloomberg reports that Elon Musk will not be partnering with Uber for Tesla's alleged robotaxi rollout.
