[HN Gopher] Tesla ending Models S and X production
___________________________________________________________________
Tesla ending Models S and X production
Author : keyboardJones
Score : 525 points
Date : 2026-01-28 22:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| shawn_w wrote:
| No more S3XY lineup of models? I'm surprised Musk was okay with
| breaking that up.
| avar wrote:
| 3YC is the new S3XY.
| RA2lover wrote:
| YC3.
| avar wrote:
| CYR3S, if we're going to add Roadster and Semi, both of
| which are allegedly still in development.
| plun9 wrote:
| C3CSY
| Cornbilly wrote:
| They need more room to make the next stock pump scheme look
| legit.
|
| I'm sure they already have enough inventory to last a while and
| demand is probably cratering because of Elon's Twitter posts and
| the fact that Tesla never refreshes their models.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| They've just refreshed their Model 3 and Model Y within the
| last year or so. With the model Y looking considerably
| different so I'm not sure where you got that from
| Cornbilly wrote:
| I can give you the Model Y but take a look at the rest of the
| lineup compared to when they were first released. Hell,
| you're in this very post calling the S/X old.
| akmarinov wrote:
| And yet absolutely no under the hood stats have changed in 8
| years - battery capacity, charging rate, charging curve,
| performance
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Sorry? The midrange model 3 now has 750km range as of last
| year.
| fascism_is_bad wrote:
| Personally I'm also rather turned off by elon musk killing
| several hundred thousand people per year by illegally shutting
| USAID. You know, mass murder and all of that. Inhuman filth.
| jve wrote:
| > Tesla never refreshes their models
|
| I'v seen quite a few Tesla Ys that needed repairs and... they
| seem to improve the car year to year or even months to months.
| Car interface suddenly changes to RJ45, some metal parts
| changed to aluminium (if I'm not mistaken), various things that
| become easyer to fix and so on. Low Voltage battery getting Li-
| Ion. Front under body changes:
| https://service.tesla.com/docs/BodyRepair/Body_Repair_Proced...
|
| And then the airbag controller gets newer and newer.
|
| Not something to market about, but you see steady incremental
| improvements.
|
| What I want to say, the serviceability is very good for the
| cars. You get open documentation, you can access toolbox for a
| price, but it's there for the simple DIYer. Need to change pyro
| fuse? No problem, pop up docs, order part, change it. The parts
| are cheap.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Why is it seen initially so negatively?
|
| There's nothing inherently wrong with a company deciding to stop
| producing models that are extremely old, have newer comparable
| models that are more widely available globally and sell multiples
| more of. So why would you keep those older models?
|
| If anything its a good thing. But its Tesla so nothing they do
| will be spoken positively of.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| You are, of course, exactly right but you will nevertheless be
| downvoted for the same reasons you allude to.
| michelsedgh wrote:
| the voting rings at HN are hard at work :))
| browningstreet wrote:
| As a car company the expectation is that they develop new car
| models for consumers. They don't seem to be doing that either.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| They developed the Model 3 and Y, which is partly why they're
| stopping the S and X?
|
| They completely refreshed the Model Y last year and made a
| number of updates to the Model 3 including different body
| word.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| "Completely refreshed" is doing a lot of work here in that
| sentence.
|
| The new refreshes don't look nearly as big in terms of
| changes as new generations of car models for other
| manufacturers, and Lord knows even Tesla fans have plenty
| of things they'd like to see improved.
| EnPissant wrote:
| A 2020 Tesla Model Y and 2026 Tesla Model Y are at least
| as different as a 2020 Nissan Rogue and a 2026 Nissan
| Rogue.
| dmbche wrote:
| So buy nissan stock?
| tensor wrote:
| I'm not surprised at the X, but the S has always been the
| flagship model with all the best features and the top
| performance. The 3 is a fine mid-sized car but it's very
| strange to get rid of your flagship model. Those always cater
| to a small audience anyways.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| I guess from my perspective you can't buy the S or the X in
| Australia, all I see everywhere are the 3 and the Y. So for
| me its not flagship but I do know that the S was the original
| popular Tesla and has all of the bells and whistles.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The S was a true American "land yacht" in the classic style
| of an Oldsmobile. There's a lot of reasons for it to be
| seen as the US flagship model and for it to have done
| poorly in other markets or not even released to them.
| jerlam wrote:
| Yes, flagship models aren't intended to be good sellers. They
| often are where new features are tested out on customers
| willing to overpay to be early adopters. Tesla did test out
| the new steering yoke and removing the control stalks in the
| S: both features were met with tepid reception and partially
| rolled back. This is also bad for the 3 and Y, since there
| will be low confidence in any changes before they are
| released.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| What if they have planned product lines we don't know about.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Then the smarter PR move would be to tease those _before_
| announcing massive cuts?
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| that's a reasonable strategy. Maybe they want to clear
| some inventory first?
| breve wrote:
| > _Why is it seen initially so negatively?_
|
| Because Tesla is being measured against the benchmarks they set
| for themselves. It's not a good look with cancelled models,
| declining sales, and a lot of self-inflicted brand damage.
|
| Musk used to claim Tesla will sell 20 million vehicles per
| year:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
|
| The new goal is to have sold 20 million in total by 2035. That
| target represents a further decline in sales. And, given that
| Tesla over-hypes everything, maybe they won't achieve it:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/business/elon-musk-tesla-...
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Toyota sells a lot of Camrys and Corollas. It is nice that they
| also make (made?) Supras and 86s.
|
| Also we can have a conversation without tossing the "everyone
| hates Tesla!" poison down the well immediately.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| The difference there is that Supra's and 86's are performance
| cars, whereas Camry's and Corollas arent. You can't compare a
| Hatchback to an 86.
|
| The Model S is comparable performance to the Model 3
| performance.
|
| My point is that the latest models 3 & Y are more affordable
| alternatives to the S & X and more widely available globally.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Okay that's my ignorance of Tesla models then, I assumed
| the more expensive models were also faster.
|
| I guess then it's more like Toyota EOLing Lexus or GM
| getting rid of Cadillac.
|
| I understand the point that the cheaper models are higher
| volume. Historically that had not precluded the creation of
| sports and luxury models for most manufacturers. Are the
| legacy brands wrong to do this? Currently I doubt their
| business acumen far less than Elon's.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| The model 3 performance model does 0-100 in 3.1 seconds,
| the model S does that in 2.1, it is therefore faster by a
| second but 3.1 will beat most cars off the line quite
| comfortably. The Supra for context does that in 4.1
| seconds.
|
| Nothing wrong with keeping a sport and luxury model,
| however I would argue that the latest models are quite
| sporty and luxurious in their own right.
|
| Companies like Ford constantly discontinue models, but
| they don't get the level of attention Tesla does.
|
| If Tesla aren't seeing the Model S and X being sold to
| anywhere near the degree of the 3 and the Y, then why
| continue making them? They aren't as globally available
| and its clear people don't want them as much as the
| others.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| I think we're sort of back at the beginning here. They
| are welcome to focus on their bestsellers. Traditional
| automotive wisdom would favor halo models and upper trim
| models so people can boast about a sedan that can out-
| drag a Supra.
|
| > Companies like Ford constantly discontinue models, but
| they don't get the level of attention Tesla does.
|
| If they axed 2/5 of their models it might. But they're
| also not run by an attention wh- addict with an Apple-
| like fanbase.
|
| Oh and also they're axing 2/5 of their models to build
| teleoperated robots. Seems like the attention is well
| deserved here.
| rossjudson wrote:
| The S is faster than any other Tesla. Non-plaid S and X
| are much faster than non P 3 and Y.
|
| Your main point is highly valid. Why does any
| manufacturer bother to make anything better than a Camry?
|
| Because it makes money, of course.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| Well in Tesla's case they clearly dont
| addaon wrote:
| > Why is it seen initially so negatively?
|
| They went from being able to profitably produce a luxury car,
| to not being able to profitably produce a luxury car, to not
| being able to produce a luxury car at all. All while becoming
| uncompetitive in the econobox market, and losing huge chunks of
| it even before their real competitors arrive in market...
| jeltz wrote:
| Yeah, in Europe Tesla is not losing to BYD. They are losing
| to VW and BMV before the Chinese manufacturers have entered
| the competition for real.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| And Renault and Dacia and MG and...
|
| Europe doesn't seem to want for EV competition in anything
| like the same way that the US is falling behind.
| MBCook wrote:
| But they're making a robot! It will totally save the company!
|
| On top of all the problems you have identified, as well as
| more, they're clearly now just aiming for fantasy land.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Having a halo product can be inspiring. A lot of BMW buyers may
| get a boring old 3 series but they like that the low volume M
| cars exist, for example.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Just buy an i4, even the eDrive is pretty zippy 0-60 in 5.4
| seconds (the M50 can do it in 3.1 seconds). I'm not sure what
| the M car EV will look like beyond a motor for every wheel,
| but I can't really see a point to it.
| electriclove wrote:
| Maybe they will finally release the Roadster to serve this
| purpose
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| If Tesla wanted to be BMW they could just do all the BMW
| things. But they are aspiring for more, so they flip the
| script quite often. I'm not arguing for or against their
| decisions; just saying that _because BMW does it_ is not a
| good argument for them.
| nunez wrote:
| Ford got a lot of heat for shifting all of their NA production
| to Mustangs and F-series trucks too a few years ago.
| MBCook wrote:
| Ford didn't say it was so they could make a robot butler
| instead.
| kenhwang wrote:
| The reason was sillier: China forced Ford to sell Mazda to
| enter the Chinese market, because Mazda entered the Chinese
| market before Ford and China considered them the same
| entity subject to the same outside manufacturer limits).
|
| Mazda handled the small vehicle chassis design for Ford. So
| without Mazda, Ford no longer had the knowledge for
| continued development of their sedans and crossovers based
| on sedan platforms.
| MBCook wrote:
| Oh is that why they gave up small cars? I didn't realize
| that.
| nunez wrote:
| Wow! That IS silly! I thought Ford had been in China for
| a while though.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Ford was with Mazda in China with a joint venture with a
| Chinese company (as required): Changan, and they were
| building those shared Ford/Mazda platform vehicles there.
|
| Ford wanted to also build trucks for the Chinese market,
| with a different joint venture. However, the rules
| limited companies to two joint ventures, which was a
| problem because Mazda also had a joint venture with FAW.
| Which meant it counted as part of Ford's 2 joint
| ventures.
|
| So Ford sold Mazda. Changan Ford/Mazda got split in their
| respective halves. FAW was no longer associated with Ford
| and left with Mazda. Ford could then pick up a new joint
| venture for trucks, which they did and I don't believe
| they're doing well.
|
| Ford just really wanted to double down on trucks, in more
| than one market.
| nunez wrote:
| No, but they are retooling their MachE factory to make
| batteries, which felt just as much of a wtf as this BS
| Slothrop99 wrote:
| Ford dropped sedans, they still have plenty of SUVs and other
| trucks you can buy.
| electriclove wrote:
| Will they increase specs on the 3 and the Y after the S and X
| are sunset?
| fortran77 wrote:
| But the 3 isn't comparable. It's cheap, looks cheap and feels
| cheap.
| rossjudson wrote:
| Someone who owns a BMW 5 series isn't going to switch down to
| a new model of the 3 series. The X makes the 3 and Y feel
| like go karts (that are slow). The S is a missile. Fun, but
| not for me.
|
| The other way of looking at this: The X is the only Tesla
| model with door handles that aren't stupid.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| How are they slow the Model 3 high performance does
| 0-100kph in 3.1 seconds? The X does it in 2.1, both of
| which are extremely fast and on par if not quicker than a 5
| series BMW
| protastus wrote:
| Because it looks like Elon recognized Tesla's inability to
| compete against BYD and gave up making cars. This is negative.
|
| Since he couldn't leave it at that, he announced a pivot to a
| product that doesn't exist. This is also negative.
| NoPicklez wrote:
| How did he give up? The model Y and the model 3 were
| refreshed last year. With the model 3 now pushing 750km of
| range.
|
| Ford got rid of plenty of popular models including all
| hatchbacks and many sedans.
| EnPissant wrote:
| Because it's Elon Musk.
|
| 10 years ago people here would be describing this as a good
| decision.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Feels a lot like giving up. I guess this is why there is such a
| strong change in the Tesla messaging, to Robotaxis and robots.
| But maybe this is inevitable. The cars being made in China are
| pretty amazing and I don't think it is possible for American or
| European companies to compete.
| reactordev wrote:
| We outsourced it and it would take us 10 years to retool and
| rebuild that kind of capability. No one wants to take that kind
| of investment on.
| stackghost wrote:
| The narrative from Musk cultists has been "Tesla isn't a car
| company, it's a bet on $excuse_du_jour" for at least a year and
| a half.
| neets wrote:
| I am surprised that nobody here is talking about grid energy
| storage, they basically invented that business vertical. It's
| about 13% of their revenue.
| jbm wrote:
| Certainly longer than that. I actually thought Tesla as an
| energy company made sense -- sadly just an excuse to buy and
| shelve solarcity.
| baron816 wrote:
| > converting Fremont factory lines to make Optimus robots
|
| I'm very bullish on humanoid robots, but this seems absolutely
| batshit insane to me. These things are no where near ready for
| full scale production.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Elon Musk says something absolutely insane on the weekly.
| Almost none of it actually happens.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| That's just nonsense, of course. Almost everything he says
| happens. It rarely happens on time.
| etchalon wrote:
| A few of the things he says will happen, happen. Many of
| them happen late.
|
| Most of what he says will happen never happens, but people
| point to the few things that did happen, but were late, and
| say, "This too will happen."
| malfist wrote:
| Almost everything he says happens? Thats pretty far from
| the truth. Isn't Tesla still embroiled in a legal tussle
| over "full self drive"? What about the $30k model 3? What
| about the $200/kg to space?
|
| He has very little connection to the truth. He's a hypeman
| and a conman
| rogerrogerr wrote:
| There are driverless Teslas roaming Texas giving rides
| _right now_. It happened. It was late, and there will be
| some fallout for HW3 compatibility with unsupervised FSD,
| but it happened.
| breve wrote:
| Tesla still doesn't have full autonomy. They've been
| lying about it for a decade:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_aut
| ono...
|
| https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/teslas-unsupervised-
| robotaxis...
|
| https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/tesla-is-still-trying-to-
| dece...
| senordevnyc wrote:
| Is that actually true? I know they announced it, but I
| also saw stories that no one seems to be able to actually
| find one of these...
| wilg wrote:
| No there aren't actually. Seems like they did it once or
| twice with a chase vehicle.
| https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/teslas-unsupervised-
| robotaxis...
| browningstreet wrote:
| On a scale of "happens" on one end to "doesn't happen" on
| the other, he has a few "happens" that Elon fans will try
| and anchor against the weight of the enormous load down at
| the "doesn't happen" end.
| wombatpm wrote:
| If the can walk and randomly fire teargas and bullets into
| crowds of protesters they could replace half of ICE right now.
| sawjet wrote:
| This would only replace a small fraction of ICE, and only in
| states that don't cooperate with federal law enforcement
| officers.
| senordevnyc wrote:
| _only in states that don 't cooperate with federal law
| enforcement officers_
|
| Courts have consistently ruled that state and local
| jurisdictions are not legally required to cooperate with
| federal law enforcement.
| internet_points wrote:
| but first they have to demo it to the higher ups
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYsulVXpgYg
| jmyeet wrote:
| It seems fairly easy to find figures on how many cars Tesla has
| produced each quarter but, surprisingly (at least to me), it's
| harder to find compiled information on (for each quarter):
|
| - Average Selling Price;
|
| - Cars produced vs cars sold;
|
| - How many unsold cars are in inventory. I did find this [1];
|
| - A model breakdown of the above 2.
|
| The reason I'm interested in this because my theory is that:
|
| 1. Sales have been shifting from the Model S/X to the Model 3/Y,
| which reduces average selling price and overall profit. Stopping
| production is really about the inventory glut;
|
| 2. Unsold inventory is going up, particularly for the Cybertruck;
| and
|
| 3. Tesla marketshare is collapsing in many markets due to a
| combination of brand collapse among the most likely EV buyers and
| competition from lower-priced alternatives, particularly Chinese
| EVs in developing markets.
|
| So what exactly is propping up this company at an above $1T
| market cap?
|
| [1]: https://electrek.co/2025/06/17/tesla-tsla-inventory-
| overflow...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| While this isn't sale price data, it should be pretty close,
| and the trends should be clear:
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1F5IQOynIawoXiJPV...
| harshaw wrote:
| I am confused about what Tesla is doing. They have effectively
| two automobile products now with one failed product (cybertruck).
| reading various articles about this doesn't make it more clear.
| Do they not want to be a car company?
| RickJWagner wrote:
| EVs are becoming commoditized. Tesla doesn't have the scale (
| or experience ) to play that angle.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| literally what are the gigafactories for then?
| observationist wrote:
| Batteries - lots of uses beyond EVs, but lots of EVs are
| making use of the batteries they can produce, as well.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| you could make the same argument about batteries.
| Panasonic and other exist.
| tyre wrote:
| The benefit of having control is that they can adapt them
| to their priorities. Similar Apple designing its own
| chips when there were already viable producers in the
| market.
|
| They won't need to rely on others prioritizing their
| priorities, like low volume, high cost early investments
| in batteries designed for a market (humanoid robots) that
| doesn't exist.
|
| If they then scale them up, they _also_ have the benefit
| that there is no 3p supplier who can turn around and sell
| those to a competitor.
| avs733 wrote:
| Regular car factories with a fancy name.
| stetrain wrote:
| At the moment most of them are running notably below
| capacity.
|
| Tesla's growth plan originally had them doing factory
| expansions and new factory in Mexico by now, but instead
| they have pivoted to trying to keep utilization of their
| existing lines up by introducing cheaper trims of existing
| vehicles.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| You should probably keep reading.
|
| Elon for years has said Tesla is not a car company. He's also
| said the "factory is the product." Tesla also has energy
| divisions and investments, as well as xAI investments now.
|
| Logically given that Model S and X are something like less than
| 5% of deliveries (and have been for years), if they're right
| about Optimus, that capacity will generate far greater revenue.
| tempestn wrote:
| Optimus is complete vapourware. The quoted 1M units a year
| would be utterly unbelievable from any company, let alone
| Tesla with their history of over-promising.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Do they have enough people to remotely operate that many
| Optimuses?
| chihuahua wrote:
| They can probably hire enough random dudes in India,
| especially if AI reduces the need for call center
| employees.
|
| It will be slightly creepy when the Optimus walks into the
| bedroom and stares while its owner is ... in the middle of
| something, but that's a small price to pay.
|
| Plus the Tesla employees in the U.S. will also be able to
| share the video, so it's a win-win.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Is this a Black Mirror episode yet?
| pilingual wrote:
| This is interesting. If Optimus hardware is supposed to
| be $15k, and Indian workers remotely operate it, there
| must be jobs in the US and elsewhere that it can handle.
| Median Indian salary is $4000 a year. No US minimum wage,
| no overly expensive health care, no Union fees, no
| workers comp, no visa. 86% savings over a US worker at
| $15 an hour. Plus, if they are a maid, there's a chance
| they'll get a free peek.
| MBCook wrote:
| > if they're right about Optimus, that capacity will generate
| far greater revenue.
|
| How many Cyber Trucks were they supposed to sell?
|
| Yeah. And that was a car. A thing that is at least a category
| people buy.
| tchalla wrote:
| > Tesla's far more popular models are the 3 and Y, which
| accounted for 97% of the company's 1.59 million deliveries last
| year. The Model 3 now starts at about $37,000, and the Model Y
| is around $40,000. Tesla debuted more affordable versions of
| the vehicles late last year.
|
| I'm confused as to what's not clear from the article for you?
| Neywiny wrote:
| Agreed. I also thought it was a very dumb move until I saw
| that. That said, 3% but it costs 2.5x as much, maybe people
| option them higher idk, that could be a 10% revenue hit. But
| maybe that's worth it for them
| MBCook wrote:
| If they just canceled the S and X I don't think people
| would be making quite as much fun.
|
| Saying they're dropping two products that aren't profitable
| so they can make a new product that most people seem to
| think is a complete joke is the problem.
| vannevar wrote:
| The problem with being a car company is that they'd have to
| compete with China. It's possible, but they'd have to make
| additional capital investments to keep up. They've just wasted
| a ton of money on a failed Musk vanity project (Cybertruck) and
| squandered a ton of goodwill in their home market via the DOGE
| fiasco. Cash flow is not what it once was, and if they're going
| to make a big capital investment, they're probably right in
| looking at robots. But that strategy puts them back where they
| were 20 years ago, just getting started in EVs, and their cash
| flow will depend on cars for many years to come.
| jeltz wrote:
| Right now they struggle to compete with European car
| manufacturers, there is no way they can compete with China.
| SR2Z wrote:
| It doesn't help that Musk supported a guy who turned around
| and gutted the incentives that were helping Tesla turn a
| profit.
| nishanseal wrote:
| It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which is
| why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit came
| out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars underwater -
| loans were more than new cars were selling for and
| depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit helped
| their competitors. Now that the credit is gone, Tesla
| owners are closer to being in the black on their cars and
| it also caused Ford and GM to cut EV production by I
| believe 100%. Win win for Tesla.
| gcr wrote:
| won't killing the EV market hurt Tesla in the long run?
|
| markets are healthiest when there are many healthy
| competitors
| candiddevmike wrote:
| You lost me, how does making previous owners whole help
| tesla sell new ones?
| lmm wrote:
| If your existing owners have made a "profit", or at least
| lost less to deprecation than normal, they're probably
| more willing to buy a new car from you (trading or
| selling their existing one) even if that new car is more
| expensive and they're actually paying just as much to
| upgrade as they would be anyway.
| batshit_beaver wrote:
| This seems bizarre. Only reason my family bought a Tesla
| is thanks to the ev tax credit. Without it there are far
| better options.
| asa400 wrote:
| > It seems counterintuitive, but this helped Tesla which
| is why Musk championed it. Basically when that tax credit
| came out, a bunch of Tesla owners had their cars
| underwater - loans were more than new cars were selling
| for and depreciation thru the roof. Plus the tax credit
| helped their competitors.
|
| This makes sense if your business strategy is to get
| existing Tesla owners to trade their current Teslas to
| buy new Teslas, rather than to convert non-Tesla owners
| to buy new Teslas. The latter market is WAY bigger and
| the tax credit was a huge carrot enticing them to look at
| a brand they'd never try otherwise in a market where ICE
| vehicle prices were skyrocketing.
|
| As it stands, there are a ton of Tesla owners who bought
| their cars with the tax refund, are underwater on them,
| bitter about it and/or dislike Elon personally, and will
| never buy a Tesla again. This is churn and brand
| destruction without a corresponding top of funnel
| increase.
|
| In contrast, the supercharger network was significant not
| just for the convenience factor for Tesla owners, but
| also for the fact that it was a social signal that Tesla
| was serious about growing the addressable market of EV
| owners generally by not just making a decent car but
| making the "EV lifestyle" seem possible to non-EV owners.
|
| If Tesla actually is happy that the tax credit is going
| away, that seems like they're acknowledging that they're
| satisfied taking shrinking share of a shrinking market,
| which is their prerogative, but it's a bad business.
| SR2Z wrote:
| Of course, it's 4D chess. This was such a genius move
| that Tesla profits fell 46% last year and they are ending
| production of their highest-margin vehicles.
|
| GM wrote down $4B when they reduced their EV production.
| Despite that, last year GM sold half the number of EVs as
| Tesla did. If THAT was reduced production by 100%, then
| Tesla would have been truly fucked had Harris won the
| election.
|
| Tesla is suffering because Elon Musk was a genius at some
| point in the past. Then, he got into ketamine and fried
| his brain.
|
| The cars are expensive, have QC issues, and are facing
| steep competition from the rest of the world. Tesla's
| attempt to build an F150 competitor was a disaster,
| Optimus is years away from being useful for anything, and
| after 15 years of "We'll totally release FSD this year!"
| the market seems to finally be realizing that it's not
| going to happen for a little while.
|
| It really sucks to see a perfectly good company get blown
| to smithereens, but shareholders did choose to bet on the
| man.
| haspok wrote:
| > Elon Musk was a genius at some point in the past
|
| When he wrote the Hyperloop white paper? When he
| backdated himself as the founder of Tesla, then pushed
| the real founders out?...
|
| He is a genius snake oil salesman, I give you that.
| ohyoutravel wrote:
| It seems counterintuitive, but a 46% profit loss is good
| for Tesla and poised them perfectly to succeed.
| x1ph0z wrote:
| Huh?
| hrunt wrote:
| If the problem with being a car company is that they'd have
| to compete with China, then I have some bad news about being
| a robot company. China is already farther ahead in both
| technology and volume of humanoid robots.[0][1][2][3]
|
| [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/28/cnbc-china-connection-
| newsle...
|
| [1]https://www.unitree.com/g1
|
| [2] https://interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/limx-
| humanoid...
|
| [3] https://www.bgr.com/2083491/china-agibot-humanoid-robot-
| us-c...
| vannevar wrote:
| Fair point. It's hard to support Tesla's valuation as a car
| company, it may be even harder to support as a robot
| company. You have to wonder what might have been if they'd
| spent that Cybertruck money on battery research.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Is there anything China isn't far ahead in? Maybe
| capitalism was a failure.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Or in a more charitable light maybe capitalism just isn't
| the only system that's capable of reaching certain
| technological development.
| throwawaypath wrote:
| >Maybe capitalism was a failure.
|
| China is hyper-capitalist. They're living proof that
| capitalism has won.
| pianopatrick wrote:
| China is a mixed economy with some capitalist parts and
| some socialist parts just like us. Their mix is just a
| bit more effective than our mix than our mix and they
| have higher scale.
| nick49488171 wrote:
| China is capitalist on a state level, that's where they
| are winning. The US lets things get mired in red tape and
| special interests because nobody wants to take
| responsibility for growth.
|
| In China, I imagine that if your company does something
| relevant to the five year initiative then you get a lot
| of red tape cut for you.
| overfeed wrote:
| > China is capitalist on a state level, that's where they
| are winning. The US lets things get mired in red tape and
| special interests because nobody wants to take
| responsibility for growth.
|
| i.e. in China, the government controls capital; in the
| US, capital controls the government.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| It's more effective at depressing wages and at shovelling
| other people's money at whoever the politicians want to
| win. They are also much better at hiding debt -- in
| manufacturing companies, in banks, and in provincial
| governments. A lot of their successes lose money but they
| are awesome at hiding it and they might well outcompete
| Western companies and thereby cause a lot of harm.
| tacticus wrote:
| > They are also much better at hiding debt
|
| Through bonds? or SVPs to fund the building of
| datacentres?
| pm90 wrote:
| What do you mean "hiding it"? Are you suggesting Chinas
| manufacturing capacity is entirely fraudulent or cooking
| the books? Or that the state is providing subsidies?
| Because if its the latter... have you seen the brouhaha
| over Amazon HQ2? Or seen the number of tax
| credits/incentives doled out by US cities to companies
| that "promise" jobs but don't even deliver them? (but
| keep their subsidies).
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's not like US is not capitalist in anything: it's
| still state-of-the-art in software, which preoves that
| the problem is not with capital markets.
|
| It just probably overregulated hardware manufacturing out
| of existence with unionizing and other too strong
| regulations.
| oblio wrote:
| Agreed. The children yearn for the mines and the 12+ hour
| shifts in factories.
| mayama wrote:
| > China is hyper-capitalist.
|
| China is one party system, where CPC controls and owns
| production, policy, finance and even consumption levers.
| incr_me wrote:
| > CPC controls and owns production, policy, finance and
| even consumption levers.
|
| These terms are useless for distinguishing anything --
| what you said can be said about literally any capitalist
| state.
|
| > China is one party system
|
| This is also relatively uninteresting. There have been
| many countries where a single party has nominally
| remained in power for about as long as the CCP has. That
| Deng Xiaoping's coup occurred without nominally
| dismantling the party makes the "one party system"
| distinction a superficial one.
| mayama wrote:
| > These terms are useless for distinguishing anything --
| what you said can be said about literally any capitalist
| state.
|
| CPC mandates and gets seats on highest boards of
| companies, combines IP research across civil military, is
| both producer and consumer of products etc. Look at
| China's civil military fusion policy on the latest
| iteration of how they are doing this. In china there is
| no separate 3-4 branches of govt like in most places. CPC
| controls all legislative, executive, judiciary, military
| and private company boards and financial capital.
| incr_me wrote:
| Again, just about everything you said applies to the U.S.
| state and its relations to private firms. Regardless of
| all that, profits accrue to private owners, investment
| decisions are determined by profit, and labor is hired
| and disciplined via market relations. All of the
| political relations you listed only marginally modify
| capitalist relations; the law of value still operates.
| mayama wrote:
| One emperor in US state doesn't control legislative,
| executive, judiciary, military and private company boards
| and financial capital. The way you have to look at China
| it is an empire with bit of communism and capitalism. If
| the mandate of heaven is favorable emperor controls
| everything, otherwise power diffuses a little among the
| emperor coterie.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| LLMs...
| octoberfranklin wrote:
| Free speech.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Unless you are protesting ICE of course.
| sgentle wrote:
| Market cap and it's not even close. Turns out
| financialisation is the classic you-get-what-you-asked-
| for-not-what-you-wanted of capitalism. We told the
| optimiser to make number go up, and number has certainly
| gone up. China's number? Not as up.
|
| I think it could have gone differently if we gave our
| economic system something to optimise other than itself,
| but then we wouldn't have centibillionaires, so... swings
| and roundabouts I guess?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Who cares which country has a higher market cap? That's a
| capitalist concept, of course the capitalist country has
| more. I'm talking who has the more advanced technology.
| chvid wrote:
| Marketing, sales, finance.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| You acting like china isn't capitalism
| Ray20 wrote:
| But that isn't capitalism. It's socialism, which uses
| many market mechanisms to manage the economy.
| ruszki wrote:
| Making good cars. They can make cheap ones, maybe
| acceptable ones, but not good ones. They are not there
| yet. Of course, the general populace doesn't really care,
| and the vast majority of the market is not driven by
| this, but still.
| theshackleford wrote:
| > Making good cars. They can make cheap ones, maybe
| acceptable ones, but not good ones.
|
| Did you just get out of your Time Machine from a decade
| ago?
| ruszki wrote:
| No, I drove them, and also knowing how they sacrificed
| safety for example by integrating a lot of safety
| critical systems for the sake of price.
| theshackleford wrote:
| You've driven _every_ car from China? WOW!
| jansper39 wrote:
| That's why the whole NCAP safety table is topped with
| Chinese vehicles then.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| My experience in a BYD is they'd be in very high demand
| across the U.S. if it were possible to buy them here.
| overfeed wrote:
| If you think of Musk companies as vehicles to extract money
| from state and federal governments, then everything falls
| into focus. Carbon credits, government launches and the
| Quixotic quest for Mars, and soon Tesla robots sold to the
| DoD and DHS. I'm only half-joking.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Tesla "competed" by corruptly getting BYD banned from the US
| and hurting US consumers.
| saimiam wrote:
| Looks like they took Peter Thiel's animosity towards
| competition too literally by blocking BYD from the US
| market. Without competition, they had no incentive to
| innovate since they were selling into the wealthiest market
| in the world for their product, the US.
|
| No innovation made them stagnate. Being blocked from the US
| made BYD innovate.
| laughing_man wrote:
| He generated a lot of goodwill with "that DOGE fiasco", too.
| It just depends on where you fall politically.
| vannevar wrote:
| The people he generated goodwill with don't buy a lot of
| EVs, apparently.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Nobody's buying EVs in the US since the subsidies
| expired. GM had a record Q4 because it gave up trying to
| sell EVs and started flogging expensive land yachts
| again.
| vannevar wrote:
| Tesla's sales started declining before the subsidies
| expired.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Which is interesting because it seems DOGE failed to do
| anything useful. Patrick Boyle's video suggested it
| actually cost $100B.
|
| Which would be par the course for Ketamine Elon
| linkregister wrote:
| Elon generated goodwill with DOGE among a group of people.
| He then alienated them during a public spat with the
| president. This is also a president who has decided to make
| EVs synonymous with the opposition political party.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Elon's a strange hero for MAGA. All the hardcore rural
| MAGAs I know hate Elon. They consider him a rich dickhead
| nerd (and group him with Gates) and they hate EVs with a
| passion, since they are quiet and produce no black smoke.
| bamboozled wrote:
| _The problem with being a car company is that they 'd have to
| compete with China._
|
| As if China cannot produce kick ass robots ? What special
| sauce does Musk have here that a country with a massive pool
| of highly trained and educated engineers and decades of
| manufacturing expertise don't have?
| vannevar wrote:
| I'm sure China can. But nobody is producing consumer
| humanoid robots at any scale yet, so Tesla can at least
| make the argument that they'll make better robots when
| people actually start buying robots. People are buying cars
| at scale right now, and existing Tesla models have fallen
| behind their Chinese competitors.
| linkregister wrote:
| Unitree delivered 5500 humanoid robots in 2025.
| vannevar wrote:
| Another 10 years and maybe they will have sold as many as
| Sony sold Aibo robot dogs. You're making my point---it's
| not a significant market, and won't be for many years.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would bet that as soon as someone "solves" robots. China
| will relatively shortly, that is months or few years
| produce something that surpasses them. They have all the
| pieces and all the capabilities. Just look at drones for
| example. It just requires correct solution and China might
| even be first to provided that.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| it's very difficult to have a conversation about this, because
| it would appear that sincere answers to your question will get
| downvoted. one POV is that, if you accept the bear case from
| Internet commenters that these guys are incompetent or stupid -
| blah blah blah, Cybetruck - the existence of their autonomous
| taxi product is extremely bullish. they managed to pull off
| something similar to Waymo despite being so much worse at it,
| yes? I'm not sure they will even need a diverse product line of
| premium cars, if they can sell an autonomous 3 for the price of
| a small house. on the flip side, the bear case there is, if
| they could figure it out, so will a lot of other car companies.
| and yet, Cruise ceased operations, and Tesla will seemingly pay
| a manageable amount of blood money for Autopilot and move on.
|
| nobody really can predict the future, so unsurprisingly,
| "reading various articles about this doesn't make it more
| clear." but people on the Internet keep getting worked up about
| it. to me, people do not comprehend the meaning of "high risk,
| high reward."
| tyre wrote:
| imo their competition for autonomous vehicles doesn't come
| from car companies, but from tech companies.
|
| Amazon has a lucrative incentive to automate its supply chain
| up to and including last mile delivery. Waymo has proven out
| the tech and could easily partner with Uber or Lyft for the
| rider experience and reach.
|
| If you're FedEx, for example, would you rather buy from
| Amazon or from Tesla? Who is more likely to be a sane and
| trustworthy partner?
| mandevil wrote:
| I don't think that Uber or Lyft are going to invest in
| self-driving taxis. The capital model is completely
| different: Uber and Lyft are by design capital light, they
| own nothing more than the software (1), and someone needs
| to buy all of these self-driving machines and then someone
| needs to maintain them, whereas their current model doesn't
| do that- they can't offer that to any tech partner.
|
| The reason that you don't see more Waymo areas has nothing
| to do with rider pool or experience, it is because their
| tech requires pre-mapping everything with LiDAR several
| times- the advantage is that if you know what is static
| (because it was in all of that LiDAR mapping) then a simple
| difference algo can tell you everything that is dynamic in
| the environment. (Also, they are just starting to hit
| cities with significant precipitation- SFO, LA, ATX, PHX
| are all pretty dry cities, they are going into ATL, MIA,
| DC, DEN, etc.)
|
| 1: With a lot of suspicion that much of their profit comes
| from drivers not understanding depreciation of their
| vehicles, something that the accountants who work for Uber
| and Lyft will understand very very well.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Uber, and to a lesser extent Lyft, has been an extremely
| prolific investor in the autonomous vehicle space.
| They're absolutely paying attention to it.
|
| Similarly, Waymo isn't bottlenecked by mapping or rain.
| I've seen enough of them testing in Seattle and Tokyo, as
| examples.
| Marazan wrote:
| Yeah, and then Uber sold off its self driving research
| team.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I'm talking about after, of course. They retained a
| massive investment in Aurora as part of that deal. They
| invested in Waabi not long after, then Nuro, Avride and
| started partnerships with Waymo, Motional, and others.
| cesarvarela wrote:
| Uber spent billions trying to make self-driving work,
| until they gave up. Not "by design".
| mosdl wrote:
| Their autonomous taxi program is a joke right now, especially
| compared to Waymo. Way fewer cities/rides, and they haven't
| even deployed their cybertaxi thing.
| tensor wrote:
| When Tesla started producing cars, everyone wanted what they
| proposed. Now, no one wants the cybertruck. No one is really
| asking for humanoid robots. Their self driving is vastly
| inferior to waymo when it comes to taxies, I can't see them
| winning that market. Their batteries and solar panels, like
| their cars, seem to be more or less abandoned.
|
| So, it's pretty easy to see why people are confused and
| upset. Tesla is discontinuing all the things people like
| about Tesla, and selling vapourware that no one really wants
| anyways, instead. It's also not "a difficult conversation."
|
| What seems more likely is that Musk, in his extreme shift to
| the right, has abandoned the original goal of Tesla:
| producing sustainable electric vehicles. He's become more and
| more delusional, with failing like the Boring machine and the
| Cybertruck starting to pile up. He's alienated his existing
| customer base by both getting into politics and dropping any
| pretext of trying to help the environment.
|
| From my point of view, Tesla is a failed company with a
| leader who has gone off the rails, and a board that refuses
| to reign him in. Revenues are falling off a cliff outside of
| US governmental money, and it's betting the whole ship on
| only two ideas: self driving, which is so far no where close
| to being where it needs to be, despite the progress, and on
| yet another fairy tale that is humanoid robots.
| jeltz wrote:
| The board cannot rein him in because doing so risks having
| the stock valued as a car company stock and not as a tech
| company or meme stock. I think they can only fix this after
| the stock has crashed.
| SR2Z wrote:
| Just a reminder that Tesla has still not offered driverless
| robotaxi rides to the public.
|
| At this point, it's entirely because Musk refuses to add
| LIDAR. If he did they could probably be competing with Waymo
| in a year.
| voisin wrote:
| His rationale seems to be validated by Nvidia following the
| same strategy, no?
| SR2Z wrote:
| Nvidia follows the same strategy because having a large
| end-to-end model is how you get your customers to buy
| GPUs with their AI slush fund (and I don't think they
| limit themselves to vision).
|
| His rationale at this point seems to be mostly
| stubbornness, coupled with a healthy dose of anxiety when
| he considers how much money he'll have to spend to
| deliver FSD to the people who bought it 10 years ago.
| wmf wrote:
| Nvidia isn't offering driverless robotaxi rides to the
| public either.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > they managed to pull off something similar to Waymo despite
| being so much worse at it, yes?
|
| similar?! what exactly is your definition of similar? tesla
| and waymo are so far apart that it is difficult to accept any
| argument that tries to make this comparison. they cannot co-
| exist in the same sentence unless to explain one's success
| against the other's failures
| voisin wrote:
| Can you elaborate for those less familiar with the
| successes vs failures?
| bdangubic wrote:
| - https://x.com/Waymo/status/1924931187274826077
|
| - https://x.com/Waymo/status/1945106097741664630
|
| will leave it to the astute reader to look up "robo"taxi
| SloppyDrive wrote:
| Its not that strange; normally manufactures are focused on
| volume and brand. So you have the 3 and Y in numbers where they
| can compete in the mass market price range; and CT and FSD for
| brand notoriety.
|
| S and Y are not special enough to do anything for the brand,
| they dont qualify as halo products anymore. Probably still
| wouldnt be that interesting even if refreshed.
|
| CT is still interesting, it looks different and has some tech
| inside that seems worthwhile to iterate on.
|
| And unlike traditional brands, tesla has FSD, Optimus, and Musk
| to do enough to keep the brand itself healthy.
|
| My guess would be they are deciding what they can learn by
| iterating the CT, and might decide to drop it in a year or two
| when the roadster takes the halo role.
|
| They will keep trying to improve on volume for 3 and Y.
| rchaud wrote:
| Automotive stocks are subject to the rules of gravity, aka
| "boring", while tech stocks are not. Automakers operate on low
| margins and high volume, and must compete on price, reliability
| or luxury brand status. Most automakers have multiple brands to
| sell to all market segments.
|
| Tesla's value proposition was that it was going to be an iPod
| in a world of identikit MP3 players, and charge a premium for
| it. One brand to rule them all, no pesky dealerships, with
| futuristic EV tech and a touchscreen dash that made gas-
| powered, tactile button-laden cars obsolete.
|
| That was twenty years ago. Tesla went from leading the pack to
| struggling to achieve scale, with its limelight-seeking leader
| increasingly holding it back. The leader wants headlines for
| pioneering "cool shit" and pushing hype to pump the stock
| price. Buyers on the other hand want affordable and timely
| repairs (impossible with their resistance to third party body
| shops and unit cost of replacement parts). As a mature company,
| it is completely un-equipped to compete with the incumbents
| whose leaders, not by coincidence, are all largely unknown to
| the public.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| Check out videos of Chinese car company factories. They are far
| more automated and futuristic than Tesla's. Most of the new
| ones have almost no humans in them at all. They have great
| supply chains and partners for everything that is an input into
| these factories, and they're often just up the street from the
| car factories. The costs are rock bottom and the competition
| between car companies in China is absolutely bananas.
| fmlpp wrote:
| Tesla and musk were living off of monstrous subsidies to the
| tune of 20B or more
| rossjudson wrote:
| Sure. And selling the most popular car on the planet is a
| failure?
|
| Didn't the US government put ~$80b into rescuing GM etc,
| years ago?
|
| Subsidies bootstrapped the EV industry. Stupid policies mean
| walking away from the investment, ceding the market to
| foreign competitors, and doubling down on legacy ICE crap the
| rest of the world no longer wants...and Americans will be
| less and less able to afford.
| wavefunction wrote:
| >the most popular car on the planet
|
| That's the Toyota Corolla. I find this inaccurate glazing
| of musk to be relatively common but it always strikes me as
| profoundly weird.
| kccoder wrote:
| Also, if you compare the entire model line up sales,
| Tesla isn't even in the top ten in sales. Tesla could
| disappear entirely and the car industry wouldn't even
| notice.
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| But the metric is good since it incentivizes car
| companies to make 1 good model instead of many different
| with the intent to confuse buyers
| Marazan wrote:
| Car buyers are not confused. The market is naturally
| highly segmented. My needs "every day low distance
| compact car that can cope with city centre narrow streets
| with once a month motorway driving" is not met by the
| same car as "family of 5 with big dog living in a
| village"
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| To be charitable, according to at least some reports, the
| Model Y was the best selling car of 2024.
|
| I was googling the data for 2025 and it seems that it's
| number 2 now (behind the RAV4 to my surprise) with the
| Corolla at 3.
|
| No idea how accurate these are, finding global numbers
| was harder than I thought.
| nunez wrote:
| Apparently Tesla dropped 4680 battery production for the CT by
| 99%, so the CT isn't long for this world either.
|
| But that's okay! They have the Cybercab that will 100% drive
| itself For Real This Time, $99/mo Autopilot/FSD subscriptions
| and robots that will theoretically wash your dishes in an age
| where most people have an adversarial relationship with
| anything AI, so.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing with your overall take, but Tesla and
| other EV manufacturers have released the same model of
| vehicle with different battery technologies at different
| times. Only saying that dropping 4680 production isn't
| conclusive proof itself.
| nunez wrote:
| It's the 4680 cell that is only used by CT at the moment:
| https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-on-
| its-w...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| The X and S were always very low volume niche products unlike
| the much more mainstream Y and 3. I wouldn't read much into it.
| rossjudson wrote:
| I would. Someone in the market for a presumably profitable
| BMW 5 or 7 series isn't going to stay with BMW and drive a 3
| series.
|
| Yearly sales of model X have been comparable to the 5 series,
| at least until last year when musk's political activities
| took the shine off the brand.
|
| High end cars are more profitable. There are millions of 3
| and Y owners with positive experiences who would stay with
| the brand if it had something to move up to.
|
| My 23 MX is the best car I've ever owned. I wouldn't buy the
| current iterations of 3 and Y.
|
| Most refresh X owners think it's pretty great (not perfect).
| There are no alternatives at the moment, mostly because other
| manufacturers are terrible at software development...and
| that's not good for software defined vehicles.
|
| It's sad to see Tesla walk away from the luxury segment so
| they can focus on robots, go karts, and robots pretending to
| drive go karts.
| Slothrop99 wrote:
| S you can understand, because sedans are dead. But every
| other US auto company is making big profits with large SUVs,
| so I don't get dropping X.
|
| Agree with other posters who say whatever you think of Musk,
| Tesla styling has gotten very stale.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Tesla have always said the design of the X was a mistake of
| over-engineering. I'm guessing there was no money to be
| made from it, especially as the sales dwindled.
| foxglacier wrote:
| About a decade ago, Musk said he wanted to kickstart the
| electric car industry, make electric cars cool by showing they
| can be high performance and promising not to enforce Tesla's
| patents against competitors. Remember how electric cars used to
| be perceived? The Simpsons put it as "people will think you're
| gay". I'd say he completely succeeded in that goal and the
| whole "make piles of money for investors" is just because
| investors decided to try doing that.
| adastra22 wrote:
| The meme stock run up made Tesla more valuable than the rest of
| the auto industry combined. They HAVE to find something bigger.
|
| I don't think they have. Humanoid robots are a bad joke. But
| that's why they are pivoting.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Humanoid robots make sense in only one context I can think
| of, and I definitely wouldn't put it past Musk to enter that
| market. It will be a big one. He may just be waiting for
| material science to catch up with his product vision. Much
| like Steve Jobs waited by the river until capacitive
| multitouch came floating by, and then pounced on it.
|
| Meantime, as others have pointed out, the Model S and X are
| not selling enough to justify keeping the factory running. I
| don't see them going into Optimus production immediately,
| since as you suggest it's a solution looking for a problem.
| adastra22 wrote:
| If you're beating around the same bush, I think the
| material science is already there. It's more the power draw
| and the societal blowback that are issues. It is an
| underrated market, but not a >1T$ market (I hope).
| annexrichmond wrote:
| How do you suppose Cybertruck is a failure? I see just as many
| of them as Rivians, while releasing over 5 years later.
| jsight wrote:
| It was estimated at >200k/year, but in reality is well under
| 50k/year. I'd say that is a failure compared to their
| guidance.
| Slothrop99 wrote:
| Ignoring who makes it, this kind of gimmickmobile usually
| sells well for about a year, and then everyone who wants one
| has one. It was never going to be a tentpole.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Rivian is not making money on those trucks either... I
| wouldn't count that as a win.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I regularly see Rivians. I've never once seen a Cybertruck in
| real life. (Midwest USA)
| haspok wrote:
| They are so proud of the Cybertruck sales that they don't
| eevn dare to disclose sales figures. That's the sign of a
| market success.
| stetrain wrote:
| They built production capacity for 125,000-250,000 units per
| year. They are selling around 20,000 units per year.
|
| It was supposed to cost $39k at the low end and have 500
| miles of range at the high end. This drove the hype and high
| reservation numbers.
|
| In reality it costs $79k and offers up to 325 miles of range.
| Doubling the price is going to significantly limit the reach
| of the product.
| jsight wrote:
| They are almost exclusively focused on autonomous cars,
| humanoid robots, and energy (batteries now, maybe more solar
| manufacturing later).
|
| As much as I dislike it, I can't disagree with the business
| case here. They already have >300k monthly subscribers at about
| $100/month. That business will grow rapidly from here as well
| as the robotaxi business itself.
|
| Within 2 years, this business will look radically different
| just because of these two changes.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Lol keep dreaming. Those 300k monthly subscribers could
| churn. Robotaxi isn't two years away. Not even close.
| sidcool wrote:
| The two flagship as best selling cars in the world. S and X
| were low volume cars to get started.
| reenorap wrote:
| Dropping the S and X is going to kill the market for them. Who is
| going to buy a car that they know is getting discontinued?
| jdross wrote:
| Including Cybertruck, it's just 2.75% of sales
|
| Q4 sales: Model 3 & Model Y: 406,585 deliveries All Other
| Models (S/X/Cybertruck): 11,642 deliveries
| _1 wrote:
| It's not like they aren't going to support any new purchases.
| smileysteve wrote:
| S launched in 2012.
|
| X launched in 2016.
|
| Both launched with slow rollouts.
|
| Meanwhile, the average car in use today is 13 years old and
| getting older. (I currently drive a 22 year old car)
|
| It definitely turns me off buying a used model S to know it's
| being discontinued. And if I extrapolate that to the 3/Y, a
| new purchase.
|
| Given my desire for a midsize family sedan, it makes it feel
| like BMW i4 or Porsche Taycan just won me over in the future.
| rconti wrote:
| I think of the i4 as being more of a Model 3 / BMW 3 series
| size car, isn't it?
|
| The S is more in line with with 5er.
|
| I love the way the Taycan CrossTurismo thing looks, but
| holy hell getting in and out of it is like getting in and
| out of a sports car. I expect it to be slightly compromised
| compared to the competition, not.. extremely compromised.
| ebbi wrote:
| Carmakers discontinue models all the time. The support network
| is still around, and parts will still be produced for a while.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Yeah but most companies have a few dozen models, Tesla has 4.
| ebbi wrote:
| Given the product splits, Model S and X served no further
| purpose besides taking up production capacity. If that
| unlocked capacity is used for more Model 3/Y builds or
| other product lines, then that would be a net positive for
| the company as opposed to continuing on with S/X for the
| sake of having product range.
| tcdent wrote:
| Nobody here seems to remember that this was always the plan:
| release expensive cars to bootstrap the company which allows them
| to release progressively cheaper cars until everyone can afford
| one.
|
| Not a fanboy, but this seems like it went exactly according to
| plan.
| malfist wrote:
| Where exactly are those cheaper cars? Still waiting for a 30k
| model 3 like promised.
| willio58 wrote:
| Elon got distracted and decided we want humanoid robots.
| avar wrote:
| You already have it. Musk's earliest promise of a $30k price
| point appears to be an interview in September 2009:
| https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2009/09/25/teslas-elon-musk-
| on-...
|
| Adjusted for inflation, $30k then is around $45k now. Tesla
| sells a Model 3 for just over $35k.
|
| It doesn't make any sense to hold someone to a promise like
| that and _not_ adjust it for inflation. I think you can
| legitimately complain that he didn 't meet the timeline he
| was aiming for.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I think your point is fair, but look at the 2026 Nissan
| Leaf.
|
| The base is around $28k. This feels like one of the first
| "affordable" EVs in the USA. It also comes with decent tech
| without a subscription, and has comparable ranges to
| Teslas.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/nissan/leaf
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Meanwhile folks are waiting (no, not really) for their $35K
| Cybertruck...
| cmxch wrote:
| Buy it used?
| tensor wrote:
| Nowhere in that plan was "only produce cheap cars." Unless
| you're aim is to be the budget brand, it's bizarre behaviour
| not to have a top end flagship model.
| inerte wrote:
| Yes. It's interesting to see a consequence of this strategy,
| which is at least some part of your model 3/Y customers bought
| it because "it is a Tesla", and being Tesla is premium. If you
| get rid of the premium, you lose that aura. But maybe the
| impact is small.
| mattas wrote:
| Which phase of the plan talks about repurposing the cheap car
| factory to make humanoid robots?
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I'm a little sad (nostalgic?) about this decision. Model S is a
| truly historic vehicle.
| vannevar wrote:
| The next shoe to drop will be shifting Model Y production from
| Fremont to Austin. Fremont will make Model 3s. Austin will make
| Model Ys and Robotaxis/2s. Cybertruck will be canceled. None of
| the Tesla plants will be making robots at any scale for many
| years.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Yeah I don't buy this announcement. Converting their huge
| Fremont facility to just making humanoid robots? Do they have
| some large buyer or something? I'm skeptical.
| bdangubic wrote:
| they have a large buyer - _all_ of the silly people investing
| money in the company
| testing22321 wrote:
| IF they work (and that is a massive, massive if), every
| factory on earth will replace every human with them.
|
| It's inevitable, the only question is how many years until it
| happens: 2, 5, 10, 50?
|
| Place your bets!
| adastra22 wrote:
| Do think factories are still mostly humans on assembly
| lines?
| testing22321 wrote:
| Not mostly, no.
|
| But I toured an auto assembly plant of a major US OEM
| recently and there were a ton of humans on the line.
|
| Unions will be an issue, but all the OEMs are walking
| dead anyway.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Tour Toyota. It's be lights-out except for all the people
| there on tours to see the mechanical marvels.
| impure-aqua wrote:
| That is true of press, weld, and paint stages, which
| gives you a chassis and nothing else. It is absolutely
| not lights out for "final assembly" which despite the
| name is how massive amounts of the car comes together.
|
| Robots are great at the bulk movement required for
| sticking sheet metal into huge stamps as well as
| repeatably welding the output of these stamps together.
| Early paint stages happens by dipping this whole chassis
| and later obviously benefits highly from environmental
| control (paint section is usually certain staff only to
| enter.)
|
| But with this big painted chassis you still need to mount
| the engine/transmission, the brake and suspension
| assembly needs installing, lots of connectors need
| plugging in for ABS- and supporting all the connectors
| that will need plugging in is a lot of cabling that needs
| routing around this chassis. These tasks are very
| difficult for robots to do, so they tend to be people
| with mechanical assists, e.g. special hoisting system
| that takes the weight of engine/trans while the operators
| (usually two on a stage like this, this all happens on a
| rolling assembly line) drag it into place, and do the
| bolting.
|
| Trim line is also huge, insert all these floppy roof
| liners, install the squishy plastic dashboard, the seats,
| carpets, door plastic trim, plug in all your speakers and
| infotainment stuff, again the output of the automated
| stages is literally the shell of a car, and robots are
| extremely bad at doing precise clipping together of soft
| touch plastics or connection of tiny cables. Windshield
| install happens here too, again these things are
| mechanically assisted for worker ergonomics but far from
| automated.
|
| Each of these subassemblies also can be very complex and
| require lots of manual work too but that usually happens
| at OEM factories not at the assembly factory. Automation
| in these staffed areas mostly is the AGVs which follow
| lines on the floor to automatically deliver kanban boxes
| which are QR tagged (the origin of the QR code, fun fact)
| to ensure JIT delivery of the parts needed for each
| pitch.
|
| It is far from lights out even in the most modern
| assembly plant and I think it will be a long time until
| that is true. The amount of poka-yoking that goes into
| things like connector design so there is an audible
| "click" when something is properly inserted for example-
| making a robot able to perform that task at anywhere near
| the quality of even a young child will take vast amounts
| of advancement in artificial intelligence and sensing.
| These are not particularly skilled jobs but the robotics
| skill required is an order of magnitude more than we can
| accomplish with today's technology.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Wiring harnesses seem like the final boss of
| manufacturing automation. A lot of times they're still
| built entirely by hand, and also installed by hand.
|
| Automation is really good at assembly of stiff, solid
| objects. Anything soft and flexible seems too error
| prone. See also: the garment industry.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Which is why Tesla went so hard on the harness for cyber
| truck, to learn how to do it for the next vehicles
| oblio wrote:
| Factory robots have almost nothing in common with
| humanoid robots and are probably at least 10000x simpler.
| adastra22 wrote:
| That's the point!
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| "Do think factories are still mostly humans on assembly
| lines?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBdcNA_FsI
|
| china dark factory
| laughing_man wrote:
| I suspect it's going dormant for a couple years and then
| he'll say "Hey, this robot thing isn't working out, so we're
| closing the facility." He doesn't have any desire to stay in
| California.
| Animats wrote:
| A reasonable guess.
|
| As far as I can tell, the number of humanoid robots doing
| anything productive is zero. It's all demos.
|
| This is far harder than self-driving. As a guy from Waymo
| once said in a talk, "the output is only two numbers"
| (speed and steering angle).
|
| Also, there are at least 18 humanoid robots good enough to
| have a Youtube video. Tesla is not the leader.
|
| Remember the "cobot" boom of about five years ago? Easy to
| train and use industrial robots safe around humans?
| Anybody?
|
| I'm not saying this is impossible, but that it's too early
| for volume production. This will probably take as long as
| it took to get to real robotaxis.
| TOMDM wrote:
| > Also, there are at least 18 humanoid robots good enough
| to have a Youtube video.
|
| Agreed, thing is the robot hardware isn't the hard part
| anymore, the top ten robots are all sufficient to be
| transformative if they had good enough AI.
|
| My bet is on Google/Gemini being the first to market from
| what I've seen so far.
|
| Boston dynamics is a leader in getting robots to do
| useful niche work in well bounded environments, but
| that's yesterday's news.
| heisenbit wrote:
| The story needs only to hold up until car production has
| shut down.
| jsight wrote:
| S and X were a small fraction of Fremont already. The plant
| can do >500k units per year, but S/X were closer to 20k.
|
| It sounds like this would be giving ~5% of the factory space
| to Optimus production, which seems reasonable.
| tempestn wrote:
| Agreed, let alone 1M units a year!
| tombert wrote:
| My dad found it extremely amusing that Elon said "we just
| have to solve the 'AI problem' and we'll have robots doing
| shopping for us", or something like that. I can't remember
| the exact verbiage, but that was the gist.
|
| The word "just" is doing a lot of work there. Going by that
| logic: We "just" need to figure out cold fusion to have
| effectively infinite energy. We "just" need to develop warp
| drives to travel across the galaxy. We "just" need to figure
| out the chemo problem to cure cancer.
| arw0n wrote:
| It is like me at the climbing gym: "This problem is too
| hard for me, let's work on a harder one instead, then I at
| least look cool while failing."
|
| "Since we failed on self-driving since 2016, robotaxis
| since 2020 (1 million on the road), and ASI since 2023, we
| might as well start on failing on robots now".
| autarch wrote:
| Nice. I think my new climbing routine will be to just
| look at the 5.13 and mime moves from the ground for an
| hour, then go home.
| disillusioned wrote:
| I _could_ flash this V12 but what would be the point?
| mraniki wrote:
| Interview in Davos. The "right" has the same touch than the
| "just" here:
|
| > MUSK: Yeah. But I think self-driving cars is essentially
| a solved problem at this point, right? And Tesla's rolled
| out a sort of robo-taxi service in a few cities, and will
| be very, very widespread by the end of this year within the
| U.S. And then we hope to get supervised full self-driving
| approval in Europe, hopefully next month.
|
| Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IgifEgm1-e0
| tombert wrote:
| It's amazing how much hand-waving rich people are allowed
| to get away with. If I tried that people would
| (correctly) call bullshit.
| disillusioned wrote:
| Ah, see, no, and this is why you'll never be rich^. The
| rich people don't _ever_ listen to that "if I tried that
| people would call bullshit" voice. They just try it. And
| try it again. And keep trying it. And then they become
| CEOs or President or whatever. They literally just keep
| doing it. It doesn't matter how untethered what they're
| saying is from reality. It doesn't matter that it's pure
| bullshit. They just keep going and pick up enough
| followers and the rest snowballs from there. Twas ever
| thus. How do you think every cult or religion to every
| form has come about? How do you think every dictator has
| come to power? They vehemently, psychotically ignored "if
| I tried that" and just tried it and kept repeating it
| until the cognitive dissonance wore down into oblivion
| and the pathological washed over them.
|
| _^Sociopathic rich, I mean. I 'm sure you're doing
| fine._
| tombert wrote:
| I don't dispute any of that; I really hate plugging my
| own stuff but I actually wrote a blog post about a
| similar topic last night [1]. TL;DR Billionaires are
| sociopaths who act sociopathic and then define anything
| that doesn't benefit their sociopathy as a "disorder".
|
| It's not that I'm surprised that they constantly lie, I'm
| just surprised anyone _falls_ for it. Like, we were
| supposed to have "full self driving by next year", every
| year as far back as 2018, if I remember correctly. You'd
| think after the third time that FSD didn't happen, people
| would say "maybe this guy is actually full of shit".
|
| [1] https://blog.tombert.com/Posts/Personal/2026/01-Janua
| ry/What...
| Animats wrote:
| _MUSK: Yeah. But I think self-driving cars is essentially
| a solved problem at this point, right? And Tesla's rolled
| out a sort of robo-taxi service in a few cities, and will
| be very, very widespread by the end of this year within
| the U.S._
|
| He said that would happen in 2025. And probably earlier,
| too.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| We "just" need to figure out the terraforming problem then
| we can all move to Mars and be interplanetary explorers.
| Imagine how cool it would be to have corporate leaders who
| had vision--environmentally friendly automobiles, cheap
| space travel, etc.--without the clammy snake oil grifter
| bullshit. Reality is _cool AF_. The things that are
| _actually achievable_ are amazing. We don 't need to spout
| nonsense to do great things. We don't need "AGI" (whatever
| that might be) to do neat things with machine learning. The
| Jetsons is a _cartoon_. Trying to make it real is dumb.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| we need AGI and robot so people can leave chore in house
| to a robot
| disillusioned wrote:
| The Mars obsession absolutely blows me away. Like, he's
| obviously read KSR's Red Mars. He's obviously aware of
| the conditions out there. Mars is a fuckin' _bummer_. It
| is absolutely hostile to human life. Sure, we 'll land
| people there, and maybe set up some sort of station if we
| really want to throw a few trillion dollars away from
| actual problems here on earth... but it's not going to be
| pleasant. Not anytime, ever. The gravity sucks. The dust
| and fines suck. The storms suck. And last for _months_.
| The temperatures suck. There 's no "outside". There's no
| trivial way to generate power at scale. There's no
| magnetosphere, so you'll get cancer. The soil is
| poisonous.
|
| Elon's stuck with this 12-year-old-boy absurdity about
| "becoming interplanetary to save the species" as if Mars
| could ever be a practical lifeboat when we inevitably
| drive the planet into the ground or a meteor hits.
| It's... absurd, puerile fantasy.
| tombert wrote:
| I think there's value in space exploration even for its
| own sake, but I think it's utterly idiotic to think that
| we're going to realistically be able to terraform Mars in
| the next century if ever.
|
| Even if I do think it's worth exploring space, including
| Mars, I think it's silly to assume that it's going to be
| a way to guarantee the permanence of humanity.
| disillusioned wrote:
| This is precisely my point. Folly. (But the knock-on
| effects of the space race and exploration and on and on
| are valid and I'm a big space fan... it's just that
| caging it as some sort of potential lifeboat beggars
| belief.
| ivell wrote:
| Doing such seemingly impossible things have been what
| humans have been doing. The tech developed for Mars would
| definitely influence our Earth society. Hard to say how
| and when, but it has been historically the case. I think
| instead of spending billions on election influence
| campaign, spending that on Mars has a better impact to
| society.
| misiek08 wrote:
| That's the point. Don't listen, keep trying and you can
| achieve anything. Rich people are either bored or stupid
| so you will get money eventually.
| shantara wrote:
| >he's obviously read KSR's Red Mars
|
| If he had, he was clearly not paying attention to the
| social and economic message of the book.
| readmodifywrite wrote:
| The guy owns a rocket company and still hasn't even been
| to LEO. _Katy Perry_ has spent more time in space than
| Elon.
|
| Mars isn't happening, at least not on his watch.
| elfly wrote:
| The funniest part is that the Mars Trilogy is hella
| optimistic about the tech needed to get and live there.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| An interview with a Silicon Valley big shot finally
| explained this.
|
| The concept is that you can convince smart people to work
| extra hard for you by selling them the story that no-no-
| no, they're not merely tweaking some dystopian algorithm
| to sell Chinese plastic crap to people, they're _saving
| the world_.
|
| Once you recognise this pattern, you'll see it
| everywhere: Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Elon all do it.
|
| Hence the "AI safety" rhetoric. Those CEOs will gladly
| take the safeties off and make an army of Terminators to
| sell to the highest bidder! The safety talk is for _their
| employees_ , to convince them to work like slaves to
| "save the world".
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| I am also certain given time this problem is achievable but
| the problem is what we expect after that ????? mass
| unemployment or we just convert all human into robot
| repairer ???? what the end goal there
| tw04 wrote:
| Basically yes. The robots take care of the rich, and poor
| people with their need to have a cut of the resources
| just go away.
|
| They do believe in a post capitalism utopia, they just
| think only about a thousand people need to enjoy it.
| joquarky wrote:
| > I went through this Ford engine plant about three years
| ago, when they first opened it.
|
| > There are acres and acres of machines, and here and
| there you will find a worker standing at a master
| switchboard, just watching, green and yellow lights
| blinking off and on, which tell the worker what is
| happening in the machine.
|
| > One of the management people, with a slightly gleeful
| tone in his voice said to me, "How are you going to
| collect union dues from all these machines?"
|
| > And I replied, "You know, that is not what's bothering
| me. I'm troubled by the problem of how to sell
| automobiles to these machines
|
| - Walter Reuther, Nov. 1956
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/11/16/robots-buy-cars
| anonzzzies wrote:
| I find it amusing listening to his Q1 earnings calls; every
| year the same exact blabber of robots everywhere 'end of
| the year', self driving tesla's everywhere after the
| summer, mars next year etc. Every Bloody Year. The _real_
| clever thing of this guy, no matter how smart
| /not/nazi/whatever he is, is the fact that investors KEEP
| throwing money in even though the major ones _are_ on those
| earning calls every year for a decade already _and_ of
| course that these stocks are not cratering.
|
| But I recommend listening to those calls, start 5 years
| back; because on reddit but also here, you get wide eyed
| awestruck people who say 'ow optimus is december this year!
| ow self driving everything in september!'.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Its classic Elon over-promising. Problem with robots is
| that they are useless without AI, while cars can be driven
| by a human, so as long as controls work and range is good
| they are viable
| everdrive wrote:
| And why would we even need or want robots shopping for us?
| I mean, most of us. For some disabled individuals it could
| be a benefit. For everyone else, it seems like the height
| of laziness and absurdity.
| vel0city wrote:
| Tons of people hire people to do their shopping. Curbside
| pickup and grocery delivery has existed for a while.
|
| A large amount of the people I see in grocery store
| around me are working as pickers filling online orders.
| sampton wrote:
| I can't remember when was the last S/X refresh. It's nuts they
| just let it go stale and shut the factory down.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Tesla got the job done, which was empower Musk, not
| manufacture EVs at scale. The stock is the product.
| totetsu wrote:
| Has it all really been just one giant grift to steal every
| Americans social security number.
| WalterBright wrote:
| And what would he do with them?
| lazide wrote:
| The same systems had labor board whistleblower info.
|
| Why would musk love to identify (or at a minimum, but a
| huge chilling effect on) labor board whistleblowers? The
| world may never know.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Try to impair democracy through election denial groups?
| Absolute power and all that jazz.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734078
|
| _The Trump administration admits even more ways DOGE
| accessed sensitive personal data_ -
| https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5684185/doge-data-
| socia... - January 23rd, 2026
|
| _Case No. 1:25-cv-00596-ELH_ - https://storage.courtlist
| ener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.577...
|
| > The unnamed employees secretly conferred with a
| political advocacy group about a request to match Social
| Security data with state voter rolls to "find evidence of
| voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain
| States," the filing said. It remains unclear whether any
| data actually went to this group.
|
| "Maybe you do not care much about the future of the
| Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always
| be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they
| can not win democratically, they will not abandon
| conservatism. The will reject democracy." --- David Frum
| peyton wrote:
| So why the car company? Also I was told there is no voter
| fraud. Is that just because nobody's looking?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > So why the car company?
|
| How else was he going to become wealthy? Wealth is
| unelected power. Show me evidence he's after anything
| _but_ power.
|
| > Also I was told there is no voter fraud. Is that just
| because nobody's looking?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud_in_the_Unit
| ed_...
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5147732/voter-fraud-
| exp...
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/topics/voting-
| elections/vote-s...
|
| https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-
| reports/debu...
|
| There is no material voter fraud. It is a red herring to
| disenfranchise voters.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >Also I was told there is no voter fraud. Is that just
| because nobody's looking?
|
| I was told you haven't raped anyone, is that because we
| haven't looked into it?
|
| Unless there's evidence that something happened when
| decisions need to be made we assume it didn't.
|
| It's so sad an engineer like you believe there was
| widespread fraud in the 2020 election even after all the
| investigations. It speaks volumes to your abilities in
| all aspects of life.
| croon wrote:
| I'm not following your logic.
|
| What you responded to was a quote of a request that
| claimed that was what they were looking for. Whether it
| was a good-faith request or they used the data for only
| that, etc is the real question.
|
| And if they did find something, it would obviously have
| been in court a long time ago.
| jopsen wrote:
| > The stock is the product.
|
| Musk reeks of scam. But for a stock pump and dumb scheme
| there sure are a lot of teslas on the road.
| tw04 wrote:
| Tesla sold 1.7M cars in 2024. Toyota sold 11.1M cars in
| 2024.
|
| Tesla's current market cap is $1.43T. Toyota's current
| market cap is $354B.
|
| There really aren't that many teslas on the road, and
| their sales are declining.
| wasfgwp wrote:
| This kind of maybe made sense for a while their revenue
| was growing at a very fast pace but now that its
| stagnant/falling they are no different to any other car
| company.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I wonder if this coincides with Musk getting into
| politics? Never a good choice to alienate half your
| customer base. Michael Jordan famously said he never got
| into politics because "Republicans buy sneakers, too."
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Tesla stock isn't valued as a car company
| ben_w wrote:
| Which is exactly the problem.
|
| The stock is priced on expectations of how many humanoid
| robots they might sell over the next decade.
|
| Those expectations in turn treat humanoid robotics as if
| Tesla is the only game in town, when Tesla's Optimus is
| not yet available for purchase and other companies
| already ship.
|
| Then someone brings up the value of Tesla's AI to those
| robots, and here's my response to that to save re-writing
| it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799603
| ulfw wrote:
| "Robots"
|
| A product no one knows if there is a real demand for
| promised to be made by a company that has no core
| competency in robotics
|
| But hey let's just value this BS in the trillions because
| why not. Sam Altman's ChatGPT is not far behind
| ben_w wrote:
| Oh, Optimus is much worse than ChatGPT.
|
| ChatGPT, for all its flaws, does actually exist and
| definitely isn't just a remote-control-based illusion,
| and some people even pay for it.
|
| Optimus, the only thing we can be sure is real is the
| hardware, which is the least interesting part. But even
| if they really are running just on software without
| remote control, the one and only thing they've shown in
| any public demo that would actually be impressive, was
| voice comprehension in a noisy environment.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| Elon would save Tesla by force xAI to buy it like twitter
| does
|
| because why not???? at least Grok is real and we are
| years away from real "Skynet"
|
| SpaceX for weapon delivery, xAI for the brain and Tesla
| for robot chasing
| misiek08 wrote:
| Maybe I'm just naive enough, because I love cars and
| progress, but I think you agree that he really showed our
| whole small world that EV can exist and work. Everyone
| laughed, no one believed it will work and here he still is
| rich and we have Teslas everywhere. Driving, not killing
| more people than other brands.
| longitudinal93 wrote:
| Except that the Model Y accounts for more fatalities than
| any other car out there.
| codebolt wrote:
| Going to need a citation on this one.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| I don't even think it is correct. Teslas as a whole have
| twice the fatality rate [1] per billion miles as the
| industry overall and the model Y has a rate 4x the
| industry average, but that can't overwhelm the fact that
| there are too few Teslas on the road to make that 2x or
| 4x turn into more total fatalities.
|
| [1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a62919131/tesla-
| has-highes...
| darkwater wrote:
| A quote from the original study [1], in which Porsche 911
| is the 4th on the list
|
| "The models on this list likely reflect a combination of
| driver behavior and driving conditions, leading to
| increased crashes and fatalities."
|
| I would like to remind you that Tesla's least powered
| vehicle has around 300HP and needs ~7s to go from 0 to
| 100km/h. Musk is a moron but Teslas are still good and
| safe vehicles.
|
| [1] https://www.iseecars.com/most-dangerous-cars-study
| jlongr wrote:
| Is it really safe to unleash 300hp daily drivers with
| instant torque and significantly greater weight to the
| general public?
| darkwater wrote:
| That's another question, and not a dumb one at all! But
| still, while the product is what it is, there is still
| personal responsibilities in using it properly and
| safely. Otherwise we should ask regulators to just
| prohibit this kind of vehicles.
| DennisP wrote:
| That ship has long since sailed. My college-age niece
| just bought her first car, which is a 2012 V6 Mustang
| with 305hp, naturally aspirated. I'm sure it's lighter,
| but that just makes it faster.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I think China would've gotten us to here without Tesla.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| While you're correct on the one hand, Tesla made EVs
| feasible and mainstream, did the investments and caused a
| rolling effect of worldwide investments in e.g. batteries
| and EVs, and government subsidies that also made investing
| in EVs more attractive to competitors.
|
| Besides EVs, Tesla's long term revenue could very well be
| in the supercharger network, too. It's not as exciting as
| self driving cars, but the oil companies have been the most
| valuable companies / stocks worldwide without being
| exciting like that. I mean I don't think EV charging will
| be anywhere near as big as oil because it doesn't involve
| nearly as much infrastructure or international trade, but
| it's still big, especially if governments refocus on
| replacing ICEs with EVs.
|
| (the focus has been let go because the subsidies were too
| popular and expensive)
| DennisP wrote:
| I agreed on the supercharger network, which made it
| pretty surprising when Musk fired the entire supercharger
| team.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Musk's goal all along was to get away from boutique
| production. He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not
| thousands of cars for wealthy people.
|
| Not sure it's going to work out. Without some big jumps in
| battery tech, EVs are going to be difficult to sell without
| subsidies.
| defrost wrote:
| And yet Chinese EV's are flying out of their factories,
| well, a few are - most are self driving out to the shipping
| yards.
|
| This despite the 2025 support by the Chinese state for the
| Chines EV industry now being almost nothing.
| By contrast, defenders of China could point out that the
| data show that subsidies as a percentage of total sales
| have declined substantially, from over 40% in the early
| years to only 11.5% in 2023, which reflects a pattern in
| line with heavier support for infant industries, then a
| gradual reduction as they mature. In addition,
| they could note that the average support per vehicle has
| fallen from $13,860 in 2018 to just under $4,600 in 2023,
| which is less than the $7,500 credit that goes to buyers of
| qualifying vehicles as part of the U.S.'s Inflation
| Reduction Act.
|
| Old source: https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-
| hand/chinese-ev-dil...
|
| but the arc of less subsidies is clear.
| 01100011 wrote:
| You'd expect subsidies to drop as supply chains mature
| and economies of scale kick in. What about subsidies to
| inputs like electricity, aluminum, batteries, etc?
| defrost wrote:
| You would be better answered by reading the link and any
| methodology references.
|
| Perhaps "support" already factors in all relevant
| subsidies.
| thesmtsolver2 wrote:
| You should also factor in lax human rights enforcement in
| China (which acts like a subsidy essentially in effect
| and is not factored in these calculations):
|
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/10/human-
| rights-...
|
| BYD is at the bottom of the list (worst for human
| rights). Tesla is second at the top (better for human
| rights).
| defrost wrote:
| > You should also factor in ...
|
| Thank you for the suggestion.
|
| I should point out that is not my work, and dates from
| 2023. If you follow the link to the work quoted you might
| be able to contact the authors and pass them your
| thoughts.
| claytongulick wrote:
| You are citing a source to tell a story about subsidies.
|
| Lack of worker safety standards can be considered to be a
| government subsidy when doing a comparison.
|
| Therefore, it's reasonable to point out that it should be
| factored in.
| defrost wrote:
| Absolutely. Even better, suggest that the authors factor
| that in to their presentation.
|
| Now, I'm not going to tell you what _ _you_ _ should do,
| nor would I even tell you what I think you should do.
|
| I'll leave that to @thesmtsolver2 and others who enjoy
| that type of thing.
| maxglute wrote:
| This is a retarded list of self reported paper
| commitments, not actual practice, i.e. no actual supply
| chain assessment was done, not that you can trust a
| propaganda shitrag like amnesty. Tesla simply "promises"
| in their PR to be better for human rights. Hint 50%+ of
| Tesla exports come from Tesla Shanghai which uses same
| supply raw material supply chain as rest of PRC auto,
| functionally they're the same.
|
| Meanwhile how do you factoring in PRC manufacturing is
| simply more modern with more labour saving automation,
| i.e. they simply have less people to "abuse". PRC simply
| be peak human rights by eliminating the most humans from
| process.
| Retric wrote:
| Musk would love to be selling several billion dollars per
| year of model S/X sales, the issue is they aren't that
| competitive with other cars in the luxury segment thus the
| falling sales numbers.
|
| Tesla's doesn't really have a complex strategy at this
| point, they are getting squeezed out of the high end by
| legacy automakers where their lower cost batteries don't
| matter as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end
| as soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.
|
| So self driving is really the only option to sell any long
| term upside to keep the stock from tanking. It's not a very
| convincing argument, but you play the hand your dealt.
| runako wrote:
| > getting squeezed out of the high end by legacy
| automakers where their lower cost batteries don't matter
| as much. They are absolutely fucked on the low end as
| soon as Chinese cars enter the picture.
|
| The deep irony here is that after ~15 years of trying ti
| differentiate from the legacy American automakers, they
| land in a very similar competitive position. Chinese EVs
| are in the process of running the table outside the
| protectionist markets of the EU + US/Canada.
|
| Eventually those protective barriers will fall as they
| protect a relatively small number of citizens by taxing
| the majority. It remains to be seen whether the US and
| European domestic producers will survive.
| loeg wrote:
| What's their competition on the high end? Porsche,
| Cadillac? Do Rivian or Genesis count?
| tw04 wrote:
| Lucid runs circles around the S when it comes to build
| quality and features.
| laughing_man wrote:
| What about sales, though?
| tw04 wrote:
| They outsold the model S last year which was their
| primary competition.
|
| They successfully launched their second model, the
| gravity, which would have competed with the X but will
| now likely just outright replace it.
|
| Their mass produced $50k SUV is expected to launch this
| year.
| loeg wrote:
| They're very cool in theory. My impression from the
| EngineeringExplained guy's experience isn't great. And
| Lucid does something similar to Tesla where too much
| (IMO) is controlled through the touchscreen.
| wasfgwp wrote:
| Audi and Mercedes? (Well in Europe where the highend
| Teslas barely had any sales anywya, at least). Porsche is
| probably a tier or so above
| Retric wrote:
| If they are eating into model X or S sales it obviously
| counts here.
|
| Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Genesis, and Cadillac
| are all competitive in different ways. Stat wise someone
| buying the electric G-Wagon is making a poor decision,
| but swagger is a selling point which very much costs
| Tesla sales.
|
| Cadillac's approach of a huge dumb battery powering a
| huge heavy vehicle may not be ideal for the average use
| case, but customers are going to prioritize different
| things. One SUV just can't be the best solution to every
| lifestyle.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| You may have to play the hand you have, but Musk was the
| dealer and he is _still_ losing.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| > Musk's goal all along was to get away from boutique
| production. He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not
| thousands of cars for wealthy people.
|
| So the literal opposite of the Cybertruck, which was
| released less than a year ago.
| longitudinal93 wrote:
| Not to mention the Roadster
| ulfw wrote:
| The non-existing vehicle Musk still was able to get
| suckers to pay him for
| nehal3m wrote:
| According to the Wikipedia article the first one rolled
| off the line in November 2023. That's a good two years.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > He wants to sell millions of cheaper cars, not thousands
| of cars for wealthy people.
|
| Why hasn't the cheap car been designed yet then?
| laughing_man wrote:
| The Model 3 is pretty cheap for an EV. The average car in
| the US is over $50k now, so it's competitive on price.
| ben_w wrote:
| If $50k is competitive for you, that should be a sign
| something's gone wrong.
|
| In Europe we can get new cars for less than half that
| price, both for domestic production and also post-tariffs
| on Chinese imports.
| Ray20 wrote:
| > If $50k is competitive for you, that should be a sign
| something's gone wrong.
|
| Or, on the contrary, a sign that something went right. If
| Europeans weren't drowning in poverty, they would also
| buy more expensive cars.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Europeans weren't drowning in poverty
|
| How come the US has a higher rate of struggling with
| groceries (12.2% US vs 8.5% EU), healthcare (44% US vs.
| 18.6% for costs) EU, education costs, etc.?
|
| > they would also buy more expensive cars.
|
| Price != quality. European cars have better safety
| standards, as well as being cheaper to own and run.
| American cars... the vibe I got from them on trips was
| the expectation for them to serve as an additional air-
| conditioned entertainment room that just happened to be
| on wheels, whereas the European ones are mostly a mode of
| transport unless you're specifically into luxury brands.
| Ray20 wrote:
| > How come the US has a higher rate of struggling with
| groceries (12.2% US vs 8.5% EU), healthcare (44% US vs.
| 18.6% for costs) EU, education costs, etc.?
|
| Reliability of statistical data. The more totalitarian a
| state is, the more out of touch with reality it can be in
| its statistics. If we look at the statistics provided by
| North Korea, they have zero on all the points mentioned.
| Europe isn't there yet, but it's moving at full speed.
| Their cars even safer and cheaper to own and run than
| European ones.
| ben_w wrote:
| > The more totalitarian a state is, the more out of touch
| with reality it can be in its statistics.
|
| That's more of an American problem than an EU one at the
| moment.
|
| We're not the ones shooting unarmed protesters in the
| head ten times after removing their legally owned gun,
| nor faking arrest photos, etc.
|
| Even before that, our leaders have not* called for the
| death penalty to be used against politicians reminding
| troops of their existing obligations to not follow
| illegal orders.
|
| Even before that, the US government shutdown at end of
| last year means some economic data was never collected at
| all.
|
| Even before that, DOGE having Musk at the helm had
| obvious conflicts of interest with regards to e.g.
| ongoing investigations against Tesla.
|
| * to my knowledge, but TBH wouldn't be surprised if Orban
| has, but also Hungary is to the EU as, IDK Wyoming
| perhaps, is to the USA.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > We're not the ones shooting unarmed protesters in the
| head ten times after removing their legally owned gun,
| nor faking arrest photos, etc.
|
| To be fair, can you even "open carry" a firearm anywhere
| in Europe? Isn't the UK trying to ban pointy kitchen
| knives[1]?
|
| [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/crime/general/uk-
| considering-point...
| littlestymaar wrote:
| With the appropriate permit, yes. Which is also the case
| in Minnesota.
|
| (The permit requirements differ a lot between countries,
| but that an implementation detail, you should not be
| killed while respecting the law)
| blipvert wrote:
| Ah, you're talking about the regime that fired the
| commissioner of the Bureau of Labour Statistics because
| the president didn't like the figures, right?
|
| Right?
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Scary to realize how some people in the US have been
| brainwashed into thinking European countries are
| totalitarian states drowning in poverty
| lisdexan wrote:
| Just be rich (in debt) like Americans seems like a bad
| plan for a global brand. Poorer countries outside NA and
| the EU buy stuff too, y'know.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > Without some big jumps in battery tech, EVs are going to
| be difficult to sell without subsidies.
|
| The actual sales figures show otherwise, but sure, there's
| still a lot of uncertainty with regards to batteries /
| range, I can imagine even moreso in the US. Traveled to
| Austria a while ago in an EV (~1000 kilometers), we had to
| stop 3x on the way, but the battery was good for another
| 2.5 hours of driving after a coffee. I keep hearing that
| "solid state batteries are around the corner" and they will
| solve all problems with capacity and safety / fire risk,
| apparently. I'll just sit and wait patiently, it'll take
| years before their production capacity is on par with
| current battery tech.
| WarmWash wrote:
| The whole battery thing is a massive misunderstanding of
| how EVs work vs gas vehicles.
|
| For an EV with a range of 250 miles (400km) you can drive
| 400mi (645km) with one (1) thirty minute stop.
|
| That's pretty much, drive 3 hours, stop for 30 minute
| lunch, drive 3 hours.
|
| The confusion stems from the fact that gas cars don't
| fill up themselves before you depart, and they don't fill
| up themselves when you arrive. There are rather large
| differences between gas and electric cars, but people
| still treat EVs like gas cars, and demand EVs be more
| like gas cars.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Isn't it more like 4 hours?
|
| The EPA tests at 55MPH, and driving faster than that will
| yield a lower range, so each 200 mile leg should take
| closer to 4 hours.
| trhway wrote:
| The refresh would need large investment. And it seems that
| S/X weren't selling that well to warrant such an investment.
| Just looking around - SV, a key market for Tesla - everybody
| buys 3 and Y, not S and X. In some sense it seems that 3/Y
| cannibalized S/X.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| While that's true, S/X were considered luxury vehicles, 3/Y
| mainstream and they far, FAR outsold the S/X. In most
| cases, volume trumps individual prices.
|
| Of course, that doesn't mean they _had_ to discontinue
| those lines.
| dybber wrote:
| As luxury vehicles they were also competing in a
| different market, where competitors have caught up.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The problem is just there is no concept of a car company
| where they only sell their standard mass market vehicles.
| Somewhat more expensive higher margin vehicles are in the
| lineup for almost all the other companies. Its kind of
| strange to suggest its not worth it when it is seemingly
| worth it for most other companies.
|
| Maybe the wisdom of having a 'full lineup' is wrong and has
| to do with making dealers happy.
|
| On the other hand, having 99% of your sales be 2 very
| similar vehicles seems questionable strategy.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I don't know if it's genius or madness, but all of Tesla's
| cars look the same. When I see a Tesla, I can't tell if
| it's a 3, S, X, or Y unless I get close. The most distinct
| one is the X with its fancy doors.
|
| So when I hear they're cancelling the S and X I can't even
| picture which cars we're talking about.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| How can legacy auto refresh models every two years and
| Tesla cannot?
| antiframe wrote:
| Perhaps it has to do with sales numbers? The Model S and
| Model X were not selling well.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Pretty sure the Mercedes S-Class is also not selling a
| ton of units.
| trhway wrote:
| 268K of 5 top end Mercedes models were sold in 2025 (and
| like 1/3 of them were sold in Maybach or AMG version!).
| Where is Tesla S and X combined sales were only 32K in
| 2024 and 18K in 2025.
|
| You wouldn't mistake Mercedes S-Class for E-class and
| E-class for C-class. Even BMW 7 vs. 5 vs. 3 look more
| distinct than Tesla S vs. 3 and X vs. Y. The Mercedes and
| BMW do the good job of market differentiation while in my
| view Tesla failed here, and thus cheaper 3 and Y
| cannibalized sales of S and X. Thus, paradoxically, given
| that Tesla started in luxury segment, Tesla hasn't
| recently been capturing that high margin of the luxury
| segment (which is doing very well overall - just look at
| those Maybach and AMG numbers)
| riffraff wrote:
| Do you expect the demand for Tesla's robotaxis to be high? I
| don't see it.
| lacker wrote:
| If they actually worked right now, the demand would be high.
| Demand is certainly high for Waymos. Even if they worked
| worse than a Waymo I think the demand would still be very
| high. But it's hard to tell if (or when) it will work well
| enough to actually be a real product.
| riffraff wrote:
| that's why I said "Tesla's robotaxis".
|
| They have not proven they are waymo level or near it, or
| that they will ever be there given the lack of lidar.
| Deklomalo wrote:
| The question is what 'high' means in context of revenue.
|
| Uber, the globally available taxi company, is valued 8
| times less than tesla. If you are now able to kill all the
| costs for the taxi driving and reduce the cost for the car
| also, how much revenue is left?
|
| Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a normal taxi to kill
| taxis. The margin of that company can't be that much more
| than a company like uber.
|
| And uber itself will also invest in this, as every other
| car company. XPeng and co everyone who is building or
| working on this, will not just idly looking and waiting for
| tesla to just take 'whatever this cake' will look like.
|
| For me it becomes a complet game changer if it becomes so
| reliable so extrem reliable, that i can order a car at
| night, a fresh bed / couch is then in the car and i can lie
| down while it drives me a few hundred kilometers away.
| mustyoshi wrote:
| >Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a normal taxi to kill
| taxis. The margin of that company can't be that much more
| than a company like uber.
|
| This just isn't true. If you're a woman, choosing a
| slightly more expensive robotaxi over a ride share where
| you might meet your end is a valid choice.
| iamleppert wrote:
| At the end of the day, you're still trusting a
| misogynistic man to get you from point A to point B. One
| drives the car and works as a gig worker and wears a
| flannel shirt, and the other sits in an office at Waymo
| HQ, wears a patagonia vest. Both are still part of the
| patriarchy and have very little interest in making sure
| you're safe, unless there's money to be made.
| 542354234235 wrote:
| As much as I want to assume this is a trolling response,
| I'll pretend it is in good faith. The person you replied
| to is not speaking about nebulous dangers of "the
| patriarchy". They are talking about the risk of being
| verbally harassed, or physically/sexually assaulted by
| the driver during or directly after the ride.
|
| https://www.wctv.tv/2026/01/14/rideshare-driver-arrested-
| aft...
|
| https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/woman-
| shares-...
| vdm wrote:
| > has to be cheaper than a normal taxi
|
| ... plus 24/7 shifts of human drivers
| apublicfrog wrote:
| > Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a normal taxi to kill
| taxis.
|
| I'm not sure that's true. Self serve checkouts are
| killing the checkout. Washing machines killed the washing
| board. Something can be the same price or dearer if it's
| more convenient.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| That comparison has the problem that it is not
| comparable. A robo taxi is not much different from human
| taxi. I can not see much of an improvement for the rider.
| Whereas washing machines are an incredible time saver and
| self checkouts can be faster (especially if you use these
| little hand scanners).
| MetaWhirledPeas wrote:
| > Even if they worked worse than a Waymo I think the demand
| would still be very high.
|
| They may already work _better_ than a Waymo. It 's hard to
| tell. It's certainly there using the public version of FSD.
| There's awkwardness, but the same can be said of Waymo.
| What I don't know is how many mandatory edge cases remain
| to be handled before they can set it free.
| LandoCalrissian wrote:
| Probably not a great strategy to piss off every blue voter
| in the country and then try to setup a business in cities.
| JasonBorne wrote:
| Of course it will be high. Transit is a huge market. They
| would just need a small share of Uber, lyft, regular taxis,
| public transit.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Private taxis don't compete with public transit. They
| operate in completely different spheres
| dddgghhbbfblk wrote:
| As a blanket statement that's not true with NYC being the
| most obvious (but not the only) counterexample.
| jrflowers wrote:
| Do you commute to and from work every day by taxi in NYC
| shalmanese wrote:
| Early on in Uber's life, I went to a presentation they
| held where they showed there was a U shaped curve by
| income of who used Uber. Upper middle class people used
| them as discretionary entertainment vehicles but Uber had
| a substantial lower class population using them as
| necessary transport when working graveyard shifts in
| locations public transit didn't go.
|
| So yes, there's a surprising contingent of people who
| commute to work every single working day using hire cars.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > Upper middle class people used them as discretionary
| entertainment vehicles but Uber had a substantial lower
| class population using them as necessary transport when
| working graveyard shifts in locations public transit
| didn't go.
|
| This is information that suggests that Uber does _not_
| compete with public transit
| Symbiote wrote:
| When I was a child visiting my grandma in a large city in
| England, we would often take the bus to the supermarket,
| but use a taxi to come back with the shopping. In the
| 1990s some local taxi company even had a special phone by
| the supermarket entrance with a single button to dial to
| request one.
|
| I think my grandma could easily afford this, but there
| would have been others considering dragging the shopping
| onto the bus.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Just a guess but she probably would have taken the buss
| back if you weren't there? Like, she wouldn't want to
| bore you waiting for the buss or try to time it shopping
| with a kid.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think it was the weight of the shopping. My food would
| have increased what needed to be carried, but I was too
| young to be much use carrying it.
|
| The point is taxis supplement and can replace public
| transport for low-income or unable-to-drive people in
| some situations -- not necessarily every day.
| alextingle wrote:
| The cost of owning a car dwarfs the cost of an occasional
| taxi ride.
| imtringued wrote:
| Unless you're truly car sharing with a bunch of other
| people going the same way, I don't see how that makes
| sense. You have to wait for the car to arrive and you're
| paying a premium for it.
| dddgghhbbfblk wrote:
| First of all, some people do commute via ride hailing
| apps, yes. Second of all, transportation is a much bigger
| category than simply taking people to and from work.
| jrflowers wrote:
| To what extent by your estimation do taxis compete with
| public transit in New York City? The comment I was
| responding to said that New York City is obvious proof
| that taxis do, in fact, compete with public transit. That
| is what is being discussed here.
| kube-system wrote:
| To the extent that millions of customers use them every
| month to move around NYC. In reading this thread it
| appears you may have some narrower definition of
| "compete" than everyone else here.
|
| Typically this word means that the product or service
| broadly serves same market in some way that overlaps. It
| isn't typically used so narrowly to imply that the
| products/services are directly replaceable in all ways.
| joshjob42 wrote:
| Most wouldn't because it's expensive. But at scale
| automated vehicles should be dramatically less expensive,
| in the range of 50-60C//mi conservatively, and at that
| level it is going to be quite compelling to a lot of
| people since it's a private vehicle (no taxi driver) and
| it's reasonably affordable, a 1 seat ride, etc.
|
| It's possible they'll be even cheaper but that range is
| the cost according to the IRS of operating a typical
| vehicle all in, and that seems like a reasonable guess of
| the cost of an autonomous electric vehicle with far lower
| probability of crash than a human (all the savings
| basically going to profit margin).
|
| At ~60C//mi, there'd be a lot of people who would save
| money on balance using autonomous taxis to get everywhere
| vs owning a private vehicle (10k mi/yr would cost only
| ~$6k/yr, a pretty low cost of ownership/use for a private
| vehicle).
| Deklomalo wrote:
| I just calculated it for 40 cents per mi and just the
| basic commute to my company would cost already 40 euros.
|
| But I calculated traveling 2 times a week, of course at
| the commute time everyone else commutes and public
| transport costs 50 Euros per month.
|
| My company car though costs 200 Euros + 100 Euros energy.
|
| Im pretty sure cybertaxi can't and will not provide 40
| cents / mi in high demand times, for middle class paying
| more mone for the convinince of having your own car is
| still cheap and if i need to do anything further away
| like any trip, it will be expensive again.
|
| And all of these cybertaxis have to live somewere.
|
| The math doesn't make sense already.
| crusty wrote:
| I imagine this seems "true" to people who don't consider
| public transit an option for whatever (class) reason.
|
| As others have said, they definitely compete in the same
| market.
| lisdexan wrote:
| >Uber, lyft, regular taxis
|
| Waymo is already there, just needs to scale and they are
| already cooperating with Uber.
|
| >public transit
|
| Unless Musk develops the shrink ray it will never compete
| with actual high throughput public transit, for the same
| reason if jets flew themselves we wouldn't commute by air.
| The cost of drivers per fare is less than in a private car,
| so the benefits for a bus are lesser. Modern metros are
| already autonomous.
| zeryx wrote:
| Also the US is essentially the only country with failed
| public transit, outside of Africa. If he thinks he can
| expand his robo taxi fleet to China or Europe or hell
| even Russia he's got screws loose
| Deklomalo wrote:
| Tesla is already valued 9x higher than uber.
|
| Uber makes money on every ride.
|
| Teslas Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a taxi with a human
| and i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher
| revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x
|
| And if Tesla starts to deliver a robotaxi, all of this
| revenue has to be shared between taxis, uber, Tesla, Waimo,
| Zoox, Rimac, Cruise, Baidu, WeRide, ...
|
| So how huge is the market for Tesla to be valuated 9x
| higher than Uber?
|
| We can even combine a big car company, a robotics company,
| a solar roof company, battery storage company, ETruck and a
| robotaxi company and STILL don't get to the same valuation
| than Tesla currently has.
|
| Teslas share price is math for stupid people.
| sib wrote:
| >> i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher
| revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x
|
| Why would Tesla need to have higher revenue per ride than
| Uber? The value of a company is driven (ultimately) by
| its profit, not its revenue. And Tesla doesn't have to
| give the majority of the fare to the driver.
| panick21_ wrote:
| It would be high if it worked, but it doesn't.
| trhway wrote:
| demand for any robotaxis will be high. Just look at the
| number of Uber drivers whom the robotaxis will replace. Plus
| leased robotaxis or personal/reserved ones - whatever shape
| it'd take replacing at least some percentage of personal
| cars.
|
| There is only a "small" issue - to make those robotaxis, i.e.
| the self-driving system for them. Almost 20 years in,
| Google/Waymo is way ahead of everybody and is still not there
| yet (i believe we will get there anyday now - which maybe
| next year or in 10 years - especially giving all the
| avalanche of investment in AI. Though i'd have expected that
| 4+ years in we'd see a lot of autonomous platforms/weapons in
| Ukraine, yet it hasn't happen too yet)
| bandrami wrote:
| That means a lot more capex though (as it is drivers bring
| their own cars) and I'm not sure how much enthusiasm there
| is for more of that right now
| trhway wrote:
| Nothing prevents the drivers to long-term lease a robocar
| like a personal vehicle and send it to work for Uber
| during the time when they don't need it.
|
| Currently an Uber driver can drive at any given moment
| only one car for Uber. With robocars, a driver can invest
| in 2, 3 or more robocars and send them to work for Uber.
| Similar to how people buy multiple properties to rent out
| on AirBnB.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I don't see the demand for their robots to be high either
| tbh, but they're betting on them. It's not going to work.
| mustyoshi wrote:
| Hyundai is partnering with Boston Dynamics to deploy 30k
| robots a year.
|
| Amazon is looking to replace 600k employees over the next
| decade.
|
| Why do you believe demand for humanoids isn't high?
| boogrpants wrote:
| "...demand for their robots..."
|
| Demand for Tesla products is tanking.
|
| Demand for humanoid robots not made by Tesla may rocket.
| Who knows.
| lambdaone wrote:
| If the humanoid robots are no better than the cars, it's
| unlikely. Unitree and Boston Dynamics are pretty much
| there in terms of solving the hardware problem, and the
| rest is software and the hardware manufacturing learning
| curve.
|
| The Chinese are massively out-manufacturing Tesla in the
| electric car market - would you bet on Tesla somehow
| being better than the Chinese at manufacturing?
|
| The rest as I said is software; given Tesla's consistent
| lack of success in "Full Self-Driving", would you bet on
| them outengineering the rest of the world in the software
| aspect of robotics?
| njarboe wrote:
| Tesla's biggest factory is in China.
| herbturbo wrote:
| Tesla is good at building big factories. The Cybertruck
| (total sales ~46k) factory was designed to build 250k
| units a year and later 125k. Meanwhile BYD outsells Tesla
| in China and globally.
| boogrpants wrote:
| My goal was highlight the phrasing in a post.
|
| I have zero interest in whatever conversation you and
| your intrusive thoughts are engaged in.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| From 2028.
|
| And this is about industrial robots, which is much easier
| to handle than what household robots supposed to be
| about. Will we ever see a robot that will be able to take
| grandma to the tub and clean here, to then carry her up
| the stairs to bed, without killing her? I doubt it.
|
| And finally: Boston Dynamics has actual working products
| for ages now. They don't need to cheat by using RC toy
| remote controllers to control their robots. And they are
| doing serious expectation management. This is completely
| different league than what Musk is doing.
|
| Also, I don't think it's desirable to have robots taking
| away human work without first solving the question "and
| what are we going to do with all the unemployed?".
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Why would cybertruck be cancelled?
| trgn wrote:
| it's one of their models i would like for them to succeed the
| most. americans love trucks (especially where i live), and
| the impact of electric truck replacing ice ones on the
| gestalt of the neighborhood is significant, no noise, no
| fumes. people tend to drive their electric cars/trucks more
| gently too. my neighbor bought one, and it's night and day.
|
| and oddly enough, while i kneejerk hated it at first, the
| design has grown on me, something genuinely different,
| playful. much rather see a parked cybertruck than yet another
| oversized bloated "regular" truck.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| In what world is the Cybertruck not "oversized" and
| "bloated". It has roughly the same footprint as an F150.
| burnte wrote:
| Modern F150s are also bloated and oversized.
| trgn wrote:
| it's its own design, doesn't look like a fat truck, more
| something new and big
| jefftk wrote:
| _> people tend to drive their electric cars /trucks more
| gently too_
|
| Really? I tend to see much more aggressive acceleration
| from people in electric cars (including myself when I'm
| driving, though I try not to). I've been putting it down to
| people being used to how gas cars seem to be working harder
| when you ask them to accelerate heavily, while electric
| just goes with no complaints.
| trgn wrote:
| i guess it's not accompanied with the noise which makes
| the difference for me
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I have bemoaned the sameness of car design these days. To
| the Cybertruck I say, thank you for trying something
| different!
|
| But not like that.
|
| (Also, the problem _is_ "Americans love trucks"--the
| Cybertruck doesn't solve that. It's still just a lethal
| grocery-getter in suburbia where the Cybertruck was only
| going to sell anyway. I'd sooner get behind the new golf-
| cart craze in suburbia--let them drive their golf carts to
| Costco.)
| horsawlarway wrote:
| While I also don't mind manufacturers trying a new look,
| and I like the vague "halo warthog" look of the thing, the
| Cybertruck seems to have ended up a very bad spot.
|
| It's just not a good truck.
|
| It's also suffered from being insanely overhyped, and then
| underdelivering on basically every front.
|
| ---
|
| Part of my problem with modern Tesla is that they seem to
| have really jumped the shark on delivering products that
| are functional. Across the board - from autonomous driving,
| solar roofs, power walls, Cybertruck, Semi, etc... Even the
| mass manufactured lines like the Y get staggeringly bad
| reliability ratings and reviews.
|
| Good form is great! Good form at the expense of good
| function is not.
| cyrialize wrote:
| If you drive a truck because you like trucks, then a
| Cybertruck works.
|
| If you drive a truck because you need a truck, then
| Cybertrucks don't really work.
|
| That being said, I think a lot of people are in the first
| category.
|
| The second category people have things that can be fit in a
| normal truck, but not a Cybertruck.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Because it's selling terribly:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/cybertruck-sales-decline-
| tes...
| geoffeg wrote:
| Lower than expected sales https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-
| cybertruck-sales-elon-mus...
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| I don't agree with that external analysis (cnbc is saying
| it's lower than their expectations). This is a gen 1
| product for super fans that they want to evolve into a
| mainstream one.
| palmotea wrote:
| > Why would cybertruck be cancelled?
|
| IIRC, the fully-electric F150 Lighting was canceled due to
| poor sales, _and its sales were better than the Cybertruck
| 's_.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| It isn't just about sales, it is about margin. F150
| Lightning was losing money on each unit produced - they
| cost about 40% more to product than they sold for.
| Cybertruck has a positive gross margin, so even though
| sales are terrible, they don't have have a pressing
| financial need to cancel it.
| malshe wrote:
| Tesla doesn't disclose the gross margin on Cybertruck.
| They may say it is positive but if nobody knows what
| constituted those gross margins or what they amounted to,
| it's pretty much meaningless.
| klaff wrote:
| Hard to imagine it being profitable given the very low
| utilization of the production line and associated
| tooling.
| malshe wrote:
| I agree. I am quite confident that if someone challenges
| them on this claim, they will say it was non-GAAP gross
| margin, which excluded all the crucial expenses
| dzonga wrote:
| Tesla has no moat - but one thing I will give to Elon is his
| incredible strategy in building Tesla
|
| 1. Build sports car
|
| 2. Use that money to build an affordable car
|
| 3. Use that money to build an even more affordable car
|
| 4. While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power
| generation options
|
| he got distracted by side-missions, his personal shitty side
|
| however if you separate the ideas from the person you can see how
| such a simple strategy was executed successfully
| willio58 wrote:
| The thing is it's hard to stop at 4.
|
| 5. Peace out from Tesla for a while to pivot hard into far-
| right politics, using outsized power and influence to wage
| culture wars, alienate core customers, and inject volatility
| into a brand that was built on trust, optimism, and engineering
| credibility.
|
| 6. Unveil Optimus as the next grand pillar of the vision, not
| as a shipping product but as a perpetual demo, a future-shaped
| distraction that soaks up attention while core execution,
| margins, and credibility quietly erode.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| The problem is that Tesla in step 1 and 2 was a ground-
| breaking EV market leader.
|
| Tesla step 6 Optimus robot is not. Others are ahead, with
| less hype and more delivery. See Boston Dynamics / Hyundai
| kanbara wrote:
| it's not a difficult strategy to come up with, tbh. tech
| companies do this sort of thing all the time.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Is there another car out there in the US that has a way to type
| in an address, tap a button, and it drives you there? All other
| car manufacturers software is terrible.
| xnx wrote:
| I'm almost surprised they didn't end model 3 production too.
| Benefit would be much smaller since 3 and y are already so
| similar.
| throwaway85825 wrote:
| By the same logic it costs less to keep the 3 in production.
| bhouston wrote:
| Tesla is a meme stock in a similar manner to GME. You cannot bet
| against them even if they have incredibly unsure future
| prospectives because there are too many believers who will buy
| any dips.
| al_borland wrote:
| That might be a little extreme. Tesla is making electric cars
| and robots. These are very much things of the future.
|
| GameStop is buying and selling used games, which is becoming
| impossible as consoles keep pushing for digital games.
|
| GameStop requires a major shift in their business model to stay
| relevant, while Tesla just needs to hope the public doesn't
| reject the idea of electrics cars out of stubbornness or
| politics.
|
| While there is a lot of hype baked into both stocks, it seems
| like hype with Tesla is founded in more reality than the
| GameStop hype.
| jeltz wrote:
| Tesla's sales are standing still in a growing market. Are
| they GameStop? Maybe not, but they still require a major
| shift or their competitors will leave them behind in the
| dirt.
| MBCook wrote:
| Didn't they just announce their profits dropped like 45% year
| over a year?
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/28/tesla-earnings-
| profit-q4-2...
|
| They've been overvalued for a very very long time. And then
| the head of the company decided to alienate as many people as
| possible. All while pouring a ton of resources into a product
| that very few people want instead of saner things.
| guywithahat wrote:
| Sure but they also beat earnings and revenue targets, and
| the stock price rose. I think it was expected for EV
| profits to drop when the tax credit left
| gcr wrote:
| The current administration is "rejecting the idea of electric
| cars out of stubbornness or politics." See: Trump moving to
| withhold funding for EV chargers, terminating EV mandates and
| government support, etc. I don't know what Musk is thinking
| by supporting this administration so steadfastly as they work
| hard to undermine his own efforts and initiatives.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Musk got what he needed at the expense of losing some tax
| incentives for his customer base. He was able to shut down
| government investigations into him/his companies. That
| alone should have been worth quite a salary bump.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| I'm not making any specific assertions about what's in
| Musk's heart. I can draw some conclusions from his
| behaviors, actions, and words, but that's neither here nor
| there.
|
| I will say, though, that there is a longstanding tradition,
| certainly in the United States, of an in group hurting
| their own material interests to deprive an out group of
| that same thing.
| https://www.marketplace.org/story/2021/02/15/public-pools-
| us...
| csomar wrote:
| It's pure politics: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/genera...
|
| The people behind the Diesel won and now are moving the
| money flows their way. See GM stock.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| BYD makes electric cars. Not sure if Trump will let you
| import them.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Nor will any American president. Detroit would collapse
| overnight (again).
| jmyeet wrote:
| The only thing keeping Tesla afloat currently is tariffs and
| restrictions on far cheaper and far better foreign
| alternatives. That's not a solid foundation. It's certainly
| not a trillion dollar company.
|
| The dam is breaking. We have Canada lowering tariffs and
| agreeing to allow the import of Chinese EVs (limited, at
| least to start with) and the US administration goes off on
| Canada for doing it because they know what it means:
| crumbling American influence.
|
| South America, Africa and Asia are likely forever lost to
| Tesla. And European sales are tumbling.
|
| The supercharger network will maintain some inertia for some
| time but only for so long.
|
| You can see this in Tesla announcements about attempts to
| diversify. AI robots? I'll believe it when I see it.
| Robotaxis? Well you're reliant on FSD for that and you have
| stiff competition in Waymo and who knows what China is
| cooking up there.
|
| The GP was correct: it's a meme stock. It's no longer an
| investment in a business. It's an investment in Elon and,
| more generally, an investment in the administration. There's
| no fundamental way to predict how that goes and on what time
| scale. If you want to gamble, gamble. But gamgling is what it
| is. And, just like Twitter, I guarantee you the people at the
| top won't be left holding the bag.
| jojobas wrote:
| Tesla's valuation is not related to their production of cars
| or robots.
| bdangubic wrote:
| refrigirators then? some other household appliances? what
| exactly is "thing de jour" tesla is today?!
| jojobas wrote:
| BYD made 35% more electric cars than Tesla and its market
| cap is about 1/10th.
|
| Tesla's valuation has no grounding in any physical goods
| it manufactures.
| linkregister wrote:
| imagination and feelings
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| We might as well call it "vibe valuation" since that's
| what it is.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Electric cars, maybe. Tesla is valued much larger than the
| rest of the auto industry combined though.
|
| Humanoid robots? Ain't nobody made the business case for
| that. It is pure vibes.
| johnfn wrote:
| Are you seriously saying there is no business case for
| humanoid robots?
| oblio wrote:
| No, they're probably saying you're that believer that
| will buy the dip.
| johnfn wrote:
| I own no TSLA stock and never have. I have no horse in
| this race.
| bigyabai wrote:
| There was a "business case" for $25,000 EVs before China
| did it, and Tesla conveniently pivoted. It's 2026, anyone
| who's watching the game knows the score.
| adastra22 wrote:
| No, I'm saying they haven't made the case. Or at least
| the case that is being presented and sold to investors is
| complete BS.
|
| For example, I work in deep tech and pay attention to the
| manufacturing industry. The idea that humanoid robots
| will replace, streamline and revolutionize manufacturing
| is a joke in that community. They've already long since
| replaced the humans with CNC machines, industrial (non-
| humanoid) robots, and 3d printing.
|
| The humanoid robotics craze is a lot like the crypto
| craze. Pure vibes and motivated reasoning. Like crypto,
| there is actual value there, but way out of proportion to
| the hype.
| johnfn wrote:
| I mean, forget the manufacturing industry. I'd happily
| pay a lot of money just to have one help me with menial
| tasks around the house. I mean, I'd probably pay
| thousands for a bot that could _just_ do the laundry. Are
| you saying that such a market doesn 't exist?
| aloha2436 wrote:
| The market exists, does it make financial sense to fill
| it? Are there enough johnfns out there willing to buy
| enough of them at high enough of a price to justify the
| mind-boggling capital required, not to mention the
| opportunity cost?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| If you make a $10,000 robot that can do all of the dishes
| every damned household with kids in any semi-rich country
| will get one. A very good portion of our night is spent
| cleaning up after supper with just two kids, and that's
| time we can't spend with them. I'd even pay a
| subscription on top of that $10,000.
|
| If it does laundry too? We'd easily pay $20,000, and we
| don't have FAANG type salaries.
| adastra22 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Yeah, great. Except we need to unload the dishwasher
| every day, which takes a lot longer when you have all
| sorts of kid's cups and bottles. We also need to bring
| the dishes over, rinse them, put them in, wash the pots &
| pans by hand along with the high chair's detachable
| eating area, wash the table, wash the cooking area &
| counters, and then wash the sink.
|
| A dishwasher saves a lot of time but it certainly doesn't
| save all of the time.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| You could hire someone to clean your house today, you
| don't need to wait for a robot that might never exist.
| And it will probably be cheaper too!
| vel0city wrote:
| If the $10k robot only lasted 5 years that's a budget of
| $2k/yr. They have an expectation of someone cleaning most
| nights of the week. Cleaning services around me will
| typically charge ~$50/hr. Having someone come for ~2
| hours 5x a week means $500/week. You'll blow your budget
| in four weeks. There are a lot more than four weeks in a
| year.
|
| But let's be generous and suggest you'll actually get
| someone willing to come out for just one hour and work
| for half the pay of market rate. Sixteen weeks. Still far
| short of 52 weeks.
| sejje wrote:
| How much does it cost to have them at your house every
| evening after dinner to do the dishes?
|
| More than I can afford, I bet.
| lbreakjai wrote:
| Do you have a double-digit number of kids? Because I've
| got one, and it takes about ten minutes.
| sejje wrote:
| And imagine if you can share it with your neighbors.
| hakfoo wrote:
| Humanoid robots are a lot of sizzle-- they promise all
| sorts of flexibility, at the cost of hugely higher
| cost/complexity/unreliability.
|
| If you can scope your problem to some degree, you can
| probably make some purpose-built automation that won't
| look like a human, but will do the job competently and
| cheaply.
|
| I see the demos with the robots carrying boxes and think
| "okay, why not just use a conveyer belt?"
| adastra22 wrote:
| The laundry bot would probably be a box with some some
| 6DOF chopstick like positioners doing "cloth origami" to
| fold clothes. No need for an overkill 2kW humanoid.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Because, again, for home use we don't want a laundry
| robot, a dish washing robot, a cleaning robot, etc. We
| kind of have those (laundry machine, dishwasher, Roomba-
| types) but they all have big limitations. What people
| want is something that can do everything a human can do,
| so it can put away those dishes, wash a pan, clean the
| table, counters, etc. We've already scoped the problem
| and a humanoid-ish robot is probably the best option to
| do those things.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Well for home use you probably also want a robot that
| won't accidentally murder your pet, injure your children,
| break itself and/or your prized possessions by doing the
| wrong thing, etc etc etc.
|
| These are unsolved problems for robotics. There is a
| reason that most industrial robots work behind guards or
| in very constrained areas with use cases that are 100% on
| rails and stringently tested.
|
| The idea that if you just make a robot in a human shape
| all these cease to be problems is magical thinking. We
| are fare from knowing that a humanoid-ish robot is the
| best option to do any of these things because we have no
| idea what it would take for it to do these things safely
| other than to say it would take technology that we
| currently don't have.
| sejje wrote:
| What? You don't think I should give my humanoid robot a
| chainsaw and tell it to clear the field?
|
| WCGW?
| seanhunter wrote:
| Hehe. Yeah exactly. At the moment I have to prep the room
| for my roomba so it doesn't eat my rug and commit suicide
| by cable. I can't imagine a humanoid, presumably strong,
| robot let loose in my home and I am for sure a tech
| enthusast.
| sejje wrote:
| I'm not likely to be the guinea pig, either.
|
| I want the endgame version, but not the first version.
| olyjohn wrote:
| You already have machines that do the laundry. Put
| clothes in, they come out clean. Have you ever tried
| manually washing clothes? All you have to do is take them
| out and fold them.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Next you'll be telling me there's a machine to wash your
| dishes.
| zo1 wrote:
| And yet such a HUGE amount of time is spent by families
| around the world (mine included) just moving laundry
| around in various states:
|
| Dirty -> Sort It Yourself -> Plan Washing Chunks -> Load
| into Washing machine -> Yay It "Washed it For You" -> wet
| pile of clothes -> Unload it -> dryer -> Dryer "Dries" it
| For You -> Fold It Yourself -> Storage.
|
| Now do this for a family with 2 kids that go to school.
| Washing is literally an hour or two of collective human
| time _every day_.
|
| I'd pay money to rather spend that time with my kids
| instead of yet another useless daily chore that can be
| automated.
|
| Now also apply the same logic to dishes, clearing up
| around the house, sorting cupboards, _Driving_!!, and a
| host of other things. The market is absolutely huge, and
| people are sticking their heads in the sand because they
| know that once this drops, humanity will reach an
| inflection point and all pointless manual labor will
| disappear, which means saying goodbye to cheap third
| world labor and only capital + raw resources + energy
| will be the only things holding back all scaling.
| numpad0 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washer-dryer
|
| Dirty clothes go in, dry clothes come out. Some have auto
| measuring detergent dispensers.
| johnfn wrote:
| For some reason I can't understand, you appear to be
| contorting yourself into making a totally bizarre
| argument (there is no valued in saved time whatsoever).
| You can't honestly believe that.
| thefounder wrote:
| The market for that exist but the execution to get that
| product is beyond hard. Compare full self driving after
| all these years where are we? It's still not a real
| thing. It's still just a limited experiment. The cars
| have only speed and steering angle to manage. What do you
| think about "full self driving robots"? There is a
| business case for them but in the near term you cannot
| make one good enough for the tasks you want. Safety is a
| big issue on top of making the robot useful. You don't
| want it hurt anyone.
| johnfn wrote:
| I responded to someone saying "Ain't nobody made the
| business case for that. It is pure vibes." When I point
| one out, all the responses shift the goal posts, as you
| are doing, to say execution is incredibly hard or Tesla
| is far behind or whatever. But that's not what I was
| saying, nor what I was responding to.
| adastra22 wrote:
| You didn't make the business case though. How big is that
| market? How many units could be sold, at what price? What
| ongoing operating and maintenance costs?
| ted_dunning wrote:
| A robot vacuum costs thousands of dollars (will about a
| thousand) and they don't work very. There is no way that
| you are going to get a machine that is orders of
| magnitude more complex down to that price point any time
| soon.
|
| A business case is not just a matter of a willing buyer.
| It is a buyer and a vendor who can agree on a price that
| works for both. You may have agreed but the physics of
| the matter mean that there is nobody to take the other
| side.
| csomar wrote:
| If you think our current tech stack is anywhere close to
| making humanoid robots viable, then you might as well buy
| Tesla stock.
| sethrin wrote:
| I have no particular idea whether there's a business case
| for humanoid robots or not. I would love to have the
| argument set out well. Perhaps you'd indulge my
| curiosity.
| al_borland wrote:
| The business case for humanoid robots is simple... for
| lack of a better term, they're robot slaves. Companies or
| governments can buy them once, pay relatively minimal
| maintenance fees, and have an army of workers that don't
| need a salary, never take breaks, never complain, never
| unionize, and do things faster and more accurately than
| most humans ever will. Any company that can move to
| robots, will move to robots.
|
| Imagine the profits companies will have when they can
| eliminate, or drastically reduce, their single largest
| expense... payroll. Not only the base pay, but 401K
| match, insurance, payroll taxes, etc. Poof... gone.
| bovinejoni wrote:
| But why are they in humanoid form? Wheels are more
| efficient than legs, they have no need for a face. It
| sure does sound like vibes
| sawjet wrote:
| How does a wheeled robot navigate stairs?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The same way someone in a wheelchair does. You get rid of
| the stairs.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| Because the world has already been built for the "human"
| interface
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| It has? I don't think every little thing has. Do I want a
| robot that has to lift the couch to clean under it, or do
| I want a robot that can get under the couch?
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| The part that often gets left unsaid or glossed over is
| what the transition period looks like. At most we get
| some Underpants Gnomes claim about unlimited abundance
| without actually engaging with the substance of what
| happens if this technology gets built and deployed. What
| do you imagine the political and economic impact will be
| if a huge portion of the population is left without jobs
| and the political reality hasn't caught up to the speed
| with which the technology gets deployed?
|
| Oh no, but Elon Musk tells us that out of the kindness of
| his heart we're going to have unlimited abundance. The
| same man responsible for taking away aid from thousands
| of the poorest people in the world through DOGE's
| interruption of PEPFAR and USAID.
|
| With a single sentence from him, he could start saving
| thousands of lives without impacting his wealth in the
| slightest. He could do that right now.
| techdmn wrote:
| I agree with everything you've said. To me the next
| question is: If nobody has a job, who will buy all the
| robot-produced goods?
| sejje wrote:
| Some people will have jobs, even in the most robot-heavy
| vision.
|
| I don't know if it's enough people to buy the goods, but
| robot-produced goods should bottom out on price, closing
| in on the actual cost of materials/energy.
| johnfn wrote:
| I don't understand why my question was so controversial.
| Oftentimes on this website I feel like everyone is tapped
| into some polarizing news source that I am not, and so
| when I ask some (to my mind) benign question it's
| actually a secret tripwire that everyone is super
| polarized on and so rather than engaging in my question
| they all just tell me I am a moron. But I am seriously
| just asking a question here.
|
| My layman's opinion is that I would happily pay a lot of
| money to have a robot help me around the house: fold my
| clothes, do the dishes, whatever dumb menial labor. That
| seems like a business case to me, unless someone is going
| to tell me I'm the only one in the world who could want
| that (but I doubt it).
|
| OP said:
|
| > Humanoid robots? Ain't nobody made the business case
| for that. It is pure vibes.
|
| I can't make sense of this. Are you really telling me you
| wouldn't pay any amount of money to do menial housework?
| If not, why not?
| adastra22 wrote:
| No, I wouldn't.
|
| For one, I don't spend a lot of time doing housework.
| Just organize your life better.
|
| Beyond that, the cost would not be small. Based on
| current designs, operating costs would be thousands of
| dollars per month. I would not pay that.
|
| It would require a cloud controlled robot with cameras in
| my home. Why in the world would I want that.
|
| Finally, I already have dishwashers and laundry machines.
| sejje wrote:
| Why thousands per month?
|
| Why would cloud connectivity be required? (I'm almost
| certain you're right, the big makers will require cloud--
| but that's not a requirement of the tech, is it?)
| adastra22 wrote:
| There is insufficient compute to operate these things
| locally in dynamic environments. The models for doing
| that kind of robotics inference are running on racks of
| H200's.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| You would pay "a lot of money"?
|
| Like, more than the cost of your house? For something
| that can't do those things right and has to be
| supervised? To a company that can't deliver product on
| time?
| sejje wrote:
| Aren't the humanoid robots looking to ship around 20k?
|
| You can hardly even buy a reliable new car for that
| amount.
| sib wrote:
| The average new car in the US is now ~$50K.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > Are you really telling me you wouldn't pay any amount
| of money to do menial housework? If not, why not?
|
| Do you own a Roomba? I don't. It's a huge liability and
| doesn't do the cleaning I want out of it, even at a
| sub-$1000 price point. The humanoid robot is clunkier,
| more of a liability, and will still refuse to do certain
| tasks.
| sejje wrote:
| What makes the roomba a liability?
| ulfw wrote:
| > My layman's opinion is that I would happily pay a lot
| of money to have a robot help me around the house: fold
| my clothes, do the dishes, whatever dumb menial labor.
|
| Then why don't you hire a helper for that? You just said
| you'd pay a lot of money, so money doesn't seem to be an
| issue. What is then?
| sejje wrote:
| I can't speak for the other guy, but as a person who
| manages humans at work: I'd rather have a robot at home.
|
| 1) I live way, way out in the middle of nowhere.
|
| 2) Humans are fickle, late, emotional. They have
| requirements in their own life that conflict with the
| jobs I want them to do.
|
| 3) Taxes. I don't want to deal with this headache. 1099
| my cleaner or whatever?
|
| 4) In my version, the costs of owning the robot are less
| than the costs of hiring humans. If that wasn't true,
| then I'd reconsider. I probably wouldn't buy one until
| the cost switched like that, unless maybe it was open-
| source or something.
|
| Here's another way to think about it: Amazon is willing
| to pay workers to do the job, but they'd obviously rather
| have the robots do it. The robots work close to free,
| don't complain, and probably do a better job (at the jobs
| they're capable of). Why wouldn't they hire a human for
| that? A lot of the same reasons.
| sib wrote:
| It costs approximately $200 for our house to be cleaned
| once (by humans). We do it about once a month because we
| don't feel like spending $200 weekly). It would be great
| to have it ~continuously cleaned but we the cost/benefit
| isn't there for having a full-time person.
| fragmede wrote:
| FWIW, I emailed auntanns.com to ask what a combination
| personal assistant and housekeeper would cost:
|
| > Thank you for inquiring about our services. I'd love to
| discuss with you further regarding the person you are
| seeking. Personal assistants do not do housekeeping and
| housekeepers do not have the P.A skillset to pay bills
| and make appts etc unless they are an executive level
| housekeeper. Rates for executive housekeepers range
| between $60-$65/hr and a minimum of 20+ hours per week,
| plus PTO, paid sick days and many also seek a health
| stipend.
| darkwater wrote:
| > My layman's opinion is that I would happily pay a lot
| of money to have a robot help me around the house: fold
| my clothes, do the dishes, whatever dumb menial labor.
| That seems like a business case to me, unless someone is
| going to tell me I'm the only one in the world who could
| want that (but I doubt it).
|
| The day that:
|
| - displaced workforce issue is solved
|
| - they cost less than 20k everything included, base model
|
| - do all the processing locally in their HW
|
| - are smaller and lighter than a human being (but can
| reach higher places)
|
| - last 10 years at least
|
| I will definitely buy one. I don't think I'm going to see
| this in my lifetime though (I'm in my 40's).
| pavlov wrote:
| You couldn't pay me any amount of money to have a robot
| in my home if it's controlled from Elon Musk's data
| center.
|
| And I'm a former Tesla FSD customer, so I should be the
| ideal early adopter for this product.
| the_other wrote:
| Do you already pay a human to do this work?
| lisdexan wrote:
| > Are you really telling me you wouldn't pay any amount
| of money to do menial housework? If not, why not?
|
| This is called having a live-in maid or a cleaning
| service. Even in the first-world, where there isn't a
| disfranchised rural population to provide cheap labor to
| the middle class (e.g. Philippines, most of LATAM 20
| years ago) the service will be cheaper than the price of
| a vaporware bot [0]. Now, you might say the droid is
| cheaper if you want a live-in maid in HCOL area, but have
| in mind that this thing barely can fold clothes and fill
| a dishwasher (an actual domestic bot). Also it sometimes
| is actually a dude controlling it remotely.
|
| We would need bots of the level of that awful I Robot
| movie with Will Smith.
|
| [0] https://www.1x.tech/order
| sejje wrote:
| And another thought: if the robot can do housework, can
| it do factory work? Fieldwork? Lawn care? What else can
| it do with zero modifications?
|
| That expands the market greatly.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| There's a huge business case! There's also a major
| business case for teleportation, which seems about as
| likely to happen under a Musk-led company.
| thefounder wrote:
| I think the technology is just not there to make the
| business case for humanoid robots. It's like the VR.
| Everyone would like to use VR but the tech is just not
| good enough. Same with FSD. The robots may be 10-20 years
| away from actual being good enough. If Elon can trick
| people for 20 years like he did with FSD then he may have
| a business case for humanoid robots
| wasfgwp wrote:
| Maybe there is. But isn't Tesla way, way behind Hyundai
| at this? It's not even close? Yet Hyundai's stock is
| still very cheap..
| epolanski wrote:
| I always wonder why those robots have to be humanoid.
|
| I swear I don't need a humanoid robot, give me a proper
| autonomous robot that cleans your house and I'm more than
| happy. Could be 40 cm tall, and look like a box, I don't
| care.
| zarzavat wrote:
| 1. The world is designed for humans. If you need to reach
| the places humans reach then you need to be the same size
| as a human.
|
| 2. Nature has tested many different form factors and the
| human form dominated the others.
| epolanski wrote:
| But this is all based on the idea we need generic robots
| when we really need specialized ones.
|
| It's like skipping making kitchen blenders and vacuum
| cleaners and instead building a robot that will be mixing
| stuff manually or using a broom.
|
| Manufacturing, where 90% of the process is generally
| automated has countless specialized ones. It would not
| make sense to put generic ones there, because humans
| really are doing very specific work in manufacturing.
| sejje wrote:
| I agree there's a great market for specialized ones. I
| own some of those, like a vacuum bot.
|
| But the generic robot is the endgame. I think Musk tries
| to achieve the endgame, probably too soon. FSD,
| interplanetary travel, etc
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Ask a plumber what he thinks about reaching places human
| reach. Nature tested what exactly? Birds and spiders are
| sub optimal?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| 1 is the real reason. 2 is really down to things like a
| big brain and opposable thumbs. Our trunk/legs are
| evolved for persistence hunting and long distance walking
| - activities that drive approximately 0% of the economy
| at this point. If robots didn't have to navigate an
| environment built for bipeds, other configurations would
| be far more reliable/efficient.
|
| For instance: a quadruped base can be statically stable
| in case of power loss - a biped really can't.
| xxs wrote:
| instead, sub 12cm disc shaped ones are rather well
| understood and perform well. They suck opening doors
| though - but the 40cm one would have a similar issue.
|
| Besides that: I, personally, am totally fine with the
| current state of the technology.
| rsync wrote:
| "I always wonder why those robots have to be humanoid."
|
| You are correct to wonder this and almost every use case
| for a robot will be optimized to a non-human form factor.
|
| Certainly there are tasks - like BJJ training partner -
| that require a human form factor. Almost everything else,
| including general, purpose, helper, robot, will be
| cheaper and more extensible in a non-human form factor.
|
| One of your children remarked that nature has
| experimented with form factors and humans have won... To
| which I would point out that the upright, bipedal, form
| factor arose from the limits of oxygen processing, and
| heat dissipation... Neither limitation will be
| encountered in the same way with a robot...
|
| ... or perhaps I would point out that nature has, indeed,
| experimented with form factors and ants won - by a very
| large margin.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Not for what they currently cost and are capable of.
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Robots yes. Humanoid ones? Why? So people can be amazed?
| Purpose built robots are the future. The human form is
| sub optimal for most enterprise use cases.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Yes, there's no business case for humanoid robots.
|
| There's a business case for robots that are specialized
| in specific repetitive actions, and we already see this
| in manufacturing. But general purpose humanoid robots
| make no sense.
|
| They're incredibly expensive and, from what we've seen,
| worse across the board compared to humans. It's cheaper
| to just hire humans.
|
| The human form is actually pretty shit at most things.
| But, it can _do_ everything. There 's just little purpose
| for that in a business case. You know what you're doing,
| so you just need robots to do that, not to try to be
| humans.
|
| Like, okay, you can get a humanoid robot to be a burger
| flipper. But that makes no sense. You can, instead, have
| an automated burger cooking machine. Which do exist! I
| worked in a restaurant with one 10 years ago.
| parineum wrote:
| Tesla is valued at more than the auto industry because they
| are doing more than the entire auto industry.
|
| Honda is going to come out with a new Civic next year. It's
| going to look like the old Civic.
|
| Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make the
| rest of the auto industry obsolete.
|
| If you think that can happen, they should be worth more
| than the rest of the industry.
| aloha2436 wrote:
| > Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make
| the rest of the auto industry obsolete.
|
| They are one of many organisations trying to do that and
| they are not the most successful at it.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Tesla is trying to create self driving taxis to make
| the rest of the auto industry obsolete.
|
| This is a pretty baffling take. Most people in the world
| operate their own cars, and even if taxis were free, a
| large portion of them would continue to operate their own
| cars because it's convenient.
|
| Taxis also don't replace a good chunk of the new vehicle
| market. People driving fleet trucks aren't going to work
| out of taxis. The top selling vehicles in the USA are
| pickup trucks, and it isn't even close.
|
| Lastly, even if they succeed, competition will catch up
| and the market will be saturated.
|
| In 20 years, people will still be buying the humble
| Civic. While the next 20 years at Tesla will probably be
| a string of market failures and wacky promises of
| personal space craft or some shit.
| parineum wrote:
| I didn't state my opinion at all. That's just why it's
| valued the way it is. People believe that it will be
| valuable, that's what an investment is.
|
| I'm just offering a reasonable explanation for why people
| value it. Nobody has to agree.
| overfeed wrote:
| > Lastly, even if they succeed, competition will catch up
| and the market will be saturated.
|
| Waymo is already in the lead, and OEMs will be beating
| down Waymo's door to license a simplified Driver stack if
| L3 autonomy becomes a sales-driver (ha!)
|
| Edit: Waymo already has strategic partnerships with
| Toyota and the Hyundai group, so OEMs are already further
| along this path than I thought
| hakfoo wrote:
| We're missing a part of the case though: why do you need
| to be a car-maker to be the vanguard for self-driving
| taxis?
|
| The best case scenario for a self-driving company would
| be to target software and sensor solution packages that
| they can sell or license to other manufacturers. Such a
| vendor can focus on the self-driving problem and not have
| to bother with things like "we found a surprisingly big
| market niche for a 11-passenger minibus, but no platform
| for it" or "to sell it in the EU we need the headlights
| to be 5cm lower". I'd expect the margins are also a hell
| of a lot higher if they don't have to include two tonnes
| of steel with each auto-driver license they sell.
|
| Maybe they build a small number of test mules, or just
| chop-shop a few off-the-shelf cars as a R&D fleet, but
| they hardly need to be a seven-figures-per-year
| manufacturer to be supplying those needs.
|
| That's even assuming they come out green in the
| competition to deliver robotaxis. Right now the leading
| player in the US market is a company who is neither Tesla
| nor a legacy vehicle manufacturer. It's an adtech who
| started gluing the contents of a Radio Shack onto the
| worst cars you could possibly think of (Chrysler
| Pacificas and Jaguar i-Paces? Really?) and turned it into
| something that's an everyday thing in several major
| cities.
|
| Tesla FSD story reminds me of the fracas that was early
| OS/2. IBM sold people 286 hardware on the promise of it
| running OS/2, so they had to waste a lot of effort
| building a 286-capable OS/2 that was clunky and almost
| immediately obsolete. No matter how talented Tesla's R&D
| team are, they're walled in by design choices made on
| existing vehicles (i. e. relying on cameras instead of
| lidar). I wonder if they'd be better off being ran as an
| arm's length startup to address the problem more
| generically, and then they can sell it to other firms if
| it turns out that the best solution won't work on
| existing Tesla hardware.
| ndngmfksk wrote:
| Honda have been making humanoid robots since the 1980s.
| thefounder wrote:
| Well, check Hyundai as well. They do more than cars as
| well including robots(Boston Dynamics). Tesla is not
| doing anything special. It was the only EV someone could
| use but it's no longer the case. Now it tries to go the
| robots way but it's not the same as the EV was. There are
| tones of humanoid robot companies, some more advanced
| than whatever Tesla is cooking
| wasfgwp wrote:
| It can happen. Its unlikely Tesla will catch up to Waymo
| any time soon though. Yet valuation for Tesla (relative
| to how much money they are making) is massively higher
| than Google's. Which would make very little sense
| following this logic?
| itzprime wrote:
| They are actually behind in a lot of their self driving
| to other car companies
| julianeon wrote:
| This was true when Tesla was primarily in the market of
| making electric cars. It is not true if their business is
| humanoid robots: that's squarely meme stock territory.
| themafia wrote:
| > These are very much things of the future.
|
| I thought it was hyperloop. I thought it was suboribital
| taxis. I thought it was underground taxis. I thought it was
| self-driving semi trucks. Or was it solar roofs? Or
| powerwall? Wait weren't we supposed to be on the moon again
| right now?
|
| He's a bullshitter. Yea, he picks good targets, but he is
| entirely full of shit. The market just does not reflect this.
| He should have been golden parachuted onto a yacht years ago.
| karel-3d wrote:
| To his credit he also delivers, sometimes.
|
| X kind of works. XAi kind of works. You can say it is all
| kind of broken but it works. People predicted X will
| collapse just a few months ago!
|
| StarLink is really popular now, and it didn't exist few
| months ago.
|
| He can still do things. People are betting on that.
|
| Now if you ask me, Tesla is still his biggest moneymaker
| and collapse of Tesla sales will be catastrophic for his
| empire.
| bhouston wrote:
| > X kind of works.
|
| It is less popular and makes less money than when he
| acquired it, and that is ignoring the fact that it is a
| cesspool of racism now.
| ulfw wrote:
| They are making no robots.
|
| What robots are they making?
|
| Where can you buy one? What does it do?
| pm90 wrote:
| tesla is not making robots.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| They are making things but the case for them being worth an
| order or magnitude more than a normal EV company is getting
| weaker by the day
| sixQuarks wrote:
| The Elon hate is really creating a blind spot for many people
| here.
|
| You can't just compare Tesla to a meme stock when the founder's
| side gig is launching and landing orbital rockets - a feat that
| even the most technologically advanced nation states have
| failed to accomplish.
|
| Come on people, use a little critical thinking skills.
| anonymars wrote:
| Critical thinking might ask how the valuation of company A
| has any relationship to the activity of a completely separate
| company B (planning for its own IPO)
|
| But I will concede the founder's _other_ side gigs would
| appear to have significantly affected its sales
| linkregister wrote:
| Multiple things can be true:
|
| 1. SpaceX was an exceptionally well-executed good idea, and
| continues to be a leader in innovation.
|
| 2. Tesla brought EVs to the mass consumer market and proved
| the profitability of EVs.
|
| 3. Elon Musk was essential to the success of SpaceX and
| Tesla.
|
| 4. Tesla now has fierce competition in the category it
| defined: EVs.
|
| 5. Tesla has undergone revenue and profit reduction.
|
| 6. While it experiences promise in alternate product lines,
| Tesla is not a market leader in robotics (Unitree, Boston
| Dynamics) or self-driving cars (Baidu, Waymo). Tesla reported
| profit growth in residential solar and residential power
| storage, but the revenues from these verticals are dwarfed by
| other segments.
|
| 7. The trend over the past decades is Elon Musk being
| successful at innovating in underserved parts of the market.
|
| 8. Elon Musk is not currently pursuing any underserved parts
| of the market.
| bccdee wrote:
| And man behind the cybertruck has not earned the
| presumption that he has a secret plan. If it looks like
| things are going poorly, they probably are.
| karel-3d wrote:
| But Tesla and SpaceX are different companies
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| GME is a joke that got out of hand. TSLA is a cult that went
| too far.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > You cannot bet against them
|
| I am not sure. I think buyers or potential buyers shifted their
| assessment of Tesla in the last, say, 1-2 years a lot.
| epolanski wrote:
| Did they? It keeps going up despite no reasons for it.
| sschueller wrote:
| You can on the betting market bet against Tesla reaching their
| ever moving goal posts. Those same meme stock holders are so
| sure that FSD will come by March that they are taking the bets.
| Grimblewald wrote:
| All fun and games until people game the system. Polymarket
| for example will frequently just bend/ignore the truth to
| make specific unlikely/not real outcomes happen.
| AndreyK1984 wrote:
| I was exactly going to shot Tesla. Is Tesla more like Elon meme
| ?
| raincole wrote:
| There is no such thing as "meme stock." It's literally just how
| stock market is since forever. But every generation thinks they
| are so special that they have to coin new terms for the oldest
| things.
| wasfgwp wrote:
| Historically bubbles like this hardly ever lasted this long,
| though
| adammarples wrote:
| That doesn't mean there's no such thing as a meme stock, that
| means there have always been meme stocks and we now have a
| consice name for it
| ghtbircshotbe wrote:
| Game stop used its irrationally high stock price to raise
| money. Tesla instead has been giving away stock to make Musk
| richer.
| formvoltron wrote:
| Tesla's secret weapon will be the dyson sphere. Probably complete
| within 2.. 3 years maximum.
| eco wrote:
| Elon's $1T tranches are mostly based on market cap, right?
| Switching from just a carmaker to a "physical AI" company could
| be all he needs to convince the stock market to ignore Tesla's
| declining profits and raise the market cap even higher.
| bdangubic wrote:
| he's done it time and time again and I don't see him failing
| this time either.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| The market for humanoid robots hasn't been established like
| the market for $40,000 personal transport.
|
| Saying that, I wouldn't be too surprised if robotaxi replaces
| 90% of taxis and Ubers in the next 5-7 years.
|
| But yea, stepping from sinking raft to the next...
| jeltz wrote:
| Potentially in a few cities with high cost of living and
| nice weather, but certainly not worldwide. Not even the
| best can handle bad weather yet.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Waymo is launching in Detroit.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > Saying that, I wouldn't be too surprised if robotaxi
| replaces 90% of taxis and Ubers in the next 5-7 years.
|
| How about we start with 0.00076% first before we start
| throwing insane numbers like 90% (chance of which happening
| are in-line with me marrying Beyonce)
| kccoder wrote:
| > I wouldn't be too surprised if robotaxi replaces 90% of
| taxis and Ubers in the next 5-7 years
|
| I'd bet a kidney that doesn't happen.
| akmarinov wrote:
| Not Tesla's version anyway
| peterisza wrote:
| so you own the stock then. right?
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| > "If you're interested in buying a Model S and X, now would be
| the time to order it."
|
| I can't tell if this is real and he realizes the traditional
| luxury brands have beaten him or if he's just using the classic
| rug store sales tactic.
| jeltz wrote:
| Is that an international thing? There was a rug store next to
| where I grew up in Stockholm which had a sale because they were
| closing the shop from at least the early 90s until ca 2020
| during covid when they closed the shop for real. There are also
| a couple more rug stores doing the same thing, one of them
| still to this day.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Well, at least Sweden and the US. Kind of amazing.
| decimalenough wrote:
| It's an international thing, down to the neverending "Closing
| now fr fr" sales. There was general bemusement in Sydney when
| one shop notorious for this _actually_ closed down, but only
| because the building was demolished to make way for a highway
| interchange.
|
| https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/rozelle-
| rug...
|
| In many countries, "carpet salesman" is equivalent to "used
| car salesman" as the least trustworthy occupation imaginable.
| Slothrop99 wrote:
| "Rug merchant"
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| "Buy the software-dependent product we're not going to support
| going forward!"
| chihuahua wrote:
| Also, good luck if you ever need replacement parts.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Absolutely. Tesla's already shown significant
| disdain/deprioritization for replacement parts in models
| they're not discontinuing. After all, every part in a
| service warehouse is not a part going on a new car to pump
| the quarterly numbers (or be parked in an abandoned
| shopping mall).
| diabllicseagull wrote:
| classic "closing-store" sale, I wouldn't be surprised if the
| closing phase never ended.
| thorio wrote:
| For what it's worth: he has been saying for years, that they
| were only making the S and X for nostalgic reasons.
| nunez wrote:
| This is sad in that I was serious about finally getting one in
| two to three years (We have two Model 3 LRs already), but is
| fantastic in that no other car interests me and I now don't have
| this hyper materialistic goal distracting me.
|
| If Tesla completely exits automotive and decides to license their
| FSD tech (or someone else catches up), then I'll probably just
| get whatever the equivalent of a Bolt is then with that and
| premium sound.
|
| And they just might, too. Recall that the EV tax credit went away
| this year along with regulatory credits to other auto OEMs, which
| was a huge part of their business. This combined with the
| Cybertruck (unsurprisingly!) missing sales targets is
| problematic.
| lavezzi wrote:
| > This is sad in that I was serious about finally getting one
| in two to three years
|
| Couldn't have said it better
| rconti wrote:
| Wait, an S? Why? I've got a 3 LR too and.... I just can't say
| anything about the extraordinarily long-in-the-tooth S excites
| me. Usually something is desirable when it's new, then the
| desirability fades as the product ages and other new, hot
| things come onto the market.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I don't generally lust after EVs, but I
| _am_ looking forward to the R3X....
| nunez wrote:
| Bigger battery, larger center console and the cabin is
| slightly more premium. Not $76k premium but moreso than the
| 3. I also really like the yoke.
|
| However, the 3 is lighter, has better headlight clusters, the
| light accent inside of the cabin (that I thought the S was
| getting, but I guess not), and a marginally better sound
| system.
| rconti wrote:
| Got it. Yeah, the headlights and sound system on my (2018)
| 3 are AMAZINGLY good, especially (now) for the age. I drove
| a 2017 S fairly regularly-- so it's a first year (?) of the
| refresh, but pretty dated now. The sound system is abysmal
| (I'm sure it's the low end option) and the car generally
| feels less cohesive.
|
| The yoke and button turn signals would be a deal breaker
| for me, but to each their own.
| baggachipz wrote:
| We're all going to need to buy some R2's if we want the R3X
| to become a thing. I have my reservation!
| niek_pas wrote:
| This is slightly off topic but what kind of living situation
| requires three cars? Polyamorous family?
| senordevnyc wrote:
| I have multiple friends who have 6+ cars. To be fair, they're
| pretty well-off (mid six figure income), but one for example:
|
| - Husband Tesla daily driver - Wife Bronco daily driver -
| Truck to pull their boat - Campervan for outdoor adventures -
| Older car for teenager to drive - 90s convertible for summer
| fun
| niek_pas wrote:
| I'm guessing this is in the US? Do you think there's a
| number where they would go, "too many cars"?
| quesera wrote:
| Any of a dozen common situations, but probably the most
| common is having children who reach driving age.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| X sure, but the S? it was the best in the lineup
|
| why not kill the cybertruck instead?
| aglavine wrote:
| Roadster will replace S
| driverdan wrote:
| The same vaporware Roadster that was supposed to come out
| years ago and that Tesla has not shared any updates on?
| rhplus wrote:
| The S is simply too expensive. People in the market for $100K+
| sedans/coupes are gonna perceive more curb appeal from a
| Mercedes, Audi, BMW or Porsche.
|
| Tesla crashed the allure of its brand by lowering the price
| point of the Y and 3. The X and S aren't different enough to
| attract $100K+ purchasers.
|
| (It's one reason why Toyota and other brands use different
| marks like Lexus for their high end offerings).
| 46493168 wrote:
| So is the new roadster just not happening?
| csa wrote:
| Tesla designer I know said that it's not something that anyone
| is currently working on.
|
| As such, my guess is "not any time soon".
| testing22321 wrote:
| On the earnings call Elon said
|
| "we're hoping to debut [next gen roadster] in April, hopefully.
| It's gonna be something out of this world."
|
| (I'm just the messenger, don't shoot me)
| kccoder wrote:
| He didn't specify the year.
| officerk wrote:
| He said it's on April 1st [1]. So, yeah.
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/06/tesla-delays-reveal-
| of-pro...
| system2 wrote:
| On an earnings call, everyone expects it to be this year.
| Unless specified, it should be this year.
| akmarinov wrote:
| It'll be out and immediately cancelled
| vtail wrote:
| "HN is dying" is a cliche, I know, but I seriously want to
| bookmark this thread to revisit it in 10 years - I'm sure it will
| age even better than (in)famous Dropbox thread. So from that
| perspective, HN is alive and well :).
|
| The level of cynicism of the discussion is overwhelming, frankly.
| I get it that some people don't like Musk because of his
| politics, but why should that prevent people interested in
| technology to at least try to present a steelman case?
|
| Let me try it, at a risk to be down-voted to oblivion...
|
| 1. As people correctly point out, S&X are outdated, low volume
| models. Investing more engineering time in them doesn't make any
| business sense; these engineering resources and capital should be
| clearly redeployed elsewhere.
|
| 2. People think that Waymo is supposedly better(?) than FSD, but
| at least some very well informed people (and NVIDIA as a company)
| believe that it's not. Personal anecdote: an older (HW3) version
| of Tesla drove me perfectly well in Yosemite last weekend, in on
| winding mountain roads with 0 cell phone coverage. It will take
| Waymo forever to map everything there properly with LIDAR, and
| true autonomy only in selected metro areas has limited value.
|
| 3. It's obvious that _when_ we have autonomous, general purpose
| humanoid robots, they will completely transform our societies.
| Any such robots would require an enormous AI /vision investment.
| Say what you want about Elon, but xAI basically caught up with
| the top LLM shops in ~18 months, and now have comparable AI
| training capacity. You can bet against Optimus, but who else
| would have the skills to bring both the technology and the AI to
| market first? China? Good robotics, but no enough data to train
| their vision models comparing to Tesla, at least not yet.
|
| 4. So the bear case is that (a) driving autonomy is not possible
| without LIDAR, (b) Tesla can't bring another very complex product
| to market, and (c) autonomous robots are not possible in our
| lifetime. If you look at the AI progress even in the last 12
| months, that's a tough sell to me.
|
| What are the serious, tech-based counterarguments to the points
| above?
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Dropbox really was shit, the fact that we lampoon the HN anti-
| Dropbox guy is evidence that this place died long ago. You
| really could have just done it with rsync and I'm so glad
| Claude Code exists to kill every other shit SaaS business that
| doesn't deserve to exist. Dropbox first please.
| vtail wrote:
| Hard to tell whether you are serious or sarcastic, but
| assuming it's the former: my contrarian position on CC vs
| SaaS is that in the quest to kill shitty businesses people
| will discover that creating a _high-value_ SaaS is very non-
| trivial. CC would kill a whole category of low effort SaaS
| while at the same time substantially raising the quality bar
| for SaaS that people are willing to pay money for.
| webdevver wrote:
| i think there's a danger here of underestimating how varied
| mankinds 'mindware' is at large.
|
| for us lot who were 'born in it, molded by it' (tech), it can
| be very hard to internalize that there are a _lot_ of people
| out there who legimiately cannot for the life of them wrap
| their head around a computer, or the internet, other than
| "wifi logo = i can video call my grandkids".
|
| you could say services like dropbox are outreach/charity
| organisations that onboard the masses onto 10x productivity
| curves (whether they like it or not!)
|
| and to be honest, ive become guilty of drag n dropping
| tarballs to/from my gdrive account when im too dumb to figure
| out the ssh proxy tunnel incantation (or beg an llm for one
| for the 1000th time.) so really, everyone wins.
|
| im not sure claude code will change all that much for the
| non-technical segment. from their point of view, you changed
| one terminal window for another. so what? its still a black
| box (literally).
| rossjudson wrote:
| What's with the "outdated" adjective? There's nothing in the US
| market even remotely close to the X. Every other EV is a
| slapdash pile of hoobajoobs and knobs that can't even drive
| itself.
|
| Source: 45000 miles in a bit over two years, loved every minute
| of it. Makes our other high priced German car a disappointing
| machine to be avoided if possible.
| vtail wrote:
| You might be more informed that I am. We only have 3 and Y in
| the family. I based my statement on th fact that S/X were
| last refreshed 5 years ago; so they would need to be
| refreshed fairly soon.
| abstractbg wrote:
| Okay, I'll bite. For the record, I own Tesla stock and I am
| generally bullish about AI.
|
| I'll try to provide some counter-points specifically regarding
| the rate of progress.
|
| 3. It's much easier to catch up in capability (ex. LLMs) than
| it is to achieve a new capability (ex. replace humans laborers
| with humanoid robots). You can hire someone from a competitor,
| secrets eventually leak out, the search space is narrowed etc.
|
| 4(c). To me, what's most important is whether or not truly
| autonomous humanoid robots happens in 3 years, 5 years, 10
| years, etc. rather than in our lifetime.
|
| These timelines will be tied to AI development timelines which
| largely outside the control of any one player like Tesla. I
| believe the world is bottlenecked on compute and that the
| current compute is not sufficient for physical AI.
|
| It's extremely easy to be too early (ex. many of the self
| driving car companies of the past decade), and so for Tesla,
| there is a risk of over-investing in manufacturing robots
| before the core technology is ready.
| vtail wrote:
| Thanks, these are fair arguments!
|
| Re: both 3 and 4(c) - agree that compute (or maybe even power
| for that compute) is likely to be a bottleneck in the next
| 3-5 years. However, I think Tesla/xAI are better positioned
| than many competitors as Tesla is a _manufacturing_ company
| first and foremost; and this expertise (which is shared
| freely between Musk 's companies) can help it to build it's
| own data centers, power generation (e.g., solar), or - in the
| most bullish case - even fab capacity.
| danny_codes wrote:
| Tesla isn't a market leader in any of these things. It's a
| decent shop, but not a leader in any of these things you've
| mentioned.
| vtail wrote:
| I would argue that it _is_ a leader in vision-only FSD, which
| is useful for both self-driving and robots.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Only if you are confusing FSD and actually autonomous.
| Which is basically just a bait and switch on Musk's part.
| FSD is whatever Musk says it is, actually autonomous is
| another thing entirely.
| Mawr wrote:
| 1. Your argument is that cutting off a rotting limb is good.
| Obviously it is, but I'd rather not have a rotting limb in the
| first place. I want a healthy, revenue-generating limb.
|
| 2. Waymo has been offering a driverless taxi service for some
| time now, and Tesla is not. That's a hard fact. Meanwhile your
| arguments are beliefs and personal anecdotes.
|
| When, or rather if, Tesla starts offering their service, they
| will be behind Waymo by approximately however long ago Waymo
| started theirs, so at least a few years.
|
| Unless you have some "serious, tech-based counterarguments"?
|
| 3. It's also obvious that _when_ we have AGI, fusion, etc.,
| they will completely transform our societies. I _promise_ I
| will deliver you those by the end of this year. Send money now.
| If my timeline slips by a little--maybe a few decades--well, it
| was just a best-effort estimate and I did deliver in the end!
|
| 4. No, the bear case is that there's no real reason to believe
| Tesla would be the company that captures the market vs any
| other company. Their solar, tunnelling, and now car business
| models have failed/are failing, so they must win on self-
| driving/robots.
|
| Self-driving is looking really bad, they're badly losing to
| Waymo.
|
| They have shown nothing in terms of robots. If anything,
| dressing people up as robots and showing that is a _rather_
| negative signal. Oh, and robots are at least a 10x harder
| problem than self-driving.
| gsharm wrote:
| Thanks for saying this. For new, impressionable minds here who
| read most of the comments here and think this it's all devs -
| it isn't. A lot of us value Musk and incredibly awesome tech
| like FSD and aren't consumed by political partisanship. That
| tells you more about the commenter than Musk.
|
| Some of these same commenters were trying to make you believe
| not long ago that FSD wasn't going to be competitive with Waymo
| because it dropped LIDAR. If you bring that up now they'll just
| change goalposts. There's no point even arguing with someone
| unable to approach an argument in good faith.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| Makes sense and it sounds like Optimus is getting ready for prime
| time.
|
| Are they betting Robotaxi will replace all cars in the future?
| bamboozled wrote:
| How does it "make sense" to you, really? Can you provide more
| rationale ?
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I'm likely out of the loop, but what evidence is there that
| Optimus is anywhere close to ready for prime time, or any
| commercialization at all? I haven't seen anything compelling
| yet outside of highly edited videos in controlled settings.
| Gud wrote:
| Probably one of the dumbest decisions taken by a CEO?
| vtail wrote:
| Shutting down low-volume, complex project, that needs to be
| substantially redesigned to be competitive, while these
| resources can be redeployed elsewhere, in high growth areas? I
| disagree: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46805773
| shevy-java wrote:
| I think ever Elon made some strange moves (the chainsaw image,
| mass-firing people at DOGE and elsewhere or the right-arm
| gesture) people question more why they should give money to where
| he is associated with. Tesla suffered from this, in addition to
| the design becoming awkward compared to older models.
| jsight wrote:
| It is sad, but big sedans do not sell well and the X really
| needed to be replaced with something completely different. There
| are now several other 3 row EV SUVs competing with it, and even
| low volume ones (eg, R1S) outsell it easily.
|
| Don't be surprised if something else takes its place as they do
| need something larger than Y and less expensive than X was.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Really sad. I loved my Model S. Amazing car.
| CalChris wrote:
| One of Oxide+Friends predictions was "6 year: Tesla is out of the
| consumer car business".
|
| https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/predictions...
| ted_dunning wrote:
| Even Tesla pessimists would probably agree with that. The
| question is whether they will be in any other business by then.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| If they want to sell a buttload more cars just make FSD free on
| all Tesla's, done.
|
| The possibility of FSD is probably the only reason I paid $10K
| more for a M3 over a BYD Seal. But free FSD? Who can compete with
| that. Nobody.
|
| Also, turning FSD into a subscription is total enshittification
| and I hate it. It would also go a long way to coax back peeved
| off buyers and convince them not to make their 2nd EV a different
| brand.
|
| My current sentiment towards Tesla for making FSD subscription-
| only AFTER I bought my car? Screw you. Go to hell. It's MY $80k
| asset. I feel betrayed.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| Sitting over here in Asia, I am doing a wild guess:
|
| Most people in the western world have no clue HOW bad the crisis
| in our electronics industry caused by AI BS, tariff wars etc is.
|
| When you wanted to get anything done in China as a western
| company, last year you might have issues to have China allow
| EXPORT. For example due to the pissing contest about Nexperia, a
| lot of really basic chips like USB controllers suddenly were
| forbidden for export.
|
| And since January 1st 2026, things got far worse: Now some
| standard connectors (that are, amongst others, used in cars) that
| are made in the USA can no longer be IMPORTED into China. Which
| means that you now can typically will have parts missing on PCBAs
| that you then have to re-solder with the missing US components
| somewhere else. And many don't have the competence for this
| anymore.
|
| This is all just wild speculation.
|
| And I am pretty sure that right now it will be next to impossible
| to source parts for such a complex product like a robot. I need
| grey market brokers locally in Shenzhen to get even the most
| basic stuff at insane prices. And a lot of stuff simply is no
| longer available at all, due to things like "Intel has replaced
| anyone with a brain with an AI, and now no longer is able to
| produce and chip embedded N150 CPUs from the US to China,
| because... how?".
|
| Tesla is now putting in 4680 battery cells back into the Model Y.
| Years after they had discontinued the 4680 program. What does
| that mean? They are using up whatever parts they still have, like
| everybody else in the electronics industry is now doing.
|
| Good luck buying a computer, phone, fridge, car or toaster in the
| second half of 2026.
| bayindirh wrote:
| The elephant Tesla mocked has run, and stomped over them. Now
| there comes the pivot.
|
| While "The old auto establishment" is not a benevolent structure,
| they proved that experience is something earned with time and
| doing things. Corporate knowledge and memory is real, and you
| can't beat it with brute force.
|
| They started the change, but they failed to keep up with the
| pace. Also hubris, greed and monies.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| I don't really get this take... not when Tesla is by a wide
| mile the world's most valuable automaker. How does Tesla ending
| production of the S and X equate to the old auto establishment
| "stomping over them"?
| bayindirh wrote:
| Worth related statistics doesn't mean anything in the realm
| of hard engineering. I completely look from the point of
| "what the companies are doing tech-wise".
|
| When Tesla came about, they were distinctively different. A
| different chassis, a different weight distribution,
| completely different dynamics. Since they started with a
| blank slate, their cars were greenfield projects, and they
| correctly took note of the pitfalls, and avoided them.
|
| On the other hand, avoiding past pitfalls or remedying them
| doesn't make you immune from the future ones, and doesn't
| mean the other companies can't learn, too. This is where they
| made the mistake.
|
| They overpromised (esp. with the Autopilot thingy) and
| underdelivered massively on that front, and while they "made"
| the software-defined-vehicle, they underestimated the
| problems and behaved like the problems they face are as
| simple as configuring a web service right. This is what
| slowly broke them. They also underestimated hardware problems
| of the car (like using consumer grade parts in the critical
| parts of the hardware. Remember wearing down flash chips and
| bricking cars?)
|
| Because while car is software defined now, it's also an
| "industrial system". It has to be robust. It has to be
| reliable, idiot-proof even. Playing fast and loose with these
| things allowed automakers to catch them, maybe slowly but
| surely.
|
| Because, "the old automakers" has gone through a lot of
| blood, sweat and tears (both figuratively and literally), and
| know what to do and what not to do. They can anticipate
| pitfalls better then a "newbie" carmaker. They shuddered,
| sputtered, hesitated, but they are in the move now. They will
| evolve this more slowly, but in a more reliable and safer
| way. They won't play that fast, but the products will be more
| refined. They won't skimp on radars because someone doesn't
| believe in them, for example.
|
| Not everything is numbers, valuations and great expansions
| which look good on quarterlies, news, politics, and
| populists. Sometimes the slow and steads wins, and it goes
| for longer.
|
| Physics and engineering doesn't care for valuations. They
| only care about natural laws.
|
| This is what I'm seeing here.
| uejfiweun wrote:
| Thank you for the explanation. I guess the thing I don't
| understand is what exactly the problems are that you are
| seeing. We've all heard the stories of wooden parts in
| initial production runs of Tesla models, sure. But it does
| seem like they iron out these kinks over time. Maybe I'm
| biased because I'm in the bay area, but it seems like every
| 3rd car you see on the highway is a Tesla, and lots of my
| coworkers speak very highly of theirs that they own. It
| just doesn't seem to me like there is actually a quality
| issue here?
|
| If anything, ending production of SX and giving more focus
| to 3Y would probably increase the quality of those models,
| I'd imagine.
|
| If you're pointing to Autopilot / camera-only as the main
| transgression here, yeah I'll agree that they have
| definitely overpromised, but it doesn't really seem to me
| like the lack of a L5 system is actually a deal-breaker for
| anyone, because from what I hear they are just damn good
| cars anyway.
| tzs wrote:
| In terms of actually selling cars Tesla is around #15 by
| annual unit sales and around #11 by annual sales in dollars.
|
| Toyota sells more cars in a year then Tesla has sold ever.
| rswail wrote:
| So he milked Tesla for another $2B to subsidize xAI, has dropped
| the models to 2 (3 and Y), revenue is down, growth is negative,
| BYD is eating Tesla for lunch, followed by the other CN and KR
| vehicle companies.
|
| He doesn't have FSD, camera only navigation without sensor fusion
| with LIDAR will fail, the only thing keeping Tesla where it is is
| the bullshit dispersal field that surrounds Musk.
| CursedSilicon wrote:
| Careful now. You'll get branded as a "Tesla hater" for stating
| facts like that. Or you'll get unflattering ad-homs comparing
| you to the Electrek guy
| cschmatzler wrote:
| I agree that this decision is insane and the whole Optimus/xAI
| bullshit is tiring, especially with the shareholders actually
| voting against the xAI investment, but you should try today's
| FSD. It's genuinely good and shouldn't be discarded wholesale
| because the guy sucks.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I'm not sure it is a bad decision given:
|
| _" Tesla's far more popular models are the 3 and Y, which
| accounted for 97% of the company's 1.59 million deliveries
| last year."_
| rightbyte wrote:
| That just indicates that the other models were allready
| being wound down.
| rswail wrote:
| The problem is not how well Tesla's FSD works, compared to
| other FSD from other manufacturers.
|
| The problem is that Musk has been promising it for almost 10
| years and it is still not sufficiently stable to be rolled
| out and _relied upon_ by car owners.
|
| FSD is only actually "ready" in terms of the whole "don't
| need to own a car for personal transport" when there can be
| passengers and _no_ driver.
|
| When Mom can dispatch the family car to pick up the kids from
| school.
| dubeye wrote:
| the main metric is fsd subs, the other stuff you mention is
| not as important
| sejje wrote:
| > When Mom can dispatch the family car to pick up the kids
| from school.
|
| Tech level, I agree--that's FSD.
|
| But even if we had that tech today, Mom ain't sending the
| car without getting a police visit.
|
| You can't even let your kids go to the local playground
| alone anymore. They're not going to be captain and first
| mate alone in a vehicle if the Karens have anything to say
| about it.
| ben_w wrote:
| If Tesla's FSD existed in isolation, it would be a fantastic
| breakthrough that signposted the future.
|
| If.
|
| It doesn't exist in isolation. The competition isn't just
| from the American firms, but also European and Chinese, and
| it isn't really possible to overlook Musk himself given both
| his long history of Musk over-promising and under-delivering,
| deflecting blame.
|
| Even the current release isn't what Musk was talking
| hopefully about a decade ago, e.g.: Our goal
| is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we'll be
| able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way
| from LA to New York, from home in LA to let's say dropping
| you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car
| go park itself, by the end of next year. Without the need for
| a single touch, including the charger.
|
| - Oct 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions
| _for_autono...
|
| Likewise, based on a video I saw recently from someone
| reproducing Tesla's 2016 "Paint It Black" drive, Tesla's AI
| is only now around the performance level that they faked in
| 2016.
|
| Don't get me wrong, that level was impressive... just, the
| world isn't isolated developments.
| lnenad wrote:
| But it is still (unfortunately) the most competent publicly
| available ADAS.
| ulfw wrote:
| Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) is officially classified as a
| Level 2 advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS). Despite its
| advanced capabilities, it requires the human driver to remain
| fully attentive, monitor the environment, and be ready to
| take control immediately.
|
| So it's literally nothing special compared to other
| manufacturers. I am happy to argue that's it's a better Level
| 2 than most others, sure. But it's still just that. No magic,
| no bullshitty "by 2017 the car will drive itself from New
| York to Los Angeles". No it hasn't and no it won't.
| vardump wrote:
| ADAS levels are not only about technical capability, but
| also about who takes responsibility.
| lnsru wrote:
| The gamble with Cybertruck failed. It's common sense, that such
| a vehicle will fail. The successful cars are made for masses
| and not for niche buyers. Common sense product could be
| something smaller than Model 3 for Europe and this car would
| eat Chinese for lunch. Expensive experiment failed, it's time
| for consequences. Does Tesla have resources for another car
| experiment? Will it stay a car company?.. Or it will be now a
| manufacturer of robot soldiers?..
| rswail wrote:
| BYD already have the Atto 1 (sub AUD30K here) as do other EV
| manufacturers (eg Nissan Leaf).
|
| Tesla could stop spending money on bullshit like the
| Cybertruck and spend it on vehicles that people actually
| need/want.
| hashtag-til wrote:
| Don't forget Renault 5!
| beAbU wrote:
| And the Renault 4, the Hyundai Inster, and the Dacia
| Spring, and the Citroen C3, Fiat 500e, Kia EV3, Leapmotor
| T03.
|
| There are heaps of small/subcompact EVs on the European
| market now, all with very competitive prices. The newer
| ones seem to be getting cheaper and cheaper.
|
| Honestly I reckon a Tesla M2 will have a hard time
| succeeding in this market.
| raphaelj wrote:
| Interestingly, the Renault 5 Turbo 3E is more Cyberpunk
| than anything Tesla is making!
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Is it an good car ?
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Good enough that Ford is planning to slap their badge on
| it and hope Europe doesn't forget Ford while they are
| busy not actually manufacturing EVs.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| All the big European car manufacturers also have EV cars
| too.
|
| Plus there are plenty of popular options for high-end EVs
| that are far more glamorous as well as practical than the
| Cybertruck.
| avhception wrote:
| ... but they aren't canceling the Cybertruck?
|
| Re: Robots bla bla: yeah, of course. FSD bla bla. Meh.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's weird too, maybe they just have some preorders they
| need to fulfill. They did stop its production for a while
| last year and reduced the number of models available.
| shalmanese wrote:
| > Common sense product could be something smaller than Model
| 3 for Europe and this car would eat Chinese for lunch.
|
| Yeah, that would be the Model 2, which Musk cancelled, then
| denied he cancelled, then has made no effort to review
| whatsoever so it exists in a limbo state of zero people
| working on it but it not being officially cancelled. Either
| way, it didn't come out in 2025 as planned.
|
| https://www.cbtnews.com/tesla-execs-raise-red-flags-after-
| mu...
|
| For a normal company, this would be disastrous. For a meme
| stock, this makes total sense since anyone claiming the Model
| 2 is dead can be shouted at by fans saying Musk himself
| disputed it was dead.
| angled wrote:
| The completed original line up was
|
| S 3 X Y
|
| The C didn't fit that, nor would a 2. Unless he's aiming
| for a lineup of products that has you seeing someone next
| Tuesday.
| westmeal wrote:
| Lol I didn't even connect the dots together until this
| comment. For a dickhead rich memelord this one is at
| least somewhat clever.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| It's his favourite joke, see Space Sex.
| operation_moose wrote:
| And he couldn't get E (the original intended name)
| because Ford had it trademarked.
| dambon wrote:
| 2 S 3 X Y?
| throw20251220 wrote:
| Fit a robotaxi, a semi, and a cyberfuck into this, the
| meme is complete.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| What about the roadster?
| rob74 wrote:
| Why? I think a lineup with a 2 could have been S3XY 2!
| vardump wrote:
| I thought it was
|
| S 3 X Y C A R S
|
| Cybertruck, ATV (?), Roadster, Semi
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| They could have expanded the lineup to 2 S 3 X Y 4 U
| smitelli wrote:
| CyberS3XY was what I always figured he was going for.
| raincole wrote:
| > The successful cars are made for masses and not for niche
| buyers.
|
| When Tesla got started, full EVs were extremely niche. They
| were known for their short range and nothing else. Tesla
| defeated common sense. This is what supports their anti-
| common-sense stock price.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Everyone knew that was the future and that the big auto
| manufacturers were deliberately dragging.
|
| No-one (serious) thought there was a market for the
| cybertruck.
|
| The stock price is pure madness, it's like it's priced in
| robotaxis, but that's clearly not going to happen for
| Tesla. And if it did, it would be a small-ish market, their
| brand has become toxic in so many big markets.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > Everyone knew that was the future and that the big auto
| manufacturers were deliberately dragging.
|
| Definitely not. Car electrification was definitely not
| obvious, and Tesla had to do many semi-impossible things
| to make it even slightly feasible.
| Lapsa wrote:
| semi-impossible
| jfyi wrote:
| >Car electrification was definitely not obvious
|
| The first electric car predates the 20th century. That
| seems pretty obvious.
|
| The problem was always batteries and charging
| infrastructure. I wouldn't call these semi-impossible,
| but it's something Tesla definitely contributed
| significantly to.
| philipallstar wrote:
| > The first electric car predates the 20th century. That
| seems pretty obvious.
|
| If you count remote control cars as well then you have an
| even weightier point.
|
| But if you're serious about adapting technologies,
| countries and drivers to electric cars then you'll know
| that an electric car being made in the 19th century is
| totally irrelevent. Toyota even bet big on hydrogen
| rather than electric for a long time; that's how non-
| obvious it was.
| jfyi wrote:
| >an electric car being made in the 19th century is
| totally irrelevent.
|
| But then you strangely ignored why it was irrelevant,
| which I already pointed out and was the meat of the
| statement. The concept of an electric car is painfully
| simple. Way more so than an internal combustion engine,
| in fact.
| xethos wrote:
| > The first electric car predates the 20th century
|
| Great, now do steam. Being produced in the past does not
| mean it will make a comeback, despite steam being
| quieter, with great torque, and the main ingredient for
| propulsion (water) being safer than gasoline for normal
| people to refuel
| jfyi wrote:
| >Great, now do steam.
|
| I can assure you I would point out the silliness of
| someone saying steam technology was not obvious too.
|
| You know that steam is used in nuclear power, right?
| Deklomalo wrote:
| Yeah 10 years ago.
|
| Good for them as a company, thats why they are still
| here.
|
| And now? Everyone builds EVs, everyone is as far as Tesla
| or better.
|
| Even the old school companies like BMW have now more
| models than Tesla and the Cybertruck was expensive to
| build, build badly and did not deliver what Elon the
| druggy and antidemocrat Musk promised.
| ghc wrote:
| > Yeah 10 years ago.
|
| Tesla unveiled the Roadster _20 years ago_. That 's
| plenty of time for other companies to catch up. They made
| a bet that once the battery moat evaporated the millions
| of miles of driving footage, powering affordable fully
| autonomous driving, would be their next moat. They
| failed, not because camera-based FSD is a silly idea (we
| drive with our eyes after all), but because it's a really
| hard problem. If they had won that bet, Tesla would
| justify its valuation. They didn't, and so we're left
| with the flailing of a doomed company.
| ben_w wrote:
| > No-one (serious) thought there was a market for the
| cybertruck.
|
| If they'd hit the price and performance of the launch
| announcements they might have. $40k base for what he
| initially talked about is a vastly better proposal than
| $61k base for what he actually delivered.
| speed_spread wrote:
| What I could see happening is Alphabet getting an
| exclusive lock on Tesla (probably not buying because the
| stock is too high) and then quasi-merging it with Waymo
| for a fully integrated, functional robo taxi company. A
| bit like when they bought Motorola phone division.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| You couldn't possibly be singing that tune if you were
| taking their robotaxis taxis every day for the past half
| a year and seeing how well they drive (albeit supervised)
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Is there _any_ indication that they 're going to "defeat
| common sense" again? They're cancelling products, making
| marginal improvements to old models, alienating their
| customers, etc.
|
| Tesla as a car company seems dead-set on a continuous
| downward spiral.
|
| Maybe the switch to robots will pay off and you'll be
| right. Somehow, I'm skeptical.
| raincole wrote:
| > Is there any indication that they're going to "defeat
| common sense" again?
|
| If you equal Elon to Tesla then there are plenty of -
| SpaceX dominates near-earth orbit payload launches. A
| private company competing against and replacing NASA
| would have been a laughingstock idea 30 years ago. xAI
| made competitive SOTA models despite a very, very late
| start.
|
| Of course Elon isn't Tesla. I think the biggest risk of
| Tesla now is the investors realizing he's more into AI
| and politics and will siphon resources from Tesla to his
| other companies.
| p_l wrote:
| Except SpaceX "competing and replacing NASA" is ... also
| a meme.
|
| SpaceX is essentially the same kind of commercial
| provider as always, except that they didn't sit on
| laurels of 1960s ICBM work, and among other things built
| their own additional infrastructure.
|
| ... But remember they were explicitly early financed to
| do that by DoD and NASA.
| arethuza wrote:
| Why would a small Tesla "eat Chinese for lunch" - the brand
| is tainted (to put it mildly) and the Teslas I've been in
| didn't seem to have great design or build quality?
| antonkochubey wrote:
| because there is still 2012-era belief hanging around many
| people that Tesla's EV tech is superior to anything else
| MPSimmons wrote:
| yeah, they legitimately used to be but the rest of the
| world has definitely improved and Teslas weirdly haven't
| that much. They're cruising on name brand and a really
| decent charging network, but even that moat is being
| breached.
| msh wrote:
| Today probably not but there was a time where Tesla doing a
| rush to electric car market dominance was not totally far
| fetched. This would have required them to have cars filling
| the important segments.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| Even without Musk's public persona, the Tesla build quality
| is infamous. I would never.
| thephyber wrote:
| The entire car is a surveillance machine and the company
| is happy after a crash to taint the driver in the
| public's eye if it will improve the image of their
| AutoPilot. It's bad enough having to deal with car
| insurance after a crash without your car's manufacturer
| blaming you in public, sending the recipients to news
| outlets.
|
| Tesla has a monopoly on their car repairs, which reduces
| the number of mechanics qualified to work on it,
| increasing the cost and the wait time.
|
| Teslas are a very expensive platform to service being
| largely an aluminum frame. Difficult+expensive to repair
| and replacements are expensive compared to cheaper cars
| which usually have more plastic. This means insurance is
| also expensive.
|
| And this doesn't even begin to get into the weirdness of
| their reputation for hiring private eyes to stalk
| employees and call the police to in an attempt to get an
| employee killed. Having an exec who has a ketamine
| problem and mania issues doesn't lend itself to long term
| stability.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| What I've seen so far from Chinese car makers (BYD and MG,
| to be precise) is, to put it bluntly, the bare minimum.
| Build quality so-so, design is... unconventional and
| software is just bad. It drives, but only just.
|
| Maybe the more recent models, like the Xiaomi thing, are
| better. But at the moment, Tesla is at least on par, if not
| better. The brand being tainted is very relevant though.
| Acinyx wrote:
| You see electric Volvo's everywhere in the more
| electrified markets in Europe like Norway and the
| Netherlands. Especially the smaller models like the ex30
| and ex/xc40. They fit very well design-wise and I think
| software quality wise in the European market and they are
| essentially Chinese (Zeekr). I think it helps that they
| use Android Auto as the main interface and some of their
| designers are still located in Sweden. Korean electrics
| are also taking over marketshare hand over fist.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Volvos are premium cars at a premium price point. Though
| the brand is now Chinese-owned, I would not group them
| together with the likes of BYD, MG, Leapmotor etc. They
| have no disruptive potential whatsoever from my
| perspective.
| lnsru wrote:
| There are people like me who still buy teslas. Buddy picked
| up his new Model Y couple weeks ago. The price and the
| whole package is fine. Zero interest financing is
| absolutely nice. Elon showed his real face during children
| rescue drama in Asia. With this defamation story it was
| well known who he is for years. Political involvement was
| the visible tip of an iceberg for everyone.
|
| Now if you ask me if the German car managers are better I
| doubt it. Gassing apes by Volkswagen in US is on the same
| level as Elon. Mercedes guy was complaining about lazy
| workers too much. Only BMW guy was able to keep acceptable
| silence. Overall German equivalent of model Y is at least
| 20000EUR more expensive than Elon's car.
|
| Personally I don't buy anything from China if I can. I am
| not brave and as the Ayways story showed clearly, that
| great Chinese car can quickly be without any service. Maybe
| it's ok to lease such car for couple years, but I don't
| want to have car after small accident for what no
| replacement parts are available.
| martin_a wrote:
| > Overall German equivalent of model Y is at least
| 20000EUR more expensive than Elon's car.
|
| What?!? VW id.4 has the same starting price as a Tesla
| Model Y if I look it up on their German websites. Don't
| see where the swasticar would be cheaper.
| darkwater wrote:
| Starting price is the same with less equipment. If you
| start putting the same things the new "cheap" Model Y has
| already by default, ID4 goes ~5k more expensive (and with
| less WLTP and I didn't check the charging curve)
| pbronez wrote:
| Several years ago I wanted to buy an electric car. I
| didn't like Musk, so my plan was "anything but Tesla."
| Chevy Bolt was unavailable due to the fire problem.
| Cadillac Lyriq and Hyundai Ioniq 5 weren't out yet.
|
| I drove everything available to buy in my area. My real
| options were the Mustang Mach-e, Volvo XC40 Recharge,
| Hyundai Kona, Polestar 2. I decided to test drive a Model
| Y for completeness.
|
| And CRAP.
|
| The Model Y was obviously the best car. So much more
| refined than the other options. Way better charging
| network. 7 seat option. The only real downside was the
| zany CEO.
|
| Fine, I thought. I'll live with it.
|
| I bought a Model Y and love it.
|
| But.
|
| I'll never buy another Tesla. I have a bumper sticker
| disavowing the CEO. I paid off its loan so nobody would
| make money from me owning a Tesla. I honk support at the
| No Kings protestors outside the local Tesla facility.
|
| I think the only thing that can save Tesla is a
| crash/buyout/relaunch. Get Musk out of the picture. Reset
| the stock price to something sane. Ditch the
| distractions. Release a Model 2. Keep expanding the
| SuperCharger network.
|
| That's a long hard road. Nobody involved makes money in
| that scenario. It'll only happen when there are no other
| options.
|
| As for me, I'm driving my Model Y until the wheels fall
| off. With the bumper sticker.
| MiiMe19 wrote:
| This genuinely does not read like a real post.
| krzyk wrote:
| > Teslas I've been in didn't seem to have great design or
| build quality
|
| Design is subjective (I like it), and build quality. Not
| sure, I don't have issues with mine except one where after
| 2 years frunk latch started failing. It was replaced in an
| hour when I went to service center.
|
| Teslas are the cheapest EV for the features offered in
| Europe. I would gladly buy another car, but they are either
| more pricey, or lack features. (I did market research 2
| years ago when I was buying Model Y, the closest one was
| ICE - RAV4 for similar price, but I didn't want ICE).
| eldaisfish wrote:
| not having door handles in an obvious location is such a
| subjective "feature" that people have been killed in
| fires because of the door handle placement.
|
| I've lost count of the number of times i've seen tesla
| drivers "defrosting" their door handles. You may live in
| a sunny desert but many people do not.
| tedggh wrote:
| I spent a month in Spain driving a BYD daily and it was
| fine. I just don't like the tackiness of the interior and
| not in love with the exterior either. The handling is also
| ok, nothing exciting. There's something still very Chinese
| about these cars. Not saying that matters if you just want
| an affordable and reliable EV that takes you from point A
| to B. BYD can do that perfectly fine. I personally like the
| design of the Model Y (own one) very much, it also feels
| much more "alive" particularly the dual motor. There's no
| comparison with the BYD I drove. Also never had any issues
| with build quality other than the charging port
| malfunctioning, and it was fixed outside my house, all I
| had to do was touch a button in the app to call service.
| FSD is pretty damn amazing. The tech is great and the
| updates do make the car better in many ways. I hope Tesla
| finds its way because apart from all the controversy they
| can make good cars.
| kakacik wrote:
| Regardless, owner is a nazi and utter POS to be polite,
| basically same material as trump. Nothing in the world is
| going to change that, not now not in 40 years. He keeps
| insulting whole Europe (meaning all of fucking us living
| here) and our leaders almost daily, looking down on us
| very publicly.
|
| Why the heck would I buy such car, even if it costed 1
| euro? Have some self-respect and morality ffs, do you
| also go to restaurant where you know they will spit on
| you and insult you, just because they have cca same stuff
| as all other places, often worse while more expensive?
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/tuev-
| report-2026-tesla-mo...
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| > could be something smaller than Model 3 for Europe
|
| Lol... not with those tariffs. In fact, I'd be willing to bet
| we see higher growth of Tata than Telsa in Europe over the
| next 10 years.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Tesla has a factor in Germany.
| ben_w wrote:
| Yes but the factory seems to be struggling to find staff,
| and the job adverts I see around Berlin suggest the
| hiring team is out of touch with what appeals to the
| German job market:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710328
| panick21_ wrote:
| Cybertruck was supposed to be for the masses. The just
| weren't able to hit the price point required because of
| overly optimistic engineering assessments. I think the whole
| stainless steel construction concept didn't work as first
| designed.
|
| And of course, Cybertruck design might not have been mass
| compatible buy being ugly. But that is subjective, if it was
| cheap and functional and without the political connotations
| it might have been different.
|
| But it was certainty a risky bet.
| alterom wrote:
| To be "for the masses", it would need to:
|
| - be smaller
|
| - have an actually usuable truck bed
|
| - be painted (so rust isn't an issue)
|
| - have a body that's not literally duck taped together in
| some places and can easily snap in others
|
| - use steel (which bends) for body construction
|
| - be suitable for towing hauls
|
| - not be ridiculously overpowered (...to the extent where
| engine can overpower the breaks)
|
| - have good visibility with a windshield that isn't at a
| sharp angle to the ground and body geometry which doesn't
| maximize blind spots
|
| - not have sharp corners that the cut you or doors that can
| decapitate your dog
|
| - have door handles that make doors openable in case of
| emergencies/no power situations/electric shorts
|
| - not have bulletproof glass (WTF, "for the masses"?) which
| makes makes it harder to rescue people when accidents
| happen
|
| - be easily repairable, or at least amenable to repairs in
| local non-Tesla shops, with customers being confident it
| their warranty won't go poof (as the law requires)
|
| - be easily customizeable for different applications
| (particularly when it comes to the bed)
|
| - not look so different from other trucks without any
| reason other than "Elon Musk wants to be edgy": ugly is
| subjective, being a billionaire's fashion statement isn't
|
| ...to start. That's off the top of my head.
|
| And, of course, being priced for the masses, which doesn't
| just _happen_. It 's a _design requirement_.
|
| As it stands, the Cybertruck is, and has always been, a
| rich boy's luxury toy -- and it was designed as one.
|
| It really seems like something got to Musk's head that he
| thought the world has so many edgy rich boys.
|
| You want to see a modern truck "for the masses"? That's
| Toyota IMV 0, aka Hilux Champ [1]. Ticks all the above
| boxes.
|
| _And_ hits the $10,000 price point [2]. A literal _order
| of magnitude_ cheaper than the Cybertruck.
|
| Speaking of which: a car "for the masses" isn't a truck.
| It's a minivan (gets the entire family from one place to
| another), it's a small sedan/hatchback (commuter vehicle),
| a crossover/small SUV to throw things, kids, and dogs into
| without having to play 3D Tetris in hard mode.
|
| But not a _pickup truck_ , which is a _specialized work
| vehicle_.
|
| The masses aren't farmers and construction workers (most
| people live in the cities, and only a small number needs
| such a work vehicle).
|
| The popularity of The Truck in the US is, in a large part,
| a byproduct of regulation which gives certain exemptions to
| specialized work vehicles.[3]
|
| That's not even getting to the infrastructure part: trucks
| shine in remote, rural areas. And while one can always have
| a canister of gas in the truck bed, power stations can be
| hard to find in the middle of the field or a remote desert
| highway.
|
| But again, it's not impossible to make a truck for the
| masses (at least for certain markets). That's the $10K
| Hilux Champ.
|
| For all the luxury aspects of the Tesla sedan, it's been
| one of the most (if not _the_ most) practical electric
| vehicles on account of range alone. It also looked like a
| _normal_ car at a time when EVs screamed "look at me, I'm
| so greeeeeen!" from a mile away (remember 1st gen Nissan
| Leaf or BMW i3?). It was conformal and utilitarian, while
| _also_ being futuristic and luxurious enough for the high
| price point was fair for what was offered.
|
| The public image of having a Tesla was _good_ : you are
| affluent, future-forward, and caring for the environment.
|
| The Cybertruck went back on everything that made Tesla a
| success: it's conspicuous, impractical, overpriced, and
| currently having publicity rivaling that of the recent
| Melania documentary.
|
| It was not a _risky_ bet. It was an a-priori _losing_ bet.
| The world simply never needed as many edgy toys as Musk
| wanted to sell.
|
| And driving a car shaped as an "I'm a Musk fanboy" banner
| really lost its appeal after a few Roman salutes and the
| dear leader's DOGE stint.
|
| Overly optimistic engineering assessments? Perhaps, but
| they are much further down on the list of reasons of
| Cybertruck's failure.
|
| [1] https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-
| 10000...
|
| [2] https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2025-toyota-
| imv-0-pickup-...
|
| [3] https://reason.com/2024/02/02/why-are-pickup-trucks-
| ridiculo...
| jfyi wrote:
| To be fair, robot soldiers are the only robotics and ai
| problems that need to be solved to pretty much eliminate
| labor problems across the board.
|
| I suspect China is going to beat him to the punch on this one
| too.
| torginus wrote:
| It didn't fail imo - it was intended a low-volume product for
| next-gen Tesla tech - Ethernet based fieldbus, 48V systems,
| area controllers etc. The philosophy is the same like other
| high-end cars - you field test your latest experimental tech
| first in a car with lower sales but high margins - if your
| fancy stuff has a 1% failure rate, in a 100k production run,
| that's 1000 vehicles - high but manageable.
|
| If you sell millions and its your main product, your company
| is over. This is the same playbook German manufacturers
| followed since forever. I bet the next gen Model 3 and
| robotaxi will get the cybertruck tech.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Musk projected that the Cybertruck would sell 250k
| annually. It's selling around 20k. Even for Musk, that
| isn't normal exaggeration; that's a huge difference.
| skywhopper wrote:
| That is the opposite story that Musk told when hyping the
| Cybertruck, though.
| brk wrote:
| It failed based on the sales projections that Tesla set.
| Also, several reviews have not exactly been kind, along
| with lots of comments from owners about annoying issues and
| malfunctions.
|
| If Tesla needed beta testers for things they hadn't figured
| out yet there would have been better ways to go about that.
| vardump wrote:
| I think the real issue was that Cybertruck required way
| more structural parts (body) than Tesla originally thought.
| It was originally supposed to have a load bearing
| exoskeleton.
| jordanb wrote:
| > it was intended a low-volume product for next-gen Tesla
| tech
|
| If this is true that's not what Musk was saying beforehand.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| _> smaller than Model 3 for Europe_
|
| A few years ago, perhaps. But the brand has become tainted to
| the point where the exact people who would buy such a car are
| now avoiding Teslas. Instead, European manufacturers are
| filling that niche with cars like the Renault 5.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > the exact people who would buy such a car are now
| avoiding Teslas
|
| The traditional fix for this is to license the technology
| and do manufacturing for another carmaker to brand.
|
| It's super common for brand X of car to actually be a
| rebadged Y with slightly different shaped body panels.
|
| However, it only works if your product is good and you have
| decent margins. That means you have to compete with china
| cars, since the obvious thing for a western brand to do is
| to rebadge a chinese designed car and split the margins
| with the chinese designer/manufacturer.
| rob74 wrote:
| > _the obvious thing for a western brand to do is to
| rebadge a chinese designed car and split the margins with
| the chinese designer /manufacturer_
|
| Actually this is already happening with the Dacia
| Spring/Renault City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongfe
| ng_Motor_Corporation#eGT...
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > However, it only works if your product is good and you
| have decent margins.
|
| Not sure if the product has to be good. Look at the
| lineage of my wife's car The 2019 Chevy Trax, based on
| the Buick Encore, based on the Opel/Vauxhall Mokka. It
| isn't a good car under any of the badges, but it does
| run, and is small, but the crazy thing is my Ford Ranger
| gets roughly the same milage as it. Note: the gas milage
| is probably an American issue, because it runs a
| naturally aspirated i4 gas engine instead of a more
| efficient turbo diesel.
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| >>The gamble with Cybertruck failed.
|
| Has it? I really don't know but I see these every day in my
| major city and there was a closed mall parking lot filled
| with cybertrucks the local dealer used to park there which
| were quickly turned over.
| breve wrote:
| Yes. It's a flop:
|
| https://insideevs.com/news/784715/tesla-cybertruck-ev-
| sales-...
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| A flop is not a truck that was the best selling in the
| world two years ago and then 3/4 as many as Ford's EV
| truck and more than everyone else (according to your
| link).
|
| And since when is HN just like Reddit when one is
| downvoted for asking a question for clarity?
| alterom wrote:
| OK, not a flop.
|
| An _failure_ that didn 't live up to the hype that
| generated the initial sales volume in pre-orders.
|
| The _idea_ of the Cybertruck sold well -- at a time
| before Musk 's Roman salutes, shadowing Trump, running
| DOGE, and further enshittifying what remains of Twitter.
|
| The actual Cybertruck, once the pre-orders ran out... did
| not.
|
| Nearly half of _all_ Cybertrucks sold (about 75% of those
| sold in 2024) were pre-orders.
|
| That's to say, people stopped buying once they saw the
| Cybertruck for what it actually was (ditto for Elon).
| breve wrote:
| It's a flop. The Cybertruck didn't meet its sales targets
| and the sales it did have in 2024 were cut in half in
| 2025. It will continue to struggle in 2026:
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/91475013/2026-will-be-the-
| year-c...
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| The Cybertruck was very clearly designed to be a low
| production model to figure out teething issues in
| manufacturing and design. Think Plymouth Prowler. Like
| seriously, nobody makes a body out of heavy gauge sheet metal
| with simple shapes if they're planning on volume, it doesn't
| pencil out vs more die complexity and thinner material. But
| the future growth to justify that never seems to have
| materialized....
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Elon Musk said he estimated 250k to 500k yearly sales
| mekdoonggi wrote:
| So he's off by, what Elon might say is an "order of
| magnitude"
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| I write that off as marketing BS. They very clearly
| didn't design it based on those expectations though.
| butler14 wrote:
| Cybertruck was /the/ sign that things with Elon had...
| changed, IMO!
| epolanski wrote:
| Idk, his twitter account was enough to sort out he had lost
| control over himself.
| epolanski wrote:
| > Common sense product could be something smaller than Model
| 3 for Europe and this car would eat Chinese for lunch
|
| The Chinese EVs selling in Europe are mostly bigger cars.
|
| And the only reason they don't sell more is because we tariff
| the hell out of them.
| rob74 wrote:
| It will be a manufacturer of vaporware if you look at how
| much they announced over the last years and how much of that
| has actually materialized...
|
| But yeah, I guess Tesla lives by its CEO (and his grand
| promises that keep the stock price up) and dies by its CEO
| (who alienated Tesla buyers by, amongst other things,
| throwing his lot in with a regressive fossil fuel supporting
| administration and by personally supervising the dismantling
| of agencies such as USAID).
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| Any discussion of Tesla without mentioning Musk's actions is
| missing the most important piece. I heard someone on this
| site use the term "mind share", as in before Musk decided to
| alienate his main customer base, Tesla had the biggest "mind
| share" of any company in the world. I looked forward to
| buying a Tesla one day. Now, with Musk licking Trumps boots
| and actively doing very real damage with his work in DOGE and
| other things, I will literally never buy anything from that
| company ever again. It doesn't matter what Chinese car
| companies are doing. It matters that he stands for everything
| I don't so I will not give him my money.
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Eat BYD for lunch?
| xnx wrote:
| A Cybertruck-styled minivan would've been so badass. Like an
| updated version of the Toyota Van Wagon.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| Any chance we can get VW to do a Cyber Vanagon??
| darksaints wrote:
| Forgot that the cybertruck was a sales flop and quality joke,
| and that the Tesla Semi is now the elephant in the room.
| qingcharles wrote:
| But... the Roadster!
| andix wrote:
| The Tesla Semi was groundbreaking when they revealed it
| nearly 10 years ago. But now there are dozens of electric
| truck models, and they get delivered in substantial
| quantities for over a year now. At least in Europe.
| haspok wrote:
| That's all good, don't worry, the stock is doing quite well,
| near its record high. A man jumping around in spandex is all
| they need.
| piva00 wrote:
| It's actually bizarre how seemingly nothing impacts $TSLA:
| profits down 46%, revenue down 3%, cutting successful product
| lines that used to sell quite a bit, a massively failed
| product in the Cybertruck, FSD promises still unfulfilled,
| and on top of all that US$ 2 billion siphoned away to another
| unrelated company.
|
| With all of that, the stock closed upwards on the after
| market hours. Perhaps only Musk's death could cause it to
| tank, would have never expected to see a cult of personality
| being run on the top of S&P 500 market caps, what a strange
| world...
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| It's being valued on the hope that they will crack full
| self driving. People still believe they will crack it.
| brightball wrote:
| Have you tried FSD on a HW4 model recently?
| Deklomalo wrote:
| And?
|
| FSD is good in video, given. But its not full self
| driving as it still requires you to keep an eye on it.
|
| Real FSD for me at least, means I can sit in a 'car' open
| a laptop and work. But honestly working with a laptop in
| a car makes it dangerous when driving fast.
|
| For my work commute, I don't need a FSD. For my holiday
| also not.
|
| What I want is real and save FSD something which has
| proofen on the road that it is really really good.
|
| We are far away from this. 5 years minimum if not 10. And
| while Tesla is playing around with FSD and putting it now
| behind a subscription and fooled everyone with the
| promise of FSD with HW3 and below, it will not suddenly
| make Tesla the single leader in FSD at all.
|
| Waymo is working on it, Xpeng can do it, BMW, Mercedes
| and Nvidia.
|
| For Cybertaxies alone you need a lot of infrastructure
| (parking spots), cleaning crew, management software etc.
| you need the legal framework to be allowed to drive them
| (not going to happen anytime soon in europe) and then you
| only compete with normal taxis and uber.
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| > Real FSD for me at least, means I can sit in a 'car'
| open a laptop and work.
|
| Sure. Meanwhile, I'm literally using FSD 90% of the miles
| driven in my Y (the last update added a counter). I can
| appreciate a non-existant better product as much as the
| next guy, but as it is my daily commute is vastly
| improved.
|
| FSD isn't perfect (probably about 90%!), but it's
| everyday amazing and useful.
| Deklomalo wrote:
| And for what exactly? What did it do to your commute? how
| long do you commute?
|
| What do you do know why sitting in front of your stearing
| wheel?
|
| I listen to music and audibooks and I would not have a
| device between me and the airbag.
| brightball wrote:
| Yep. If anything the only complaint is that it can be
| "too safe" when I might personally be more aggressive
| making a turn for example.
|
| Last time I went 5 hours to Raleigh and back I let it
| drive door to door and it was incredible.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > open a laptop and work
|
| I'm still convinced we are going to need dedicated roads
| - or lanes at the very least - and dedicated
| parking/waiting areas for this to be feasible on a truly
| large scale.
|
| However, it may be easier than we think-- they've already
| done something like this for rideshare drivers in many
| places, and it wouldn't necessarily need to be much more
| complicated than that.
| piva00 wrote:
| Just build trains at that point, I use my laptop for work
| all the time when riding for a few hours. It has its
| dedicated lane, can travel at 220km/h, and it's a much
| smoother ride than any pothole'd American road.
| johnthewise wrote:
| It's more of a bet on the optimus
| cedws wrote:
| Optimus looks like a joke compared to the robots China
| has developed like Unitree.
| piva00 wrote:
| Isn't that an issue as well? It's always a bet on the
| next promised land which never arrives, the goalposts
| change but the stock never takes a hit from undelivered
| promises, it's bonkers.
| cedws wrote:
| Meanwhile Waymo has actually cracked self driving, and is
| operating a fleet of taxis. Tesla said they were going to
| do this at least as far back as like 2018, and still
| aren't.
|
| They're being beaten on every front.
| dmix wrote:
| > Tesla said they were going to do this at least as far
| back as like 2018, and still aren't.
|
| Tesla Robotaxis are fully operating in Austin since
| November and they are running a pilot in San Francisco
| with safety drivers?
|
| https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-opens-robotaxi-access-to-
| eve...
| cedws wrote:
| Seems I was wrong. However, the Robotaxi fleet is still
| tiny compared to Waymo's. Jalopnik said the fleet was
| only 34 cars as of EOY 2025[0]. Waymo had over 2,000 as
| of September 2025[1].
|
| [0]: https://www.jalopnik.com/2063124/tesla-austin-
| robotaxi-fleet...
|
| [1]: https://www.automotiveworld.com/articles/waymo-
| confirms-flee...
| joquarky wrote:
| Elsewhere in this discussion someone pointed out that
| each Tesla robotaxi in Austin is being directly followed
| by a supervisor in another car. That resource constraint
| could explain the low number.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Once they actually start bleeding money they will go down.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > would have never expected to see a cult of personality
| being run on the top of S&P 500 market caps,
|
| Steve Jobs had a cult of personality as well. Of course
| Apple had financial reasons to support its valuation when
| he was leading it in the 2000s
| piva00 wrote:
| But Apple under Steve Jobs had all the financial numbers
| to support it, it wasn't valued solely on Steve Jobs'
| personality, the products were there, and being loved by
| consumers. Revenue wasn't dipping while the stock was
| going up, revenue, market share, profits were
| consistently on the rise.
| Balinares wrote:
| I think it was the FT that observed about a year ago that
| even as institutional investors were pulling away from US
| equities, retail investors (redditors, if you will) were
| filling in the gap quite enthusiastically. (You know, "Buy
| the dip!! " and brethren.)
|
| I don't know to what extent that's still the case. But
| someone always ends up with the hot potato no matter what.
| sekai wrote:
| The most successful meme stock in history, all driven by -
| "coming soon"
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Its not bizzare. Retail investors can no longer compete
| with big banks, who pretty much set the stock price. Elon
| solidified this with DOGE by removing oversight of such
| things.
|
| At this point, investing is exacly like playing slots at
| casino.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| That about sums it up.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| How can you say camera only navigation won't work with such
| finality when humans manage just fine every day! You literally
| have an existence proof of it working.
| kleton wrote:
| It would be possible to build an ornithopter, evidenced by
| the existence of avians, but it turned out the easiest ways
| to make flying machines were otherwise.
| fooker wrote:
| > easiest
|
| This is the keyword here, just because the other approach
| is harder does not mean it is impossible.
|
| It's a decent gamble to try and do things the hard way if
| it is possible to be deployed on cheaper/smaller hardware
| (eg: no lidars, just cameras).
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| Is it still a decent gamble after you've been trying (and
| failing) for a decade, and numerous well funded
| competitors are going the easy way, and when there is
| huge upside to being first, and when the value of FSD
| easily covers the rapidly falling cost of LIDAR?
|
| No. It's not a good idea. It's not a good gamble. It's
| stupid, and the engineers can see it's stupid. A lot of
| them have quit, reducing the very slim chances of it
| working even further.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| But why is FSD "failing" is the key question.
|
| Hint: it's not the sensor inputs that are the bottleneck!
| fooker wrote:
| Yeah you could be right.
|
| Not my area of expertise, so I'd rather not try to
| predict what will work and what won't.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| I like the comparison, but with aviation on a fundamental
| level we made it simpler (removing actuation), not added
| more (senses we dont need)
| javawizard wrote:
| Jet engines do not strike me as being inherently simpler
| than muscles, not by a long shot.
|
| They're still the best way we know of going about the
| business of building a flying machine, for various
| reasons.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Piston engines surely are more complex than jet engines
| though? Which replaced the "flapping engines".
| jeremysalwen wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree. I think just having wings that flex
| a bit is mechanically simpler than having an additional
| rotating propellor. After all, rotating axles are so hard
| to evolve they never almost never show up in nature at a
| macro scale. Sort of a perfect analogy to lidar actually.
| We create a new approach to solve the problem in a more
| efficient way, that evolution couldn't reach in billions
| of years
| adrian_b wrote:
| Rotating axles have not evolved in animals not because
| they were complex, but because any part of an animal
| requires permanent connections with the other parts, not
| only for the supply with energy but also for the
| continuous repairing that is required by any living body,
| to avoid death.
|
| Artificial machines rely on spare parts manufactured
| elsewhere, which are used by external agents to replace
| the worn out parts.
|
| For an animal to have wheels, it would have to grow
| wheels in some part of the body, periodically, then use
| its limbs to detach the wheels and attach them on the
| axles, after removing the old wheels. This is something
| sufficiently complex to be extremely unlikely to appear
| from evolution.
|
| Even this huge complication would be enough only for
| passive wheels. For active wheels there exists no
| suitable motor, as the rotational motors with ionic
| currents are suitable only for the size of a bacteria.
| All bigger living beings use contractile motors, which
| cannot be used for a rotation of unlimited angle. So
| active wheels would also need a different kind of motor,
| which can work without a solid connection between the 2
| moving parts. The artificial motors of this kind use
| either electromagnetic forces or fluid expansion due to
| temperature or pressure variation. Both would be very
| difficult to evolve by a living being, though electric
| fish and bombardier beetles show some possible paths.
| tinix wrote:
| Living beings are not devoid of axles and wheels; rather,
| they are entirely composed of them, at scales and in
| forms compatible with biology.
|
| At every relevant level, life relies on rotating and
| cyclic structures coupled through continuous material
| exchange. The objection to wheels in animals assumes that
| axles and wheels must be rigid, permanently isolated
| parts. Biology does not work this way. Instead of
| discrete components joined once and preserved unchanged,
| living systems implement rotation through structures that
| are simultaneously connected, repaired, and replaced.
|
| Cells are full of rotary and quasi-rotary machinery.
| Flagella are true rotating motors with stators, rotors,
| bearings, and torque generation via ion gradients. ATP
| synthase is literally a wheel-and-axle device, converting
| rotational motion into chemical energy and back again.
| The fact that these devices operate at molecular scale
| does not make them conceptually different from
| macroscopic axles; it shows that evolution favors
| rotation precisely where continuous repair and material
| flow are required.
|
| At larger scales, joints function as constrained
| rotational interfaces. Hips, shoulders, knees, and
| vertebrae are axles embedded in living bearings,
| lubricated, rebuilt, and reshaped throughout life. Bone
| remodeling, cartilage regeneration, and synovial fluid
| circulation solve the very problem claimed to prohibit
| wheels: permanent connection combined with continuous
| maintenance. The difference from artificial machines is
| not the absence of rotation, but the absence of rigid
| separability.
|
| Even limbs themselves behave as compound wheels. Gait
| cycles convert linear muscle contraction into rotational
| motion around joints, then back into translation. Tendons
| wrap around bones as belts around pulleys. Muscles do not
| rotate indefinitely, but unlimited rotation is not a
| requirement for a wheel; it is a requirement imposed by
| certain human machines. Biological wheels rotate as much
| as function demands, then reverse, exactly as many
| engineered systems do.
|
| The claim that active wheels require exotic motors
| overlooks that biology already uses fields and flows.
| Ionic gradients are electric fields. Blood pressure,
| osmotic pressure, and gas expansion are fluid-based
| actuators. Electric fish demonstrate macroscopic
| bioelectric control, and insect flight shows that
| indirect actuation can drive cyclic motion far from the
| muscle itself. The distinction between electromagnetic
| motors and biological motors is one of implementation,
| not principle.
|
| What evolution did not produce is a detachable,
| externally replaceable wheel, because life does not
| outsource maintenance. Instead, it internalizes repair,
| redundancy, and gradual replacement. From this
| perspective, an animal is not a wheeled vehicle lacking
| wheels; it is a dense hierarchy of axles and wheels whose
| boundaries are soft, whose materials are alive, and whose
| motion is inseparable from their growth and repair.
|
| Life did not fail to invent wheels. It dissolved them
| into itself.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Most of what you have said is not different from what I
| have said.
|
| All the rotating parts bigger than some tens of
| micrometers have only a limited rotation angle, where the
| limits are enforced by the solid connections between the
| 2 mobile parts, e.g. tendons, nerves and blood vessels.
|
| The bacterial flagella and the rotating enzymes, which
| are powered by ionic currents, cannot be scaled to
| greater sizes. Already the flagella of nucleated cells
| (eukaryotes) are no longer based on rotating motors, but
| on contractile proteins, which must be attached at both
| ends on the mobile parts, limiting the relative movement.
|
| Unlimited rotation is an absolutely necessary condition
| for a wheel that is used in locomotion, otherwise it is
| no longer a wheel.
|
| A wheel used in locomotion that would have limited
| rotation would be just a leg that happens to have the
| shape of a wheel, because like a leg it would have to be
| raised from the ground for the forward motion,
| eliminating the exact advantage in efficiency that
| wheeled vehicles and tracked vehicles have over legs
| (i.e. that backward and forward movement are simultaneous
| and not separated in time during a step cycle, and no
| energy is wasted with a vertical oscillation of the leg).
|
| The distinction between electromagnetic motors and
| biological motors is definitely one of principle and not
| an implementation detail. The only resemblance is that
| both are motors.
|
| It is true that you can claim that when analyzing both
| chemical reactions and the interactions between the
| mobile parts of an electromagnetic motor they can be
| eventually reduced to electromagnetic interactions.
| Nevertheless such an assertion is completely useless,
| because most things that matter to us in the surrounding
| world can be reduced to electromagnetic interactions.
| Knowing this is not helpful at all for classifying them
| and understanding the differences between them.
|
| The contraction of a protein caused by a chemical
| transformation and the magnetic forces that appear either
| between electrical currents through conductors or between
| electrical currents and ferromagnetic materials are very
| different phenomena and knowing that both of them have as
| primary cause electromagnetic interactions is of
| absolutely no help for understanding how they work or for
| designing either kind of motors.
|
| Electromagnetic motors that are not extremely small need
| ferromagnetic materials. The only ferromagnetic material
| that is known to be synthesized by living beings is
| magnetite. Magnetite crystals can be good enough for
| sensing the magnetic field of the Earth, but they would
| be a very poor material for motors.
|
| An easier to evolve rotating biological motor would be a
| rotating hydraulic motor, e.g. powered by pumped blood or
| lymph. This could work if the wheel would become non-
| living after being grown, to no longer need nerves and
| blood vessels. However it would be very difficult for a
| living being to seal the space between an axis and the
| rotating wheel in such a way so that blood or lymph would
| not spill out through the interstice.
| adrian_b wrote:
| What counts is the overall complexity, not the complexity
| of a single subsystem.
|
| Using more senses allows simpler processing of the sensor
| data, especially when there is a requirement for high
| reliability, and at least until now this has demonstrated
| a simpler complete system.
| lisdexan wrote:
| I would posit that the human brain is complex, and adding
| senses is simpler than replicating an aspect of the mind
| more accurately.
| jkrejcha wrote:
| Others in this subthread discussed the comparison of the
| complexity of different ways of achieving flight itself,
| but I think there is an interesting discussion in that...
| well... we do add senses we don't technically need to
| achieve stable flight (but are very useful for safe
| flight and have reduced the incidence of aviation
| incidents and accidents dramatically).
|
| Whether it be altimeters based on radio[1] or air
| pressure[2], avoidance and surveillance systems that use
| radio waves to avoid collisions with other
| aircraft[3][4], airborne weather radars[5], sensors that
| measure angle of attack (AoA), GNSS location, attitude,
| etc, many aircraft (even unpowered gliders!) have some
| combination of special sensing systems that aren't
| strictly necessary to take off, fly to a destination, and
| land, even if some are required for what many would
| consider safe flight in some scenarios.
|
| Many of these systems have redundancies built in in some
| form or another and many of these systems are even built
| into unmanned aerial systems (UASes) big and small.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_altimeter
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_altimeter
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision_avoi
| dance_sy...
|
| [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Su
| rveillan...
|
| [5]: https://skybrary.aero/articles/weather-radar
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| How many of these are due to going outside the normal
| envelope of what birds do?
| dgxyz wrote:
| I fall on my butt all the time.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Because I want better?
| rswail wrote:
| Because FSD _driving_ not _navigation_ is going to be held
| (rightly) to a _much_ higher standard than human driving.
|
| Humans are fallible and we have other sensors, like hearing,
| or touch (through feedback on the steering wheel) that are
| also involved in driving.
|
| We already have other sensors that are not vision that work
| with us when driving like ABS and electronic stability.
|
| The other reason it's dumb is that adding LIDAR and proper
| sensor fusion makes things _better_ and the cost of LIDAR is
| rapidly dropping as its installed across new fleets in CN and
| elsewhere.
| backscratches wrote:
| Yeah and we should replace the wheels with legs. _every
| other_ company disagrees with musk, putting alternate sensors
| on even low end cars.
| plomme wrote:
| Both the vision and cognition hardware in humans are vastly
| superior, and don't get me started on the software.
|
| I never understood why they would choose to fight with "one
| hand behind your back". More sensors = more better
| SPICLK2 wrote:
| Technology can't compete with how easy it is to make more
| human-based navigation devices ;-)
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| The safety record of humans is not so great. They tend to
| fail in snow, ice, fog, rain and at night. We should be
| aiming a little higher.
|
| I don't think it makes sense to limit yourself while you are
| still figuring out what really works. You should go with a
| maximum of sensors and once it works, you can see what can be
| left out.
| sejje wrote:
| Yeah, but even if the safety level was 10% better, let's
| say--nobody would accept that rate. It wouldn't get
| adopted, we wouldn't be happy to save those lives. People
| would be outraged.
|
| I think it's got something to do with an innate belief to
| self-determination. It's fine if I make a mistake to kill
| myself, and it's not fine if someone else does. It's super
| not fine if someone dies at the hands of a rich person's
| technology. Outrage, lawsuits, "justice."
| WA wrote:
| Eyes have higher dynamic range and eyes don't freeze below
| 0degC. You can also put on sunglasses for even more weather-
| related adjustments.
| brk wrote:
| While I am in the camp that believes camera-only FSD won't
| succeed, your comment isn't entirely accurate.
|
| CCD and CMOS sensors can easily work in sub-freezing
| temperatures with various kinds of heating. There are 10's
| of millions of surveillance cameras installed outdoors in
| sub-freezing climates that work fine.
|
| Cameras also have moveable IR cut filters, which is
| analogous to your sunglasses example.
|
| Human eyes do have greater dynamic range in the visible
| light spectrum, but solid state sensors can commonly
| interpret light above 1000nm, and of course you can do
| thermal/IR imagers to provide optical sensing of
| wavelengths outside of what a human can see.
|
| Sensor technology relative to the human eye isn't what is
| holding FSD back.
| sonofhans wrote:
| This is commonly said but trivially falsifiable -- a blind
| human crosses the street better than a Tesla.
|
| Eyesight isn't the thing. Humans have a persistent mental
| model of the world, and of the physics that drive it. Our
| eyes only check in every now and then to keep our model up to
| date.
|
| Our ears and sense of touch do a lot of work in walking and
| driving, too. Trying to narrow it all down to vision is
| silly.
| sejje wrote:
| Deaf people drive.
|
| I knew a guy with no arms who drove with his prosthetic
| hooks. Of course he can feel vibrations and things through
| his ass, but so could the car if they wanted. Do they use
| accelerometer data? (I don't know the answer to that) Do
| they have ABS sensors that can detect wheel lockup/speed
| status? Because I don't.
|
| I believe I can drive a car to the legal standard,
| remotely, with a good enough camera array.
| sonofhans wrote:
| You might be able to but again, that has little to do
| with vision and much to do with your persistent and
| correct mental model of the world.
| hobofan wrote:
| ~1.2 million global deaths per year due to motor vehicle
| accidents say otherwise.
| sejje wrote:
| Actually, that's the standard we're all talking about.
| Nearly everyone is totally fine with human-caused traffic
| deaths. Nobody wants to ban human drivers at that rate of
| death.
|
| But if FSD had the same rate, people would be losing it.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Because we can't install lidars on our heads
| lateforwork wrote:
| Humans have cameras (eyes) + AGI. Cars have to compensate
| with LiDARs and other sensors that humans don't.
| p_j_w wrote:
| We don't drive with just our eyes, we also drive with our
| brains.
| ako wrote:
| Even though tesla has only 2 models, i would still consider it
| for a new car, if not for Elon Musk. I have an Y, and it does
| everything i want it to do. Drives nicely, lots of (cargo)
| space, no friction charging when driving in Europe. Just plug
| it in a supercharger and it loads fast. No hassle with
| subscriptions and cards. Very reliable.
|
| With the 3 and the Y they're already catering for a large part
| of the market demand, but a smaller model, and a stationwagon
| might help get it up to 80%+ of all demand.
| backscratches wrote:
| Up until recently teslas were regularly ranked around the
| world as the least reliable car brand.
| https://www.topspeed.com/germany-declares-tesla-model-y-
| is-l... and https://electrek.co/2025/12/11/tesla-ranks-dead-
| last-used-ca...
| ralfd wrote:
| That is bad. One issue seems to be that brakes of electric
| cars can get issues over time as they are not used enough
| (because instead of true braking the regenerative
| recuperation is used).
|
| Good though: If you are in an accident Teslas are the
| safest car one can buy
|
| https://www.ancap.com.au/media-and-gallery/media-
| releases/22...
|
| > The Tesla Model Y achieved the highest overall weighted
| score of any vehicle assessed by ANCAP in 2025, recording
| strong performance across all areas of occupant protection
| and active safety technology.
| arpinum wrote:
| TUV inspection failures are not a good indication of
| reliability. The lack of Tesla dealers and no need for
| yearly servicing means issues get caught at the inspection
| step for Tesla where for others they are caught at the pre-
| inspection step.
|
| Also, you need a breakdown of the failures as wear and
| consumables (washer fluid low, splits in wipers, headlight
| alignment, mobile phone holder in wrong location) can be a
| failure but would not be a good indicator for lack of
| quality.
| amarcheschi wrote:
| They still are, the Danish statistics report ~45% of tesla
| having issues compared to ~7% of the whole plethora of
| electric vehicles, that's a lot
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/nearly-half-of-tesla-
| mo...
|
| "Most of the issues involve critical components like
| brakes, lights, and suspension. Many cars fail because of
| play in the steering or faulty axles. These are problems
| rarely seen at the same level in competitors like
| Volkswagen or Hyundai."
| brightball wrote:
| That's my thought as well. The X isn't much bigger than the Y
| and the price point is much higher. Same with the S and 3.
|
| The markets the have been missing to this point are the big
| passenger / cargo carriers like a minivan or full size SUV.
| dizhn wrote:
| > BYD is eating Tesla for lunch
|
| For some reason my Youtube echo chamber is trying to convince
| me that BYD makes so many cars but cannot sell them. It's
| really bizarre. Other things it's trying to convince me of
| "Don't get an electric car. Period", "Ukraine won. Done deal",
| "Trump is devastated" about something else every day. Yes I do
| want the latter two to be true and it's playing on that but I
| don't get the BYD thing.
| yorwba wrote:
| BYD is selling a lot of cars, but they're also making a lot
| more cars than they can sell at sticker price in China, as
| does every other Chinese car company. This oversupply leads
| to all kinds of distortions, like dealerships registering
| cars as "sold" to make their sales targets and then selling
| those brand-new cars as "used" at a discount.
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/local-...
|
| Maybe your YouTube echo chamber additionally thinks that this
| will cause BYD to collapse, but I doubt that. There are about
| a hundred Chinese EV manufacturers in worse financial shape,
| who're likely to go bankrupt first, which should reduce
| oversupply enough for BYD to survive.
| dizhn wrote:
| Right. I can imagine seeing lots full of unsold cars might
| be interpreted as "there is no demand", especially if they
| are trying to push a particular narrative.
| maxglute wrote:
| There's not really NEV oversupply, the EV adoption curve
| will keep shooting up from 50% to 100%, many PRC EV
| companies will die from competition/pricewar consolidation
| not broader oversupply, since EV industrial base is still
| undersupply relative to 100% adoption curve.
|
| Oversupply is in legacy ICE displacement due to rapid
| domestic EV penetration. "Zero-milage used car" accounting
| trick is primarily to export excess capacity of gasoline
| cars (now that EV has taken over) that aren't moving
| domestically anymore. MOST of PRC exports are ICE, IIRC
| 60-80%, there's plenty of global demand for ICE still.
| Pushing domestic sku new car with crushed domestic demand
| as "used" exports where there's plenty of demand = meet
| sales target, but less through discounts but import fees
| engineering - used cars circumvent import duties,
| certifications, warranty requirements etc. It's a lifehack
| to unload domestic ICE inventory, not EV. This also likely
| transient effect because NEV transition in PRC happened so
| fast ICE manufacturer that target domestic market caught
| flat footed. They need a few years to either retool to EV
| or shift primarily to target export markets that still has
| appetite for affordable gasoline cars.
| yorwba wrote:
| The Reuters article focuses on exports because that's
| what their target audience is likely to be interested in,
| but the People's Daily article they reference in passing
| https://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/content/202506/10/con
| ten... is treating it as a domestic problem, highlighting
| the appearance of "zero-mileage used cars" on the second-
| hand market, specifically calls out EV companies for
| putting quantity over quality, and floats stimulating
| used car exports as part of the solution.
|
| Also, at least the EU doesn't distinguish between new and
| old cars when importing from outside the EU
| https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/buying-and-selling-
| car... presumably precisely to avoid creating the kind of
| loophole you imagine exporters are exploiting. But they
| aren't; they just hurt their own profitability to juice
| their numbers and chase growth.
| maxglute wrote:
| Domestic problem as in domestic involution problem not a
| EV overcapacity problem. I'm pointing out important to
| distinguish between ICE and EV, ICE is structural
| overcapacity, EV is under capacity but involution. ICE
| zero mile shenanigans is to liquidate/ unload excess
| inventory that doesn't have demand in PRC, mostly
| targeting loopholes in russia, central asia, mena.
| There's (less regulates) markets other than EU.
|
| BYD/EV zero mile hack is more for subsidy harvesting,
| they're trying to dip on domestic subsidies for new sales
| then skip on stuff like servicing/warranty because used
| sale, i.e. shady involution behavior that abuse national
| policies, hence crackdown. It's not because EV are excess
| capacity, but so many EV players involuting and
| accountants find creative ways to carve margin. It's not
| EV sector makes 100 cars can only sell 50, because
| overcapacity, so discount to sell 100. It's EV sector
| makes 100 cars, sell 100 @1% margin but with some
| engineering they sell 100 @2% margin.
|
| Yes, there are some brands that does use it for price
| cuts, premium brands, i.e. nio/xpeng, who won't lower
| sticker price, so they have to flip to lower price in
| used market. But that's also less overcapacity, more PRC
| EV moving so fast last few years no one wants 12 month
| old models. AKA tech stack progressing so fast /
| involution pressures so hard consumers won't pay sticker
| for anything older than 1 gen. What happens PRC
| manufacturing turns car cycles into phones obsolescence
| cycles. The broader the point here is EV makers are
| generally not doing accounting tricks to sell more cars
| due overcapacity / lack of demand (what over capacity
| implies), they're doing accounting tricks to sell the
| same amount of cars to make their razer thin involution
| margins slightly less razer thin, at the expense of the
| government.
| maelito wrote:
| Also in Europe, an old state company called Renault is beating
| Tesla with the R5.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| I just saw an R5 on the street in the bright green. Super
| cool looking car. There are a whole bunch of promising small
| EVs coming out in the EU. Hyundai Inster, VW ID.1, Kia EV2,
| etc.
| philjohn wrote:
| Took one for a test drive - it was fun. The only downside
| is compared to some other compact/city EV's the legroom in
| the back is REALLY bad (and I'm not exactly tall).
|
| The legroom in my son's VW e-Up! is markedly better,
| despite it being a smaller car.
| brightball wrote:
| Wasn't Renault an F1 competitor for many years?
| rkomorn wrote:
| It was but I'm not sure how that's relevant.
|
| Also not sure what the point of the "old state" part of the
| parent comment was. Renault is just another big carmaker.
| kgwgk wrote:
| It has been listed in the stock market since 1996, the
| French state owns 15% now (and so does Nissan).
| rkomorn wrote:
| And the point is?
| kgwgk wrote:
| That, like you, I have no idea what was the point of
| referring to Renault as an "old state company".
| epolanski wrote:
| It still is, albeit they use the Alpine branding.
| conradfr wrote:
| And not developing their own motor since this year :(
| LunaSea wrote:
| 3rd place for most F1 wins as a car motor builder.
| conradfr wrote:
| And it's not even cheap (actually its success kind of baffles
| me but great I guess).
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > the only thing keeping Tesla where it is is the bullshit
| dispersal field that surrounds Musk.
|
| I'm not 100% what you mean by "dispersal field", but outside of
| America, Elon's image in recent years has done more harm to
| Tesla than good.
| Slartie wrote:
| I think he meant "keeping TSLA where it is".
|
| Tesla's sales have suffered, yes, and Elon's image is a
| significant contributor to that, besides all the reasons
| directly related to the cars themselves.
|
| But Tesla's stock price is still stuck in irrational heights,
| not even remotely justifiable by the company's performance.
|
| It just seems that people reconsider purchasing a physical
| object way quicker than they reconsider a stock investment.
| Maybe because the stock investment, especially in TSLA, is
| considered more like a gamble - "as long as others also think
| that this stock will skyrocket, even just because they think
| that others like me think it will skyrocket - as long as
| that's the case, I'm good with buying shares".
| a2tech wrote:
| Tesla is a meme stock. Its being buoyed up by retail
| investors (Elon Musk fanbois) and, its been said, by Saudis
| and others who were trying to curry favor with him (possibly
| to try and get Trumps ear or other greasy bullshit). The
| stock is completely divorced from reality, which also
| attracts further investment--as long as its disconnected from
| the fundamentals of being a company that has to make a
| profit, you can argue its worth 100 million billion dollars
| or a googel, both are just as valid.
| bluescrn wrote:
| Yet he's still doing less damage than others chasing the AI
| bubble, as competition is growing in the EV market.
|
| Meanwhile, RIP Windows, Google Search, and maybe the entire
| games industry, maybe even then end of affordable home
| computing and being forced to rent computing power from 'the
| cloud'.
| jfyi wrote:
| Google search? They already have an AI assistant at the top
| of every search result.
|
| Google is winning the AI race. They did with self driving and
| they are doing it with LLMs. They are sitting back quietly
| not making noise and then massively rocking the status quo
| regularly.
|
| I suspect they are going to do similar in the field of
| quantum computing.
| mathw wrote:
| Less damage... with his CSAM-making bot. Yeah. Less damage.
| jjav wrote:
| > He doesn't have FSD, camera only navigation without sensor
| fusion with LIDAR will fail, the only thing keeping Tesla where
| it is is the bullshit dispersal field that surrounds Musk.
|
| So if I hear what you're saying, the stock will be up another
| 50% this year!
| brightball wrote:
| I assume the S and X are being cancelled because 3 and Y are
| cannibalizing them with a very close product for a much better
| price point. Both have premium trim options. There's very
| little difference in interior space. Aside from the doors on
| the X there's just not much differentiation.
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| I own the Y and drove the S as a loaner. The S is a
| noticeably better car. Also has 1000hp.
| brightball wrote:
| I've got a 2025 Model 3 and was blown away by what a great
| vehicle it is for the price point. I'd be curious how much
| of a difference there is between and S and a Model 3
| Performance.
| torginus wrote:
| I have an opinion on EVs that basically the only models that
| make sense are the ones shaped like the 3 and Y.
|
| I feel like EVs are a checkbox product - you either make things
| 'good enough' for the customer - range, driving dynamics,
| power, charge speed, smart features, autonomous stuff or don't.
|
| To get range right you need a big battery and low drag and
| efficiency - the only way you can make the first 2 things in
| the same vehicle is to create an aerodynamic shape.
|
| This is a packaging problem, you need to make the car low, and
| long - so you stretch it out, so the battery can be thinner and
| no longer pushes up the rest of the vehicle. You also have a
| lot of place in the front for crash structures, and aero
| shaping. Finally since your car is big (D segment), you can
| charge more money as per conventions of the market.
|
| If you make a C or B segment car, you either reduce the battery
| size to save money, which makes it impractical for general use
| or pack in all that stuff into a smaller volume, and you get a
| car thats more expensive to make than a Model 3, while having
| worse drag and range, while the market expects you to charge
| less for it.
|
| These small cars only make sense with a small battery, but you
| wouldn't want one for yourself as a second car - hence the
| robotaxi.
|
| So no, your hypothetical Model 2 would not be cheaper if you
| didn't compromise it in some major way, which they dont wanna
| do.
|
| Upwards differentiation is also hard for Tesla - base models
| are already powerful enough, have all the smart features, they
| wont compromise on autonomous stuff etc.
|
| This is not only my opinion but the market's - S and X sold
| like 2 orders of magnitude less cars than the 3 and Y.
| ben_w wrote:
| I think the S and X (and Roadster) sold less because they
| were expensive early models trying to create a "premium"
| halo-effect (if so, they succeeded).
|
| For range, how much range is sufficient? This may be one area
| where the EU and US need fundamentally different vehicles, as
| per the saying "in America 100 years is a long time, in
| Europe 100 miles is a long way". Certainly the EU market
| supports B-segment with 44kWh @ 320 km / 199 miles:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroen_C3#Europe_(2024)
| SecretDreams wrote:
| > This is not only my opinion but the market's - S and X sold
| like 2 orders of magnitude less cars than the 3 and Y.
|
| They sold less because they're far more expensive and have to
| compete against much more well put together products.
| Meanwhile, their platforms are 10 years old and there are now
| other offerings in an overall niche field.
|
| You're right about aero to an extent, but aero is only felt
| on long highway drives and it can be mitigated somewhat with
| a couple more cells. Some consumers will choose style for a
| cost premium. Others will choose something more expensive
| simply because they don't want to support Musk.
| torginus wrote:
| I think range only really matters in the context of highway
| drives, I kinda dislike these composite estimates like WLTP
| (as you can never be sure of what exactly they measure)
| vcanales wrote:
| On top of that, the factory is getting converted to make
| robots...
| epolanski wrote:
| "How I feel about Tesla? I wouldn't buy it and I wouldn't short
| it". Charles Munger.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| He's been dead for more than a year. Is this his 2018 take?
| ForHackernews wrote:
| SpaceX is going to go public so he doesn't need Tesla any more.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > camera only navigation without sensor fusion with LIDAR will
| fail
|
| I'm not so sure on this one. I think we'll see it this year. It
| will have embarrassing bugs (ie. running over cats which are
| hiding under the car) and we'll see lots of issues to begin
| with (ie. the car stops in the middle of a freeway because a
| camera got splattered with mud).
|
| But I think they'll achieve the goal of something that can be
| deployed fairly widespread without public outrage causing it to
| be banned without lidar.
| brk wrote:
| It's been "coming this year" for almost a decade now. The
| bugs you describe are not embarrassing, they are critical
| issues that prevent it from being called FSD.
| londons_explore wrote:
| This is the first year that I personally think that it will
| come this year...
|
| Actions speak louder than words, and the fact that a
| 'cybercab' production line is firing up this year is also a
| strong indicator - the fact they didn't do that 5 years ago
| means tesla leadership didn't think it was going to work
| back then. 'cybercab' wouldn't sell well as a 2 seater if
| it couldn't self drive. (although the actual mass
| production will be delayed till next year is my guess, but
| we'll see model 3 or y being used for a taxi service in the
| meantime)
| brk wrote:
| It will be interesting to see. At this point, I think
| much of what is coming out of Tesla in both words and
| actions is stock price theater. They "fired up" a
| Cybertruck production line and we all see how that went.
| vimda wrote:
| How are those "bugs" not immediately disqualifying? "Move
| fast and break things" is not an acceptable strategy for
| controlling 2 tonne bricks hurtling down the freeway
| ACCount37 wrote:
| This LIDAR wank annoys me.
|
| If you can train a policy that drives well on cameras, you can
| get self-driving. If you can't, you're fucked, and no amount of
| extra sensors will save you.
|
| Self-driving isn't a sensor problem. It always was, is, and
| always will be an AI problem.
|
| No amount of LIDAR engineering will ever get you a LIDAR that
| outputs ground truth steering commands. The best you'll ever
| get is noisy depth estimate speckles that you'll have to
| massage with, guess what, AI, to get them to do anything of
| use.
|
| Sensor suite choice is an aside. Camera only 360 coverage? Good
| enough to move on. The rest of the problem lies with AI.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Even the best AI can't drive without good sensors. Cameras
| have to guess distance and they fail when there is
| insufficient contrast, direct sunlight and so on. LiDARs
| don't have to guess distance.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Cameras also fail when weather conditions cake your car in
| snow and/or mud while you're driving. Actually, from what I
| just looked up, this is an issue with LiDAR as well. So it
| seems to me like we don't even have the sensors we need to
| do this properly yet, unless we can somehow make them all
| self-cleaning.
|
| It always goes back to my long standing belief that we need
| dedicated lanes with roadside RFID tags to really make this
| self driving thing work well enough.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Nah. That's a common "thought about it for 15 seconds but
| not 15 minutes" mistake.
|
| Making a car that drives well on arbitrary roads is
| freakishly hard. Having to adapt every single road in the
| world before even a single self-driving car can use them?
| That's a task that makes the previous one look easy.
|
| Learned sensor fusion policy that can compensate for
| partial sensor degradation, detect severe dropout, and
| handle both safely? Very hard. Getting the world that
| can't fix the low tech potholes on every other road to
| set up and maintain machine specific infrastructure
| everywhere? A nonstarter.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| Well, we already provide dedicated lanes for multi-
| passenger vehicles in many places, nearly all semi-major
| airports have dedicated lots and lanes for rideshare
| drivers, many parts of downtown/urban areas have the same
| things... and it didn't exactly take super long to roll
| all that out.
|
| Also, 99% of roads in civilized areas have _something_
| alongside them already that you can attach RFID tags to.
| Quite a bit easier than setting up an EV charging station
| (another significant infrastructure thing which has
| rolled out pretty quickly). And let 's not forget, every
| major metro area in the world has multi-lane
| superhighways which didn't even exist at all 50-70 years
| ago.
|
| Believe me, I've thought about this for a lot more than
| 15 minutes. Yes, we should improve sensor reliability,
| absolutely. But it wouldn't hurt to have some kind of
| backup roadside positioning help, and I don't see how it
| would be prohibitively expensive. Maybe I am missing
| something, but I'm gonna need more than your dismissive
| comment to be convinced of that.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| You are missing the sheer soul-crushing magnitude of _the
| infrastructure problem_. You are missing the little
| inconvenient truth that live in a world full of roads
| that don 't even consistently have asphalt on them. That
| real life Teslas ship with AI that does vibe-based road
| lane estimation because real life roads occasionally fail
| to have any road markings a car AI could see.
|
| Everything about road infrastructure is "cheap to deploy,
| cheap to maintain". This is your design space: the bare
| minimum of a "road" that still does its job reasonably
| well. Gas stations and motels are an aside - they earn
| money. Not even the road signs pay for themselves.
|
| Now, you propose we design some type of, let's say, a
| machine only mark that helps self-driving cars work well.
| They do nothing for human drivers, who are still a road
| majority. And then you somehow manage to make every
| country and every single self-driving car vendor to get
| to agree on the spec, both on paper and in truth.
|
| Alright, let's say we've done that. Why would anyone,
| then, put those on the road? They're not the bare
| minimum. And if we wanted to go beyond the bare minimum,
| we'd plug the potholes, paint the markings and fix the
| road signs first.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| You definitely have a point. It would not be rolled out
| all at once, everywhere. It would happen sporadically,
| starting with areas that have a higher tax revenue base.
| There may never be an international standard. There will
| be tons of places it will never work at all.
|
| All the same, it still reminds me of past infrastructure
| changes which ended up being widely distributed, with or
| without standards, from railroads to fiber optic cables.
|
| And this:
|
| > if we wanted to go beyond the bare minimum, we'd plug
| the potholes, paint the markings and fix the road signs
| first
|
| ...just strikes me as a major logical fallacy. It's like
| the people who say we shouldn't continue exploring our
| solar system because we have too many problems on Earth.
| We will _always_ have problems here, from people starving
| because of oppressive and unaccountable hierarchies they
| 're stuck under to potholes and road markings the local
| government is too broke or incompetent to fix. We should
| work on those, yeah, but we should _also_ be furthering
| the research and development of technology from every
| angle we realistically can. It feels weird to be
| explaining this here.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| And as long as those places dominate, it makes more sense
| for AI car makers to say "let's put $5m more into raw dog
| vision only FSD AI" than it does to say "let's add a $25
| long range RFID reader to every car". No one will bet
| their future on "the infrastructure for it will maybe one
| day exist".
|
| Just look at how Waymo is struggling to grow and scale.
| And they don't even need every road remade. They just
| need every road mapped and scanned out into 3D objects
| with their reference cars. They're solving a problem
| orders of magnitude easier, and it still throttles their
| growth.
| lateforwork wrote:
| > _Just look at how Waymo is struggling to grow and
| scale._
|
| Are they? They seem to be growing fine.
|
| Regardless, they are approaching it the right way. They
| start with a safe solution, even though it is expensive,
| then bring the cost down over the years as technology
| improves. The wrong way to do it is to start with a less
| expensive but unsafe tech then add a safety driver in
| every car. That approach is wrong both because the "tech"
| of the safety driver will never improve, and you'll kill
| a few people along the way, like Tesla.
| top_sigrid wrote:
| > If you can train a policy that drives well on cameras, you
| can get self-driving. If you can't, you're fucked, and no
| amount of extra sensors will save you.
|
| Source: trust me, bro? This statement has no factual basis.
| Calling the most common approach of all other self-driving
| developers except Tesla a wank also is no argument but hate
| only.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| You are correct, but the problem is nobody at Tesla or any
| other self driving company for that matter knows what they
| are doing when it comes to AI
|
| If you are doing end to end driving policy (i.e the wrong way
| of doing it), having lidar is important as a correction
| factor to the cameras.
| ACCount37 wrote:
| So far, end to end seems to be the only way to train
| complex AI systems that actually works.
|
| Every time you pit the sheer violent force of end to end
| backpropagation against compartmentalization and lines
| drawn by humans, at a sufficient scale, backpropagation
| gets its win.
| mrexcess wrote:
| >Self-driving isn't a sensor problem. It always was, is, and
| always will be an AI problem.
|
| AI + cameras have relevant limitations that LIDAR augmented
| suites don't. You can paint a photorealistic roadway onto a
| brick wall and AI + cameras will try to drive right through
| it, dubbed the "Wile E. Coyote" problem.
| sejje wrote:
| Will humans?
| jasondigitized wrote:
| Just don't drive up north in the snow and your good.
| sbaildon wrote:
| The linked article is clear as to why the S and X don't need to
| be in Tesla's product line
|
| > Tesla's far more popular models are the 3 and Y, which
| accounted for 97% of the company's 1.59 million deliveries last
| year
| bearjaws wrote:
| Why are they still making the cybertruck then?
|
| I see way more Model S and X than Cybertruck.
| dmix wrote:
| Regardless, it's probably better to have one flashy car
| that doesn't sell big numbers than 3. They might treat it
| as their high end test car or something or plan to figure
| out a new top tier model.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| Probably because it's a segment they think they can grow
| and is a new vehicle type, rather than redundant.
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| Probably the same reason Ford makes one, too.
| quest88 wrote:
| Ford recently stopped it.
| https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-
| discontinu...
| korp wrote:
| Sounds like you get your news from Reddit.
| ouchhhlib wrote:
| 775 bn
|
| wbu
|
| https://www.forbes.com/profile/elon-musk/
| Nevermark wrote:
| Elon should be sending robots to the Moon, Mars and the Asteroid
| Belt. That would make much more sense.
|
| Setup automated low gravity refueling depots. Then automated
| mining of the solar system will scale up as it more than pays for
| itself. And as with Starlink, SpaceX synergy would give him a
| serious advantage.
|
| Much faster to achieve (despite the challenges), less expensive,
| and more profitable than a human Mars colony which would burn
| money without return for decades.
|
| (Regardless of wishful thinking, civilizations coming backup is a
| second substrate adapted to the rest of the solar system, not a
| colony suffering truly miserable conditions. Although I am all
| for human exploration, which would also be easier and cheaper on
| the back of expanding automated infrastructure.)
| bob1029 wrote:
| I think Tesla would make way more sense if they got out of the
| car part of the business. Serving the consumer market directly is
| very expensive.
|
| Their electronics, batteries, motors, etc., are world class.
| Packaging this up into something a partner can use to build
| actual cars could have less risk. An electric motor or battery
| can propel many kinds of automobile. They tend to keep their
| value better when stored in this format too. The moment
| everything is integrated into a car, things get very bad very
| quickly unless you're selling Ferraris or Lamborghinis.
| notahacker wrote:
| That would be lower margin and narrower moat even if they had
| the partners lined up and didn't have a valuation based on the
| assumption one day the car everyone would use would be a Tesla.
| flakeoil wrote:
| > Their electronics, batteries, motors, etc., are world class.
|
| This was maybe true 5-10 years ago, but not today.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| You can compare the market cap of say GM (automaker) to Bosch
| (massive automaker supply chain and logistics company) to get a
| sense of why that sort of pivot would probably not be
| appreciated by the market. Supply chain companies are usually
| considered "lesser" companies.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| They don't make their own battery cells they are an integrator
| of third party cells.
| apparent wrote:
| Interesting that they're cutting S/X but keeping the Cybertruck.
| Whatever metric they're using (revenue, profit, units, etc.) that
| led them to cut the S/X would surely have similar numbers for the
| Cybertruck, if not worse.
| protastus wrote:
| The metric for the Cybertruck is the impact to Elon's ego.
| Nothing about this project is rational.
| apparent wrote:
| The only rational reason I could come up with is that the
| pool of potential Cybertruck buyers is not as saturated as
| for S/X, which have been around for quite a while.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Painted metallic chassis of a car is always dipped in car sized
| acid baths and primer baths. Dipping the whole cars held on a
| carriage is the only way it's done, anywhere, for any brands,
| using any metals, even many Ferrari, as well as with many
| classic car restoration projects. Your cars will be competing
| with brand new 1960s Fords and Mazdas if you were not doing it
| in terms of corrosion resistance - unless, I'm guessing, you're
| making DeLoreans and Cybertrucks.
| snek_case wrote:
| Part of it is they wanted that factory space at Fremont for the
| Optimus production line. That's because the Optimus team is
| located there, in Silicon Valley.
| apparent wrote:
| Wondered about that also. Seems like a really big decision to
| cut off the S and X though! Will they have something else to
| offer customers who want something more than a Y?
| mdavid626 wrote:
| So many Tesla/Musk haters around here.
| flakeoil wrote:
| People are just being rational and pragmatic.
| sidcool wrote:
| How so?
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| They have self-respect.
| flakeoil wrote:
| They say Tesla cars are not better than any other EV
| nowadays. They say the Tesla stock is overvalued. They say
| the Tesla robot will likely not be a super hit in terms of
| sales.
|
| I don't see it as hate. It's quite pragmatic views.
| sidcool wrote:
| Tesla Model Y is not the best selling car in the world?
| flakeoil wrote:
| Maybe it is the best selling car (not sure), but that
| does not mean it is the best car.
| groundzeros2015 wrote:
| People are losing money and a product they liked because they
| imagine disliking it hurts an individual they don't like.
|
| This is a lose/lose enemy centered mindset, and a weird
| personification of a corporation.
| mdavid626 wrote:
| It's always funny to me that hating is fine if the person
| justifies it by some reason, but it's generally not accepted,
| when that person doesn't care about the reason.
|
| "Stop the hate", but of course only if it's not me hating.
| Because that hate is valid and justified.
| anon_anon12 wrote:
| I can imagine Musk selling these very models with AI slapped onto
| them and call it revolutionary
| nusl wrote:
| FSD will launch next year, of course. Just like every year.
| dabinat wrote:
| Before Tesla came along there were a small number of EVs but they
| were all pretty bad because their only purpose was to serve as
| "compliance cars" in states like California so automakers could
| sell more gas cars. (See the documentary _Who Killed the Electric
| Car?_ for more on this.)
|
| So Tesla deserves credit for building the first electric cars
| that people actually wanted to buy. They also deserve credit for
| building the largest and most reliable charging network - a key
| factor in making electric car ownership more feasible.
|
| But they've made a lot of poor decisions recently and all the
| money and power went to Elon's head. I think it was beneficial to
| the world for Tesla to exist and do that important work early on,
| and now it's beneficial to the world for the company to die.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| The sequel _Revenge of the Electric Car_ is a very interesting
| follow up, especially now with hindsight. It followed the
| stories of the Tesla Roadster, Nissan Leaf, and Chevy Volt all
| in about the exact same time period and stages of development.
|
| Of those, the Leaf is the only model that has continuously
| existed since then, and from the documentary there is a sense
| of that. GM admits the Volt was a stepping stone and not the
| final product. Tesla's part of the documentary involves a lot
| of trials and tribulations and even Tesla seeming unsure about
| their manufacturing problems. (Though the documentary itself
| spins a hopeful tune.)
|
| Of the figures in the documentary the most prescient seems to
| be Carlos Ghosn, then in charge of Renault-Nissan. He very much
| insisted that EVs weren't just the future, they were the
| scramble for the present. Renault took that message to heart
| and seemed to be the side that won it in the messy divorce that
| also eventually wound up with Ghosn getting charged for treason
| and embezzlement in Japan. Which is an incredible and weird
| story on multiple levels and maybe the documentary makers will
| get a chance to include that in a third movie for the series.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I can get them ending products. That is natural cycle. But what
| should be worrying is that they have not already introduced at
| least one model that replace either one. It looks like real
| stagnation which in long term will kill the company.
| antonyh wrote:
| Any other car company would create an S / X MkII.
| cesarvarela wrote:
| Yup, and most are dying and getting bought by Chinese capital.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the
| first-mover advantage.
|
| For many people, the very term EV itself is still ubiquitous to
| Tesla.
|
| And somehow Tesla is still worth more than every other non-
| Chinese automaker combined. $1.5T.
|
| GM? $80B. Stellantis? $40B. Toyota? $280B. Mercedes-Benz? $60B.
| BMW? $55B. Volkswagen Group? Also $55B.
|
| I'm sure I've missed plenty of others, but I could miss some 18
| $50B automakers, and Tesla would still be worth more than all of
| them combined.
|
| If Tesla was valued fairly, it would probably be at the tune of
| $5B. But I'll never bet against it, because the markets can
| remain irrational for longer than I can remain solvent. And for
| some unbeknownst to me reason, the markets value Tesla as a hot
| tech company, not a 3rd rate automaker, which is what it actually
| is.
|
| And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely
| renowned as better and safer than Tesla's current "FSD".
| Traster wrote:
| I think you're totally wrong on this. Tesla didn't waste the
| first mover advantage. They benefitted from it whilst it
| existed, but Electric vehicles turned into a commodity, which
| was entirely expected and there's no moat.
|
| You've explained yourself why it would be untenable for Musk to
| pursue becoming the biggest car manufacturer in the world - if
| he succeeded in that goal... he would have succeded in
| shrinking the value of the company significantly.
|
| It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would
| justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't
| that.
| epolanski wrote:
| Bingo.
| breve wrote:
| Why is making humanoid robots a moat? Other companies have
| been making robots for longer, humanoid and otherwise, and
| doing it better.
|
| Has Optimus signed up for any sports yet:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/02/china/china-humanoid-
| robo...
|
| Is Optimus close to what Boston Dynamics is doing with Atlas:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIhzUnvi7Fw
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Why is making humanoid robots a moat?
|
| It really isn't. (1)
|
| Also, what's the first billion dollar market for humanoid
| robots? Industry? "lights-out manufacturing" exists
| already, and doesn't require humanoid robots.
|
| Hyundai and BYD (among others) say they're going to put
| humanoid robots in their factories (2). They won't be Tesla
| robots. Is this really such a huge use?
|
| 1)https://www.topgear.com/car-news/tech/here-are-nine-
| humanoid...
|
| 2) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjm5x54ldo
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I want my laundry robot!
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Is that a billion dollar market, is it within reach, and
| does it require a humanoid? And if so, will any 1 company
| have a lock on it?
| omilu wrote:
| Yes I would easily pay 20k for a robot to fold and put
| away laundry.
| dstroot wrote:
| Anyone who owns a tesla vehicle with "full self driving" is
| probably chuckling to themselves about Tesla ever making
| useful general purpose robots any time soon. Disclaimer, I
| own two tesla's with FSD and it's far from "full" or
| "self". I am very sceptical of robotaxis unless they have
| the appropriate sensors & SW (e.g. Waymo) which Elon has
| not done.
|
| Finally, I know lots of people who own cars, but none who
| own robots. Many friends will not have Alexa in their homes
| due to privacy concerns. How many people will trust Elon to
| have a robot in their homes and assume he's being benign
| and safe with your personal data?
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would
| justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company
| isn't that.
|
| But it's make-believe. Tesla is a car manufacturer. They
| haven't shipped anything else other than cars. And they even
| suck at making cars these days. Tesla Semi? All but dead. The
| new roadster? Also dead. Full Self Driving? Doesn't exist.
| Robotaxis? Even if they got them to work, at this point the
| brand is too toxic for widespread adoption of those.
|
| They could have persisted at being a disruptive car
| manufacturer and still held a several hundred billion dollar
| valuation. Now they are a very mediocre car manufacturer,
| with their only actual success being conning everyone into
| believing that they are a bleeding-edge tech company so their
| $1.5Bn valuation seems justified.
| dannyfritz07 wrote:
| A quick search verified they also manufactured batteries,
| solar modules, and solar shingles.
| gamerdonkey wrote:
| Ford Motor Company manufactured charcoal, but in the end
| it stayed a car company.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsford_(charcoal)#Histor
| y
| testing22321 wrote:
| I know it's popular to hate on Elon and therefore Tesla,
| but you need to be accurate when doing so. They're still
| chipping away.
|
| > _Tesla Semi?All but dead._
|
| They've been running a pilot all this time, and the factory
| in Nevada to mass produce them is on schedule. Production
| ramp is second half of this year. The factory is ginormous.
|
| > _The new roadster? Also dead._
|
| Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April "hopefully"
|
| > _Full Self Driving? Doesn 't exist. Robotaxis?_
|
| Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with nobody
| in either front seat.
|
| It takes automakers almost a decade to bring a new vehicle
| online, Elon just does it all publicly while everyone else
| doesn't take the wraps off until the final 6 months.
|
| Obviously everything is way behind elons hype timelines,
| but I do still think it's all coming.
| kjs3 wrote:
| _They've been running a pilot all this time_
|
| So did Nikola.
|
| _Elon said yesterday the unveil is in April "hopefully"_
|
| Who could possibly argue with that.
|
| _Obviously everything is way behind elons hype
| timelines, but I do still think it's all coming._
|
| At least you've identified it for what it is.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with
| nobody in either front seat._
|
| Unless the reporting was wrong, they've moved the
| supervisor to a chase car. The hobo-taxi still isn't
| operating on its own.
| SR2Z wrote:
| > Cars are driving passengers around Austin now with
| nobody in either front seat.
|
| This is a good example of Tesla being sketchy:
| https://electrek.co/2026/01/28/teslas-unsupervised-
| robotaxis...
|
| Musk made the announcement before earnings, put a few
| cars on the road, and now has pulled them all back
| because the earnings report is out.
|
| This is a little more than doing it publicly - remember,
| Musk has been saying FSD will be functional every year
| for more than a decade.
| usaphp wrote:
| > And they even suck at making cars these days
|
| Aren't model Y and model 3 considered the best cars in
| their class by most motor journalists?
| Arainach wrote:
| No, not by a long shot, unless you define "class" so
| tightly as to only include those vehicles and no
| competitors.
| apublicfrog wrote:
| What would you define as better? I rent various EVs
| regularly, and I'm still yet to find something that beats
| it on performance, range and price. That's all before
| comfort and features, which again most seem to lack.
| There are a couple pretty close to Tesla, but nothing
| that clearly beats it that I've driven.
| verzali wrote:
| Have you ever tried a BYD?
| Arainach wrote:
| In the US market, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 has better build
| quality, identical range in real world conditions, a ton
| of comfort, and no threat that their CEO will go off his
| meds and take away your driving assist features unless
| you pay a ~~ransom~~ subscription fee.
|
| Internationally, BYD destroys it.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| [delayed]
| JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
| > > It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would
| justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company
| isn't that.
|
| You can pursue everything with words, even you can pursue
| Sydney Sweeney but then you have to show the receipts.
|
| The receipts of Tesla (Factories, lines of production,
| expertise of people hired, 25 years of history...) are one of
| car company.
|
| But of course, it's all narrative so people will keep
| outbidding each other to own a piece of this company.
|
| The financialization of hope, that's what it is.
| freakynit wrote:
| Everything tends toward commodification in a hyper-
| competitive, hyper-connected world. The only variable is
| time... and this "time" keeps shrinking.
|
| As commodification accelerates, consolidation follows. In the
| current landscape, where private capital and state power are
| deeply entangled under the banner of national security, this
| consolidation no longer stays economic. It becomes
| geopolitical.
|
| The end result... it translates to not just corporate
| monopolies, but geo-monopolies... enforced not by markets
| alone, but by coercion, conflict, and control over resources.
| sosomoxie wrote:
| Pure logic would dictate that Tesla has a market cap of
| around $5B. It's actually fraudulent that it's not, and for
| some reason the SEC allows Musk to lie on every earnings call
| without repercussion.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Welcome to 2026:
|
| Companies routinely, exaggerate, obfuscate and mystify
| investors. Most of investors don't care. The SEC is a joke.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Seems low on a company that is profitable and consistantly
| has around a $100B a year in revenue with only $13B in
| debt...
| dmbche wrote:
| more like 12b in 2022 and less every years since down 30%
| in 2025
| jordanb wrote:
| Tesla's original "secret plan" (published on their website)
| was to become a commodity car manufacturer faster than
| electric cars became a commodity. Such that the other
| manufacturers would find them selling obsolete vehicles and
| Tesla just _becomes_ the new General Motors.
|
| This was the justification for their stock price for quite a
| few years: "It's logical that Tesla is worth more than all
| other automakers combined because it will soon be the only
| automaker."
|
| Then in 2022 Elon basically admitted that they couldn't win
| on production and had to continue to win on technology and
| they'd do that with self driving.
| [https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-tesla-worth-
| basica...]
|
| But now Tesla is way behind on self driving (which was
| oversold by the whole industry tbh). So what's their new
| plan? Now they're no longer a car company and will make
| robots!
| misiti3780 wrote:
| way behind compared to whom ?
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| Your take makes sense.
|
| i.e. the GigaPress for frames but it just didnt scale like
| they hoped.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Brand value is definitely a moat. Not the deepest of moats,
| but it is a moat nonetheless.
|
| > It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would
| justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company
| isn't that.
|
| Tesla is valued as if it is a tech company with a car
| business as a side gig. Its balance sheet is a car business,
| and I'm not even sure it spends enough on tech to have tech
| qualify as a side gig. And the other tech avenues it has been
| pursuing (autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots) are areas
| that other people have been doing for better and longer.
| Hell, Honda had autonomous (not tele-operated) humanoid
| robots working 20 years ago.
|
| To be honest, at this point, I mostly consider the other bets
| that Tesla is pursing are just passion projects to keep the
| stock price artificially high. Were Tesla more realistically
| valued, it would lose probably 90% or more of its value, and
| Musk would be a much poorer man.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Tesla's moat is constantly moving to the next thing and
| claiming it has a moat before moving on to the next thing.
|
| Elon's business model is moving from one government
| subsidized thing to the next (see SpaceX now bribing for tax
| dollars to go to Mars).
| arbor_day wrote:
| It's not that EVs are a commodity. Competition and
| speculative production capacity buildouts combined with lower
| than expected consumer demand made the market less
| profitable.
| neogodless wrote:
| > Electric vehicles turned into a commodity
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity
|
| > a resource, that specifically has full or substantial
| fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good
| as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced
| them
|
| Uhh.. not sure where you live or what your local / regional
| market is like. I'm in the United States, where what car you
| drive is a really big decision. Many people share on social
| media what car they bought, and tell people around them about
| the new car they bought. I've yet to witness a situation
| where someone said "I bought an electric car" and the
| response was something like "Why are you telling me you
| bought toilet paper?" (Even toilet paper has brand names and
| advertising.)
|
| That isn't to say that the car market hasn't shifted over
| time.
|
| Cars began as "engine to move wheels plus a few other things"
| and evolved so that the engine seemed less of the central
| reason why you bought a specific vehicle. An electric
| powertrain does take things a bit further, in that most EV
| buyers know very little about the motors, though they
| certainly know a thing or two about the battery.
|
| Batteries are generally a commodity at smaller scales, but in
| a car, they matter significantly. Still, brand matters, too.
| Ask Lucid or Rivian or Porsche how they sell their electric
| cars for $70K - $160K. How is it that a commodity available
| to purchase for ~$30K can be sold for $130K additional?
| (That's not how commodities work.)
|
| No, electric cars are not a commodity. It's just a difficult
| market with a lot of players, and a broad market with
| constantly evolving tastes. Ask Toyota why they have half a
| dozen different SUV models. Or why the Ford F-150 comes in
| 200 configurations. (That's not how commodities work!)
|
| Just because the gasoline-burning engine was replaced with
| electric motors and batteries, the car didn't turn into a
| commodity overnight. I'm open to counterarguments and
| persuasion to the contrary.
| Fischgericht wrote:
| If you do not want to run a car company, maybe do not... run
| a car company? Get an ice cream truck.
|
| It absolutely makes no sense to convert a car manufacturer
| into an AI company. Or a robotics company after you have
| build CAR FACTORIES around the planet.
|
| If you as a CEO don't like the business you are running for
| your shareholders, it is time to get a new CEO that does.
| There still are managers that really like running car
| companies.
|
| I don't get the feeling that BYD management is bored about
| the EV business...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The competition was this:
|
| Tesla had a very good computer, they were learning how to put
| a car around it.
|
| Traditional manufacturers (German mostly) had good or very
| good cars, but they sucked at the computer stuff.
|
| ---
|
| And unknown to all, the Chinese learned how to make good cars
| with good computers built in as those two were trying to
| achiever their respective goals.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Tesla benefited from tax payer subsidies.
| ben_w wrote:
| An important question is therefore: why didn't anyone else?
| relaxing wrote:
| Of course they did.
| andruby wrote:
| That's true for a lot of (most?) car manufacturers?
|
| I fully agree that TSLA is madly overpriced as a car company,
| and too hyped as any other type of company.
| WarmWash wrote:
| Trust me, I hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer
|
| But just to keep the story straight
|
| Tesla received ~$3 billion in subsidies.
|
| When Elon exercised his Tesla options in 2021, he paid $11
| billion in taxes on it.
|
| By all accounts those subsidies were an incredibly good use
| of taxpayer money, and similar subsidies should keep being
| handed out, even if the byproduct is another big troll on
| twitter.
| jordanb wrote:
| Dunno where that $3 billion comes from; tesla made 11
| billion in regulatory credits alone:
| https://insideevs.com/news/767939/tesla-regulatory-
| credit-11...
| WarmWash wrote:
| Perhaps you are confused, the regulatory credits were
| sold by Tesla to other car makers so they could meet
| their emissions requirements. That $11 billion came from
| other automakers, not taxpayers.
| jordanb wrote:
| So you're saying Tesla made $3 billion directly from
| taxpayers and another $11 billion in cash transfers from
| their competitors required by the government?
| WarmWash wrote:
| I'm not saying that, it's strictly true.
|
| Tesla was given $3 billion in government subsidies.
|
| It made $11 billion selling regulatory credits created by
| government regulation.
|
| I'm not interested in getting bogged down in how actually
| government regulation is the same thing as subsidy even
| though the taxpayer doesn't foot the bill (but does
| collect the tax on the backend of it.) There is a good
| reason why subsidy and regulation are not the same
| interchangeable word. I suppose that without glasses of
| nuance/understanding they blur together and look the same
| (government action -> money for someone), but lets wear
| glasses here.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The original argument was that Tesla made a substantial
| amount of its revenue from subsidization, i.e.,
| government mandated payments extracting money from one
| set of people to fund another. Subsidies can entail
| direct taxation, followed by payment to a company.
| Alternatively, they revolve around regulatory schemes
| that mandate transfer payments from one group (in this
| case, ICE car manufacturers and their customers) to
| another (EV manufacturers.) Although the mechanism is
| slightly different, they're both subsidies. To be clear:
| I have no problem with these subsidies! Just think your
| pedantry is misfiring.
| everfrustrated wrote:
| If you even read the article you linked, you'd be aware
| the source of the money there is from other vehicle
| manufacturers to Tesla not from govt/tax payers.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Other vehicle manufactuers are taxpayers...
| DennisP wrote:
| So are Tesla's customers but that doesn't mean car sales
| are subsidies.
| terminalbraid wrote:
| > Trust me, I hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next
| naysayer
|
| But then you go to defend them as if it were something
| you're obligated to do. I think you demonstrably do not
| hate Tesla and Elon as much as the next naysayer.
| WarmWash wrote:
| No I hate disinformation that makes people on my side
| look uninformed and stupid.
|
| On a deeper level, I hate bandwagons because they are
| invariably full of idiotic parrots.
|
| Elon has done a enough demonstrably stupid and bad shit
| that we don't need to play deception to drum up
| resistance. _Especially_ when that deception plays on _"
| government subsides in the green sector have been a
| colossal waste of money"_.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| I call this the 12 fingered hitler, frequently seen on
| reddit.
|
| It goes like this:
|
| Person A makes up some unsupported fact about a despised
| figure. For example, "Hitler had 12 fingers".
|
| Person B comes in and says "I think Hitler just had 10
| fingers like normal"
|
| And then person A or some other person responds "holy
| shit dude, I can't believe you're defending Hitler!"
| WarmWash wrote:
| _Exactly_
|
| And then neo nazis go around telling susceptible people
| "Look, Hitler's detractors think he had 12 fingers, just
| look at any picture of him, he clearly only has 10.
| You're gonna trust people that stupid to be honest about
| him? To know anything about him?"
|
| Disinformation feels good in the moment, but is immensely
| damaging overall. Even the people who believed he had 12
| fingers will feel betrayed and question everything else
| when they one day learn he actually had 10.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| How should we calculate the enormous subsidy they received
| through high tariffs against their competitors?
| alex1138 wrote:
| That valuation is sure interesting considering the people
| killed in crashes from Tesla's self-driving thing
|
| Edit: I love making legitimate points and instantly accruing
| downvotes from 'Valley VC types. Look yourself in the mirror.
| jlongr wrote:
| Oh their self-driving thing...Full* "Self" Driving
| (supervised)(see notes)(not liable for anything)
| alex1138 wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't remember what it was called. FSD, I think
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely
| renowned as better and safer than Tesla's current "FSD".
|
| My Huyndai's Autopilot equivalent (I don't even know what they
| call it) is better than the enhanced Autopilot in the Model 3
| that I traded in. It _actually changes lanes_ when I put on the
| blinker, instead of only changing lanes 70% of the time, and
| the other time just sitting with the blinker on and a clear
| lane.
| not_ai wrote:
| I did not know this and explains why I see so many teslas
| with their blinkers on and not maneuvering despite having
| ample room and time. Ultimately this behavior makes them
| unsafe for their occupants as well as others around them.
|
| Cars only work because we can predict driver behavior, if
| they break that prediction that's when bad things are likely
| to happen...
|
| Lately I've started to ignore Tesla blinker.
| smotched wrote:
| Autopilot doesnt turn on the turn signal or change lanes,
| what you are dealing with is humans.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Enchanced autopilot and self-driving do.
| philistine wrote:
| Most probably because it has a radar that the Tesla lacks.
| That means your car has two sources of truth and can very
| efficiently and quickly make an informed decision about
| whether or not there's anything in the way.
| hbarka wrote:
| My Model 3 has radar. It's no longer functional and just a
| useless appendage. Until 2020-21 all Tesla had radar but
| Musk directed Tesla to disable the radar from the software
| stack, nerfing this hardware on tens of thousands of cars.
| Why? Because he staked on camera-only and to find out
| there's still radar fusion would be against that. The real
| truth is probably they were derisking the part cost (during
| Covid) and the development timeline to improve the radar
| integration (after dangerous false braking incidents). It
| was wonderful when it worked, especially the time-of-flight
| ability to sense a decelerating car ahead of the car ahead
| of the one in front of you. When it didn't work the Navy
| Seal guy driving and watching a video was the first
| statistic.
|
| The real Tesla engineers must be in all kinds of
| frustrations getting whipsawed by their chief engineer-
| designer-physicist-scientist-government economist-savant
| but probably the stock options assuage that.
|
| Lastly Tesla still doesn't have real birds-eye view / 360
| surround view for parking. It's year 2026 and even cheaper
| cars have this.
| groos wrote:
| My 8 yo M3 has radar and it still is active since the
| yellow radar symbols light up when passing by obstacles.
| It's also used to figure out obstacles in the front and
| back and if disabled, the relatively poor cameras on my
| car would not be able to figure out the distance to the
| next car in the front.
| hbarka wrote:
| That's your ultrasonic sensors. The millimeter-wave-radar
| was front only and designed for far focusing out front.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, for parking obstacles. But their vehicle probably
| also has radar sensors in the rear corners of the bumper
| for cross-traffic alert.
| philistine wrote:
| My shitty Kia Niro has a UI element that indicates
| anytime it detects an obstacle in my blind spot. My side
| mirrors even have a red light that also tells me it
| detects something. Tesla doesn't do that?!
| kube-system wrote:
| Apparently they do it via camera
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I don't think my 2018 Model 3 with enhanced autopilot
| _ever_ used it radar for lane changes. As I noted above,
| it would just drive with the blinker on and a clear lane.
| philistine wrote:
| > The real Tesla engineers must be in all kinds of
| frustrations
|
| That's a very Hacker News point of view, that *of course*
| engineers have the correct opinion and attitude and are
| merely suffering under the boots of the real incompetent
| and nefarious.
|
| Engineers at Tesla are wholly complicit.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| In this case the dude giving the order is the richest man
| in the world, hopped up on ketamine and a habit of just
| YOLOing stuff.
|
| A single engineer telling him that LIDAR and radar is
| superior to camera-based systems isn't doing anything
| except getting said engineer fired.
| noboostforyou wrote:
| Kia Telluride here but I assume it's the same underlying
| system as Hyundai - I can attest that it's very good (and
| doesn't cost anything extra like Tesla charges lol) which
| makes sense considering they have the majority stake in
| Boston Dynamics since a few years ago.
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| Tesla FSD will change lanes when you use the blinker. It will
| also accelerate and remain engaged if you press the pedal,
| e.g. if you want to coax it forward at an intersection.
| vladms wrote:
| > If Tesla was valued fairly
|
| I think it's a wrong mental model to think of stock market
| value as "fair" or "unfair" (or maybe it's just me thinking of
| "unfair" when I see the word "fair").
|
| My impression is that if Tesla would be valued based on
| quantifiable things it would be much much lower (production
| costs, competition, revenues, potential, etc.). Of course, you
| shouldn't value something only based on quantifiable things,
| but in Tesla the "wishful thinking" part seems to be much
| larger than for others.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| I assume OP meant something closer to "fair market value"
| than "fair vs. unfair." Tesla is not priced according to its
| underlying assets or technical analysis (e.g. P/E ratio), but
| solely based on hype/sentiment.
|
| Interestingly, retail investors and company insiders
| collectively own more of Tesla than institutional investors.
| marcusverus wrote:
| Fair market value: the price at which a thing would change
| hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller.
|
| A company's market cap is, by definition, its fair market
| value.
|
| > Tesla is not priced according to its underlying assets or
| technical analysis (e.g. P/E ratio), but solely based on
| hype/sentiment.
|
| You're right that it's not priced according to underlying
| assets, but it doesn't follow that it is priced on vibes.
| Its price is based on potential future earnings; the
| expectation that Elon can pull off his plans for a robotaxi
| fleet or building an Optimus robot that might unlock the
| massive demand for household and/or general use commercial
| robots. Both offer the prospect of being the first mover
| into markets which could be worth trillions. It's
| speculation, sure, but not mere "vibes". The company is
| also led by a man who has made and delivered on massive,
| seemingly impossible promises, which adds credibility to
| the idea that Tesla might actually bring these markets into
| existence.
| Calavar wrote:
| Talk about market cap, especially meme stock maket cap,
| reminds me of that old XKCD comic on extrapolation.
| Market cap is what you get when you extrapolate the fair
| market value for the 1% of a company's shares currently
| on the market all the way out to 100%. But demand doesn't
| work that way - it doesn't scale linearly.
| johnmaguire wrote:
| That's actually not quite what FMV is:
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fairmarketvalue.asp
|
| > Fair market value (FMV) is similar to market value,
| which is the price that the asset would trade for in the
| open market under current conditions. However, fair
| market value has the following additional assumptions:
| Both buyer and seller are reasonably knowledgeable about
| the asset, Buyer and seller are behaving in their own
| best interests, Both parties are free of undue pressure,
| Each is given a reasonable period for completing the
| transaction.
|
| However that's why I said "something closer to FMV" as
| yes - what you described is generally how FMV is
| calculated for things like stock options.
|
| > but it doesn't follow that it is priced on vibes. Its
| price is based on potential future earnings
|
| To be clear, I also didn't use the word "vibes," but
| rather "hype/sentiment" which refers to things like "the
| expectation that Elon can pull off his plans for a
| robotaxi fleet or building an Optimus robot that might
| unlock the massive demand for household and/or general
| use commercial robots." I'm not sure where you got
| "vibes" that you quoted in your reply.
|
| Technical analysis uses statistics (e.g. P/E ratios) and
| marketplace analysis to determine if future potential
| earnings are worth the price of the stock. TSLA's price
| is far in excess of any technical analysis I have seen.
|
| > The company is also led by a man who has made and
| delivered on massive, seemingly impossible promises,
| which adds credibility to the idea that Tesla might
| actually bring these markets into existence.
|
| We might have to agree to disagree on this one. (Are we
| FSD yet?)
| asah wrote:
| SpaceX will acquire Tesla and save the shareholders, just like
| Tesla acquired SolarCity.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| Can they afford to do that? I would assume it would be the
| other way around unless the valuation of either/both changes
| drastically.
|
| XAI acquiring twitter is probably a better recent example
| than solarcity.
| outside1234 wrote:
| We are in a time when people are in cults. Trump is a cult.
| Elon is a cult. Tesla is a cult.
|
| Cults do not operate on logic, but almost always result in a
| mass casualty event of some sort.
| notabee wrote:
| It's baked into the foundations of the U.S. While perhaps not
| a cult as we describe it today, even the first puritans that
| settled here were considered extremists not welcome in their
| home countries. For such a young country, we have always had
| a burgeoning industry in upstart cults, grifts, and religions
| (but I repeat myself).
| jmyeet wrote:
| > Tesla will become a case study on how to completely waste the
| first-mover advantage.
|
| It's a study in many things.
|
| Tesla only exists because of the transfer of wealth from the
| government. DOE loans, EV tax credits and other incentives are
| the difference between existing and not existing.
|
| That's not necessarily bad. The problem is the government
| really gets nothing for their money. Look at how China
| incubates their businesses.
|
| As an example, imagine where we'd be if the government had
| insisted on standardized charging infrastructure instead of
| Tesla's originally proprietary Supercharger network.
|
| > If Tesla was valued fairly, it would probably be at the tune
| of $5B.
|
| I could see it as high as $100B but not $1.5T. Not even close.
|
| And I, too, would never bet against it. Nothing fundamental is
| behind Tesla's valuation. It's just gambling.
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| > And to add insult to injury, even GM Super Cruise is widely
| renowned as better and safer than Tesla's current "FSD".
|
| Do you have any sources for that claim? I can attest that
| current iteration of FSD is very, very good, and very likely is
| a safer driver than I am. At least one major insurance company
| agrees [0]. I don't have any experience with Super Cruise
| though.
|
| [0] - https://www.lemonade.com/fsd
| root_axis wrote:
| > _Do you have any sources for that claim? I can attest that
| current iteration of FSD is very, very good, and very likely
| is a safer driver than I am._
|
| That's a damning statement about your driving skills, and
| probably not true or you'd have had your license revoked by
| now. I've had FSD for five years, and even today it regularly
| makes dangerous mistakes. For example, left turns and
| roundabouts are the equivalent of Russian roulette, but just
| last week my FSD started driving through a red light because
| it interpreted a green left-arrow as a sign that it could
| proceed forward.
|
| If you need to do 50 miles on the interstate it's pretty
| solid though.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| If your Tesla is 5 years old aren't you getting a degraded
| FSD model due to weak hardware?
| root_axis wrote:
| I took it in for a HW update in 2023. I do believe there
| is an even newer hardware stack since then, but as far as
| I'm aware the HW doesn't impact the supported
| capabilities.
| gkfasdfasdf wrote:
| Congrats on the upgrade - what exactly did they upgrade
| and what version of FSD are you running? Hardware and
| software definitely matters. My FSD experience applies to
| 2026 Model Y, latest FSD (v14.x).
| iknowstuff wrote:
| You're wrong. Your fsd12 is a very different beast from
| the current fsd14, so stop talking authoritatively about
| the latest fsd.
| pibaker wrote:
| "The computer is not beefy enough" is not an acceptable
| excuse for blowing a red. If your model cannot comply
| with the most basic law of traffic, it should not be sold
| to consumers as "full self driving."
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| > If you need to do 50 miles on the interstate it's pretty
| solid though.
|
| So L2 is great, the issue is calling L2 "Full Self Driving"
| memish wrote:
| Do you think your anecdote is more likely to be true than
| an insurance company putting its money where its mouth is?
|
| "Tesla Full Self-Driving is twice as safe, so Lemonade
| takes 50% off every mile driven with FSD."
| root_axis wrote:
| I don't know anything about Lemonade, so I can't comment
| on the logic behind that business strategy, but by
| definition all the dangerous behavior of FSD is excluded
| from the analysis since you have to shut it off to avoid
| the danger.
|
| Beyond that, the effect size of my anecdotes assures me
| that it is not safer than a human driver. It's just
| obvious.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| > At least one major insurance company agrees
|
| You mean the insurance company that has only existed for 10
| years and I never heard of before this Tesla tie-in marketing
| gimmick?
| antiframe wrote:
| Also an insurance company that A.M. Best rates B+. Which is
| fine, but when buying insurance I want to make sure that my
| company can weather major catastrophes.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Lemonade doesn't support your claim that FSD is a safer
| driver than you are. It just says that, most charitably, they
| believe FSD _and a human operator_ are safer than just a
| human operator (The co-founder said exactly this to Reuters
| [0]). Further, the program has only been around for a week
| and their marketing copy specifically cites "Tesla's data"
| as the source for the 50% reduction rather than any sort of
| independent analysis.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/lemona...
| digiown wrote:
| They are putting their money behind their words, unless
| there is some backroom deal we don't know about. If a human
| operator + FSD is twice safer than human operator alone,
| then FSD is still a large safety improvement. Considering
| how human operators behave with these systems, I'd also
| wager having the human operator (many don't even look at
| the road!) makes only a small difference.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > They are putting their money behind their words, unless
| there is some backroom deal we don't know about.
|
| Their product is dynamically priced and individualized,
| and there is no guarantee of what the base rate will be.
| I don't see any reason they can't keep offering the 50%
| discount and then adjust the base rates to reverse
| engineer a sustainable price regardless of FSDs real
| safety.
|
| > Considering how human operators behave with these
| systems, I'd also wager having the human operator (many
| don't even look at the road!) makes only a small
| difference.
|
| Lemonade will likely be getting driver monitoring
| telemetry and calculating rates accordingly, but in
| either case I'm convinced that we are still on the left
| hand side of the Valley of Degraded Supervision [0].
| Operators may not pay full attention at all times but
| they likely still have pretty good heuristics for what
| situations are difficult for FSD and adjust their
| monitoring behavior accordingly.
|
| Tesla could of course release detailed crash and
| disengagement data to prove FSD safety. That they do not
| is itself a form of evidence, and in lieu of that we have
| to rely on crowdsourced data which says FSD 14.x still
| has a very long way to go to be safer than the average
| driver [1].
|
| [0] https://www.eetimes.com/disengagements-wrong-metric-
| for-av-t...
|
| [1] https://teslafsdtracker.com/Main
| xnx wrote:
| > At least one major insurance company agrees
|
| Lemonade has <1% market share
| dstroot wrote:
| And Elon canceled the S and X models but not the Cybertruck?
| C'mon...
| hnburnsy wrote:
| I wonder if they reconfigure it and tone down the look to
| something more traditional.
| Multiplayer wrote:
| GM Supercruise on my 2024 Silverado RST is a joke compared to
| Tesla FSD. It's not even remotely comparable. Supercruise only
| works on freeways/highways, does not understand ANY navigation.
| It's a better cruise control, that's about it. I own 2 Tesla
| model S of different vintages and FSD is a completely different
| animal. My 2017 model s can navigate from my house to, well,
| anywhere, with no intervention. I have been very disappointed
| in how long it took Tesla to get here based on the promises
| they made 10(!) years ago, but they are there now. Even a year
| ago FSD used to scare me frequently and cause me to disengage
| but that never happens now.
| pants2 wrote:
| The only thing remotely comparable in the US is probably a
| Comma 4 with a forked OpenPilot build on a well-supported
| vehicle
| memish wrote:
| 1. Tesla has $40B in cash and is profitable. To say it's worth
| $5B is beyond absurd.
|
| 2. The market determines what is a fair value, not rando haters
| on the internet. Even professional Wall Street consensus is
| that it's fair value at approximately $1.2T market cap.
| rkagerer wrote:
| $40B in cash/equivalents, minus some $13-20B in debt
| (depending what source you pick).
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Plus assets
| esseph wrote:
| > And for some unbeknownst to me reason, the markets value
| Tesla as a hot tech company, not a 3rd rate automaker, which is
| what it actually is.
|
| Cult. It's a cult.
|
| There's a contingent of tech bros that think they're "smart"
| because they latched on to Tesla and have been riding its nuts
| through Elon's political stunts without a care in the world.
| Tesla failing would mean to them that they failed. They can't
| fail, they're too smart. If they just HODL for a little longer,
| then he'll get something magical out and validate their
| decision making. Sunk cost running wild.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| I was with you until you compared super cruise to FSD. not even
| comparable
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I think these days you have to look at Tesla stock more like
| crypto -- you're betting on the hype and hope to ride the wave
| and exit before it crashes.
| cmoski wrote:
| > Tesla is developing Optimus with the aim of someday selling it
| as a bipedal, intelligent robot capable of everything from
| factory work to babysitting.
|
| I did not look forward to the news articles about robots
| accidentally dropping or squashing babies.
| slowhadoken wrote:
| I wish people that jeer Musk would decide if he's running his
| companies or not. They think he's an ignorant figure head and a
| conniving strategist. I don't care either way just stick to one.
| varjag wrote:
| So essentially down to making one car huh.
| podgorniy wrote:
| I guess self-driving will be done by the humanoid robots now
| podgorniy wrote:
| Electric cars hype topic is has rotted away. Time to bring new,
| yet novel for the the public. Now people will belive in the musk
| stories of the future shaped by the humanoid robots, not shaped
| by the electric cars. Who cares if in 3 years they will switch to
| another subject if stock keeps being pupmed (and compoensation
| keeps flowing in the hands of this guy).
|
| His idea is to keep involving more investors, more people,
| government is possible in tesla's orbit with nice stories. When
| other are so invested the failures aren't his problem anymore, he
| got hist compensation which is tied to the company price.
| Havoc wrote:
| Tesla must be in serious trouble given recent erratic moves
| yazantapuz wrote:
| Relevant part: "Tesla's far more popular models are the 3 and Y,
| which accounted for 97% of the company's 1.59 million deliveries
| last year."
| danw1979 wrote:
| > Tesla is developing Optimus with the aim of someday selling it
| as a bipedal, intelligent robot capable of everything from
| factory work to babysitting.
|
| "Full Automated Parenting". You win a Darwin award on behalf of
| your kids if you fall for this shtick.
| dlisboa wrote:
| Elon Musk is already doing that kind of parenting, so I can see
| how he likes it.
| DalasNoin wrote:
| These robots give of a kind of dark vibe to me, especially with
| everything going on in his AI company. How long until one of
| them kills someone? I'd prefer a home robot that can't kill me
| (like something that is passively safe).
| shanehoban wrote:
| Hard to believe, but it's almost 10 years since they announced
| the new Roadster
| RCitronsBroker wrote:
| someone is stuffing their channels, huh? first the fsd fiasco,
| now this
| cs702 wrote:
| Five years ago, during the 2021 Q1 earnings call, Musk was asked
| about Models S and X. He responded:
|
| _> I mean, they're very expensive, made in low volume. To be
| totally frank, we're continuing to make them more for sentimental
| reasons than anything else. They're really of minor importance to
| the future._
| swedishuser wrote:
| Pretty sad seeing people take pleasure in the company failing.
| See past your opinion about it's leader. At the end of the day,
| it's the company that brought vehicle electrification to the
| masses and has acted cash cow for SpaceX, Starlink and Neuralink.
| nessbot wrote:
| He's not just the leader, he's the primary beneficiary, and
| he's a blatant white supremacist. He's arguably responsible for
| the deaths of over 1 million people world wide from his short
| tenure shutting down USAID[0]. So yeah, I'd say its more than
| fine to take pleasure in his failings.
|
| [0] https://www.cgdev.org/blog/update-lives-lost-usaid-cuts
| sidcool wrote:
| Is Tesla really failing? They have $40 billion cash at hand.
| More than some legacy automobile market cap.
| snek_case wrote:
| They're clearly not failing, but if you read comments here or
| on reddit, lots of people want them to, and have wanted them
| to for a decade.
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| Not nearly as sad as people getting emotionally invested in
| corporations.
|
| Add why should anyone look past their opinions about the
| leader?
|
| We have the saying "the fish rots from the head" for a good
| reason. Tesla has been rotten ever since Elon got involved.
| snek_case wrote:
| > Add why should anyone look past their opinions about the
| leader?
|
| Because it's the most advanced car manufacturing in the US...
| Virtually the only successful EV maker outside of China, and
| it provides over 100,000 jobs worldwide.
| throwaway132448 wrote:
| Actions have consequences. Maybe an upshot of this is that
| people will learn not to put all their eggs in the POS's
| basket.
| wmeredith wrote:
| > See past your opinion about it's leader.
|
| This is like asking Mrs. Lincoln what she thought about the
| play. The scope of the (financial and physical) damage by
| Musk's government meddling is breathtaking, is ongoing, and
| will echo for generations.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Coming up next: Tesla to end production of all cars and sell only
| NFT/Crypto with pictures of Cybertruck going to the moon/mars.
| This is the only company which provides Speculation as a Service.
| With a complete monopoly on SPaaS, the market cap will skyrocket
| to $20 Trillion. Elon will be given Nobel peace prize for saving
| mankind from itself as well as physics.
| el_nahual wrote:
| There is in fact one person who has won both the Nobel Peace
| prize and a hard-science one:
|
| Linus Pauling. Chemistry 1954, peace 1962.
| sebastian_z wrote:
| A genuine question, what are the use cases for Tesla's Optimus
| robots? Are they consumer products that help with household
| chores, industrial robots for warehouses or manufacturing, a play
| toy, something else?
| palmotea wrote:
| > A genuine question, what are the use cases for Tesla's
| Optimus robots? Are they consumer products that help with
| household chores, industrial robots for warehouses or
| manufacturing, a play toy, something else?
|
| Convincing investors to buy and hold Tesla, because of the
| vague promise of some great technological innovation being just
| around the corner. Electric cars and partially automated
| driving don't serve that purpose anymore.
| ozten wrote:
| They are one of several memetic devices which keep Tesla's
| stock price in orbit, untethered from reality.
| testing22321 wrote:
| If they actually work (and I'm not saying for one second they
| will), they're intended to be all those.
|
| I have no doubt there will be many tens of millions of them,
| it's just a question of when. 5 years? 10? 50?
| WarmWash wrote:
| >A genuine question, what are the use cases for Tesla's Optimus
| robots?
|
| A longer horizon promise of multi-trillion dollar wealth
| generation for Tesla.
|
| As the whole robotaxi thing is starting to fizzle, Elon has
| quite notably talked more and more about how actually Optimus
| is the true gem of Tesla.
| blinding-streak wrote:
| They are a financial engineering product with limited real
| world utility, in an attempt to keep the company solvent.
| root_axis wrote:
| If a use case emerges it will have to be industrial or
| commercial. The power and maintenance constraints for a robot
| like that make it pretty impractical for home use.
| yalogin wrote:
| Looks like they are not selling the larger vehicles at all, so
| why not kill the truck too? It's god awful and a flop. Ego? Or
| thy want to try to revive it?
|
| What they are really signaling though is with EVs they are not
| able to differentiate between the higher and lower cost models
| enough to show value to the higher end models. This is a huge
| failure IMO. Model S was the OG car that really was looked up to
| when it launched. It did have them luxury image, by not matching
| the build and interior of the car to the image Tesla really
| dropped the ball. Now the S is seen as inferior to the other
| luxury cars in that price range and so it's becoming tough for
| Tesla to differentiate between the 3 and S.
|
| This actually brings up the larger question, does musk care about
| cars at all at this point? Or does he just want to move on to
| robots? Feels like his heart is not on the cars.
| nkotov wrote:
| I know that the Model S platform is old but for me it was always
| seen as a halo car. I've owned three of them and I really wished
| they would release a completely redesigned S version.
| m463 wrote:
| I think this is where someone says "you're not the target
| market"
|
| I thought the same thing about the (usable, upgradable) mac
| pro, but then they came out with the trash can mac pro 2013.
| frogperson wrote:
| I simply dont care how good or bad the cars are. I will never put
| a penny in Elon's hand. He is a despicable nazi and a terrible
| person. I hope he goes bankrupt.
| t14000 wrote:
| Do you believe Mr Musk though?
| boondongle wrote:
| I just hate that what's actually going on with this company is so
| buried between Musk's bs, and people hate Musk so much that they
| spew bs as well. Seems to be just "pick your liar" with this
| company.
|
| X going away probably isn't surprising given sales dynamics. More
| people would tend to opt for the cross-over or sedan. The model S
| is a little more shocking since it was always niche, but honestly
| Tesla doesn't have the trim to be priced like that and I suspect
| in order to get from where they're at to BMW/Audi etc., just
| isn't where they want to invest their money.
|
| This definitely feels like an "oh no, people stopped buying"
| pivot but the moves themselves make sense.
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