Updated October 10, 2024 at 16:11 PM ET
An idiosyncratic billionaire takes to the stage (with, perhaps, a humanoid robot by his side?) to unveil a futuristic technology that he promises will transform the world 鈥� a vision alternately celebrated, mocked and feared.
It鈥檚 a scene straight out of Hollywood. And that鈥檚 exactly where it鈥檚 going to happen tonight 鈥� on a Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California.
Tesla is calling the event 鈥淲e, Robot.鈥� At 7 p.m. Pacific time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected to unveil the company鈥檚 design for a dedicated robotaxi, a Tesla designed exclusively to ferry passengers without a driver 鈥� a feat the company鈥檚 semi-autonomous software has not yet demonstrated it can do.
鈥淭he future will be streamed live,鈥� the company , the social media platform Musk owns.
Here are 5 things to know about Tesla鈥檚 big bet on autonomous driving.
Musk says robotaxis are key to Tesla鈥檚 future profits
Tesla makes money selling electric vehicles 鈥� in fact, its profit margins on its cars, which are consistently in the double digits, are enviable for an automaker. But Musk has his eye on the much fatter profit margins of the software industry.
In addition to selling cars, Tesla sells an expensive software package called 鈥淔ull Self Driving (Supervised).鈥� It can autonomously direct a Tesla on a wide range of roads, and navigate stoplights, stop signs and pedestrians without human input 鈥� most of the time. But it periodically requires a human to take over, which means it鈥檚 not truly autonomous.
Musk has always maintained that demand for the software will be much higher when it is fully autonomous 鈥� in part because that would allow people to make money off their personal vehicles by lending them out, like a driverless Uber or Lyft.
鈥淭he value of a fully electric autonomous fleet is generally gigantic 鈥� boggles the mind, really.鈥� he told investors in 2021. 鈥淭hat will be one of the most valuable things that's ever done in the history of civilization.鈥�
A custom-built vehicle just for robotaxi rides is a relatively new twist on Musk鈥檚 vision. Expect to hear more about it on Thursday.
He鈥檚 promised they鈥檙e coming next year 鈥� for years
Musk鈥檚 become infamous for his overly enthusiastic estimates of how soon Tesla robotaxis will arrive. He鈥檚 even taken to poking fun at himself for all the times he鈥檚 been wrong.
- Musk in 2019: 鈥淣ext year for sure we will have over a million robotaxis on the road.鈥�
- Musk in 2020: 鈥淚 think we could see robotaxis in operation 鈥� next year. Not in all markets, but in some.鈥�
- In 2021: 鈥淚鈥檓 highly confident the car will drive itself for the reliability in excess of a human this year.鈥�
- In 2022: I would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer-than-human this year.鈥�
- 2023: 鈥淣ow, I know I'm the boy who cried [Full-Self-Driving], but man, I think 鈥� I think we'll be better than human by the end of this year.鈥�
- And this summer: 鈥淥bviously, my predictions on this have been overly optimistic in the past. 鈥� Next year seems highly probable to me.鈥�
The problem is that while Tesla鈥檚 software can drive a vehicle without human help much of the time, it鈥檚 not yet reliable enough to drive unassisted all of the time.
Companies like Alphabet鈥檚 Waymo and GM鈥檚 Cruise, meanwhile, have already sent driverless taxis onto streets 鈥� although Cruise put human 鈥渟afety drivers鈥� back behind the wheel after a The systems often have someone on call to if a car gets stuck. But that鈥檚 a far cry from needing constant oversight: According to data it supplied the state of California, Waymo drove nearly 1.2 million fully driverless miles last year with a total of 14 鈥渄isengagements,鈥� or times the software required manual control.
Even for those companies, robotaxis aren鈥檛 profitable yet. The auto market research giant J.D. Power recently surveyed people who have ridden in robotaxis and found that while passengers generally liked the experience, they don鈥檛 find the taxis practical. Until they鈥檙e cheaper and cover more ground, the pollsters concluded, 鈥渢he service will remain a novelty transportation method.鈥�
Tesla鈥檚 approach to autonomy is unusual 鈥� and controversial
So if robotaxis already exist, why doesn鈥檛 Tesla have this tech yet? There鈥檚 a big difference between how other companies 鈥� like Waymo, Cruise, the driverless trucking company Aurora and a host of startups 鈥� approach autonomy, and how Tesla is trying to do it.
Musk decided to build a system based only on relatively cheap cameras, with no other inputs; other companies also use radar and other pricey high-tech sensors. Musk also has embraced 鈥渆nd-to-end learning,鈥� where the artificial intelligence 鈥渓earns鈥� how to drive from raw data; other companies add human-designed rules and guardrails to their AI systems.
Analyst George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity Group notes that Musk鈥檚 approach requires billions of dollars of upfront investment in AI, but much cheaper hardware on vehicles. That鈥檚 a combination that is expensive now, but would pay off if there were, say, millions of robotaxis on the road.
Musk is adamant that Tesla鈥檚 approach is superior. 鈥淥ur entire road network is designed for biological neural nets鈥� 鈥� that is, human brains 鈥� 鈥渁nd eyes, so naturally cameras and digital neural nets are the solution,鈥� Musk told investors earlier this year. Tesla also has enormous amounts of driving data from its vehicles on the road today.
Other companies say this approach is not just wrong but dangerous. Aurora took the unusual step of preemptively emailing reporters ahead of Tesla鈥檚 event this week to share bullet points about exactly what they object to. Those included concerns about making sure a system is learning good driving behaviors 鈥� not bad ones, like running stop signs 鈥� and that there are systems of checks and balances.
Aurora's email paraphrases points CPO Sterling Anderson made in a : the approach favored by Tesla, the summary notes, is a " 'train and pray' approach where you fix a problem by throwing more data at the system 鈥� we find this to be problematic in a safety critical industry where you need confidence and proof you鈥檝e actually fixed."
Anderson used to work at Tesla, where he helped launch Tesla鈥檚 Autopilot software, its first partial-automation system, the Aurora email notes. Waymo a former Tesla exec for its team, too.
One wild card: What will regulators think?
The United States still has no federal laws governing self-driving, so a patchwork of state and city regulators set the boundaries of what companies can and cannot do.
Musk has always acknowledged that achieving full self-driving is not just a matter of technological innovation; if regulators aren鈥檛 convinced a robotaxi fleet is safe, it isn鈥檛 going anywhere.
That has implications for the physical design of vehicles. Cruise recently abandoned plans for a futuristic robotaxi vehicle with no steering wheel, returning to a more conventional design that a human could operate, primarily to reduce the risk of running afoul of regulators.
And governmental concerns could also affect software. Gianarikas says regulators who dig into the coding of a system built by 鈥渆nd-to-end鈥� deep learning might not like what they find.
鈥淵ou can imagine a scenario where [regulators] just kind of have this moment, like 鈥榃hat? You don't 鈥� have any hard-coded software rules?鈥� he says. 鈥溾�楬ow do you control it?鈥欌��
Still, Gianarikas notes that while there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a Tesla robotaxi fleet, Elon Musk has a track record of eventually proving skeptics wrong.
The reveal might include another kind of robot
The event鈥檚 name 鈥� 鈥淲e, Robot鈥� 鈥� is a nod to a classic Isaac Asimov short story collection exploring the ethical and psychological implications of building increasingly human-like robots. It鈥檚 also the title of a very vaguely related Will Smith action movie.
That hints at the possibility that, in addition to a robotaxi, the reveal could feature Optimus, the humanoid robot Tesla has been developing as an autonomous laborer capable of doing repetitive tasks.
鈥淚 think the long-term value of Optimus will exceed that of everything else at Tesla combined,鈥� Musk told investors this summer. 鈥淎 humanoid robot that can do pretty much anything you asked of it. 鈥� I think everyone on Earth is going to want one.鈥�
Optimus, a black and white robot with a featureless face of smooth black glass, can walk 鈥� in a stilted, gliding sort of way. Tesla has of it , standing on one leg and .
Dan Ives, an analyst and a long-time Tesla bull, will be in attendance on Thursday night. He鈥檚 less interested in androids and more in whether Musk can demonstrate a fully autonomous vehicle that actually works.
鈥淭his needs to be a jaw-dropper type of event,鈥� he said 鈥� hype and promises are not going to cut it.
Copyright 2024 NPR
