Friday, October 11, 2024

Are We Doing This Again

A bit more skeptical than usual.
The product is a prototype of a self-driving taxi that Mr. Musk has been promising for years. And it will be shown at an invitation-only evening event at the Warner Bros. studio near Los Angeles. Mr. Musk has promised that the cab, which he calls the Robotaxi, will be able to ferry passengers to any destination without human intervention, a feat that other companies have achieved in just a few places, like Phoenix and San Francisco.

But many experts are doubtful that such Tesla taxis will hit the roads anytime soon. Mr. Musk has for several years claimed that the company was months away from starting a Robotaxi service. In addition, the autonomous driving technology Tesla offers today can make basic mistakes, requiring drivers to intervene to avoid accidents or violating traffic laws.
He also finally got around to inventing the bus. All transportation bros do, eventually, though they remain incapable of understanding what a bus is for.
Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of Tesla’s Robovan on Thursday night during the company’s We, Robot event in Los Angeles. The Robovan will be an electric, autonomous vehicle roughly the size of a bus, designed for transporting people around high density areas. It will carry up to 20 people at a time and also transport goods, according to Musk.

“We’re going to make this, and it’s going to look like that,” said Musk on Thursday night as the Robovan rolled towards center stage. That’s about as much as Musk was willing to say, and we’re not even sure that much is true.