Robo Taxi Thoughts?

rr6013

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<Snippy> …and there and I just wanted to get everybody's thoughts on the matter.
First Principle: If Uber or Lyft ride-sharing left a bad taste, you have no business in Robo-taxi - period. You have no one to hold in harm - no driver, no company. Tesla will have to insure these Robos.

Robo-taxi closed-circuit. Ski resort rides to the top/bottom. College sports events mass transit yo-yo runs. MBA ride-free College Graduation Day.

Robo-taxi convoy-mode Wedding, wine country, corp picnic, FORD F-150 tractor pulls, etc...

Robo-taxi city-to-city

Robo-taxi door-to-door multi-drops

Robo-taxi Fedex-mode delivery w/AI routing

Robo-taxi concierge-mode <Fav>brand

Robo-taxi airport-mode
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OCS12

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I completely agree that the odds of being able to use the truck as a robo taxi anytime soon is extremely unlikely. It’s a shame. I love the idea of going out for a few drinks after work, letting the truck earn a few bucks to cover my bar tab while I’m out at happy hour, then letting it drive me home!
 

myco.rrhizae

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That way there's a known clientele with probably better manners.
yeah this matters. I think that there will be a 'permissions' function in the Tesla app that lets your car only service trusted people or be public hail-able. I believe that there should also be a function to you to add specific people such as family that can hail the vehicle for free (at the owner's operating expense) with the option to allow that permission at certain times of day and block it at will.
This would all be part of a robust 'Permissions' suite of settings in the Tesla app for each of your vehicles.
This way a group of friends or family could choose to split the cost of a vehicle and share access to it. Like that pickup on the side that you each only need for some garden work and play time a couple times per month.
Businesses could also opperate company cars in the same manner and give permissions to specific employees, etc...
 

myco.rrhizae

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My concern would be: How does one make sure the robotaxi is "clean" between the rides if there is no driver?
How about a built in 'scent sensor' (does such a thing exist?) When an overwhelming odor is detected, the app automatically drives to the local robotaxi cleaning service and then reviews the interior footage and bills the customer's security deposit for the cleaning costs.
 

myco.rrhizae

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Did you know that Waymo is currently operating fully driverless robo taxis in Pheonix for public ride hailing?
 


myco.rrhizae

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Yes. Old news. And they are geofences.
Right, obviously different tech, but Im just pointing out that regulators seem ready to approve driverless cars on public roads as soon at the tech is ready. the fact that it's old news just adds validity to that point.
Its not so much this 'at the speed of law' thing that we had all assumed. I was definitely taken by surprise when that went through.
 

T3slaDad

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Lots of good discussion! I'm a big fan of the RT network and the possibilities for me. That being said, I do love looking at the other side of the coin too (potential issues, pitfalls, etc).

Here's what I've gathered so far:

Elon said in the 2020 Q4 earnings call that 2021 is the year of FSD/RT regulatory implementation/support, with USA leading the way to regulatory support and encouragement.

He also said regulators only care that FSD is 200% safer than a human, and they will reach that this year without DOJO in full scale (his words, not mine).

He also said when DOJO becomes fully active next year, it'll be 2000%!! more reliable than humans and most regulators would be on board by then.

He also said (in the past) that once RT networks are in full swing down the road, they plan to stop selling cars to the public and focus on perfecting the RT network with whoever already owns a Tesla and their own fleet.

Elon also said Tesla's with FSD will be an appreciating asset when RT's go live (and reiterates that periodically). This makes sense if they remove selling to the public at some point.

He also said they will hit level 4 autonomy GLOBALLY supported by end of 2021 (this is a big deal especially in China and EU, he also said level 5 likely in USA by EOY).

My personal opinion is RT vehicles are ideally meant to be run 24/7 as a fleet vehicle, not a personal and commercial asset. Also, think about this. When you need your car, why not hail a RT vs stopping yours from making money to come from wherever it is, just so you can have YOUR car take you somewhere?

Elon's goal is to have it be cheaper to hail RT's than to own a vehicle (lower cost per mile), thus dramatically improving mass adoption (the S curve).

Elon also said he wants to lease out the FSD framework to their competitors when it's perfected (makes sense, they are by far further than anyone else in progress). Think about it: that could mean drastically more RT's on the road since auto makers just need to build the cars, slap on cheap hardware, and lease Tesla's software vs spending billions on their own). S curve!!!

Elon said that the only thing stopping them now is 2 things: converting all systems to time-based video AI (vs thousands of individual frames/second), and onboard self-labeling techniques (this is the "holy grail of autonomy" as he put it). They are almost done with the first as many systems are already converted.

As everything goes, time of day and location will determine how passengers treat your RT vehicles. That being said, Elon is very aware of the vandalism issue and has spoken to their plans to prevent and remediate the situation when it does happen a few times. More will be shared as time goes on, don't worry!

There's a lot more that I've been gathering over the years and especially recently as he opens up about FSD and the RT network plans and development, but you bet your britches that I'm excited to have my CT become a RT in 3 years! I for one would love to have a CYBERFLEET, but that is for time and income/investment requirements to tell.
 
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Sirfun

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I watched some videos of riding in a driverless Waymo taxi. The worst one I saw a guy had the taxi meet him in a grocery store parking lot. The taxi stopped with flashers on, in a traffic lane for him to get in. He started the app and it accepted him saying "You are good to go" . It took 2 mins. for the damn thing to move. All the pedestrians were walking in front of it and a crapload of cars got tired of waiting and drove around the thing. It looks like the public in Phoenix are fed up with them and knowing it's a driverless car, they act like, SCREW THAT THING!

Here's the video:
 
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Crissa

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Quite a few. Being able to reliably call a ride for a reasonable price really balances out the cost to insure, register, maintain, and store a car.

That doesn't apply to the still majority who don't pay to park, but we all pay for free parking.

It's hard to get any trends out of mass data since car ownership had gotten so cheap and so required the only blip was the Great Recession.

It looks like the public in Phoenix are fed up with them and knowing it's a driverless car, they act like, SCREW THAT THING!
Seems like it wasn't the robotaxi's fault. It was following the rules.

-Crissa
 


Crissa

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It's much easier to do in a severe urban area like San Francisco (the city) or a big urban like New York City or Chicago. They have nearly no place you can't go on mass transit.

You can manage alright in some lower tier urban areas like Portland or Seattle that have decent transportation and access with alternates like grade-separate cycling paths.

Oh, hey, that looks pretty cute.

-Crissa
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