文 | 硅基研究室 kiki 谢浩
Is Musk finally going to round the pie drawn for "automatic driving"?
On the morning of October 11, Beijing time, Tesla will hold a demonstration event called "Robotaxi Day" (Robotaxi Day) at the Warner Bros. Discovery Film Studio in Los Angeles, California, with the theme of "We Robot" (We, Robot), which also means that Musk will reveal more about the latest progress in Tesla's self-driving cars and robotics technology on the spot.
Tesla will hold a themed event with the theme of "We, Robot" Source: Tesla official
The event was originally scheduled for August, and Musk claimed it would be "one for the history books." Two months after the "bounce", Musk is expected to fight for more competitive weight for Tesla at this press conference - which may include the latest developments and news such as Tesla's Robotaxi debut (including driverless taxis and ride-hailing apps), FSD (Full Self-Driving), Optimus robots, and the low-cost consumer model Model 2.
Since its inception, the autonomous driving industry has gone through a long period of ups and downs, representing the future of mobility, from Uber, Google's Waymo, and Tesla to China's major manufacturers and startups. There is no doubt that Tesla's press conference will also bring new imagination to the industry. For Musk, his more difficult task is still how to use this press conference to continue to convey the "Tesla's technical imprint" to the outside world, rather than just a car company.
We've compiled the relevant revelations about the conference, tracing everything you need to know about Tesla's Robotaxi and Musk's ambitions, as follows:
1. What does the first Robotaxi look like?
In April this year, Musk announced that Tesla's Robotaxi product was named "Cybercab", and what the prototype car looks like has also attracted attention from the outside world.
In Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon · Musk, Musk talked about the design concept of the car: "No side mirrors, no pedals, no steering wheel. According to the concept drawings at the time, the Cybercab was a two-door, two-seater with a Cybertruck-like style, and "when one of the cars flashed on a street corner, people thought they were seeing something from the future." Musk said so.
Robotaxi team and concept design Source: Walter Isaacson's "Elon · Musk" Biography
In May 2024, Tesla also released a video of the potential design features of the Cybercab, combining spy photos on the social forum Reddit and foreign media revelations, and the veil of the Cybercab was gradually revealed:
Cybercab spy photo shows or is equipped with LiDAR, image source: X
• Interior structure: A two-seater car with a side-by-side infotainment system between the front seats, spacious storage space in the rear, no steering wheel (but according to foreign media speculation, there may also be a fully or partially retractable steering wheel), no pedals.
• Exterior: Two doors and two seats, with a cyberfuturistic design similar to the "Cybertruck".
• Configuration: Completely dependent on Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it is not excluded that it is possible to be a camera or even a lidar, and the interaction may be mainly through the Robotaxi APP. In Tesla's Q1 earnings call in April this year, it showed the design of its Robotaxi app.
Tesla's shared taxi APP photo UI interface Source: Tesla's financial report
• Price: According to Musk, Tesla Robotaxi will fully consider the cost of driving per mile and kilometer of the vehicle, and the ride will be even cheaper than if you take the bus.
2. Is FSD ready?
Another aspect of the conference will be whether Tesla's software capabilities, known as Full Self-Driving (FSD), can keep up with the progress of the manufacturing side. According to foreign media predictions, Tesla is likely to conduct a demonstration of the latest or higher version of the FSD system at the press conference, as well as a "driving demonstration on a closed route" of a self-driving taxi.
Bernstein analysts point out that Level 4 autonomous driving is a clear prerequisite for true robo-taxi services, while Tesla's current FSD services are still at Level 2+.
As of now, Tesla's latest FSD version is V12.5.4 released on September 23, which implements smart summoning, allowing users to use their mobile phones to summon the vehicle to nearby or nearby selectable areas, but the FSD system is currently only available in the United States and Canada. In September this year, Tesla's team revealed that it expects to launch the FSD system in China and Europe in the first quarter of next year, although the specific landing time is still subject to regulatory approval.
Since announcing the termination of cooperation with Mobileye in 2016, Musk and Tesla have embarked on a road of complete self-development of FSD, from its birth to the launch of FSD V12 in 2024 and large-scale push in North America, with "no high-precision map + pure visual solution" and years of investment in computing power and data, Tesla has gradually shaped the core advantages of FSD's "end-to-end" (end-end) technical route. Wu Xinzhou, global vice president and head of the automotive division of NVIDIA, once commented: "The biggest role of Tesla's FSD is to promote the leapfrog development of the industry and raise the ceiling. ”
(Label: end-to-end: refers to the input from the information income of the sensor to the final result, the intermediate level does not require manual intervention, and the system runs and learns by itself, so that intelligent driving can understand complex road conditions and scenarios like old drivers.) ）
In other words, the outside world's expectation of Tesla's Roboax is the flywheel effect released by the collaboration between software and hardware - the synergy between FSD's software capabilities and the upcoming Robotaxi terminal, coupled with Tesla's advantages, to promote commercialization.
As of the second quarter of this year, FSD has traveled more than 1.6 billion miles, equivalent to 2.575 billion kilometers, and cars powered by the latest version of FSD V12 based on "end-to-end" have traveled more than 600 million miles, equivalent to 966 million kilometers, according to Musk's previous estimates, Tesla's FSD test mileage needs to reach 6 billion miles to meet the requirements of global regulators.
FSD and V12 cumulative mileage unit: billion miles, Source: Dongxing Securities
3. Is the next generation of Optimus coming?
From the theme of the event "We, Robot" (We, Robot), it can be seen that Musk may update the progress of the new generation of Optimus.
In August 2023, after two and a half years of practice, the Optimus Gen2 with a new industrial design look and technology was announced.
In the official video after that, Musk directly showed the progress of the second-generation version compared to the first, including but not limited to:
30% faster walking, 10kg lighter, human foot geometry, faster, 11-DoF new hands......
Tesla released the Optimus Gen2 in December last year Source: Optimus Official
More importantly, compared with the faltering, lack of agility, full of cables, and only able to engage in mechanical labor, the Gen2 version of Optimus is much more realistic in anthropomorphism, and even caused a "uncanny valley effect" on social media for a time.
This kind of high-speed iteration and evolution at the technological level has also made the market look forward to the upcoming Optimus Gen3.
At this demonstration event, this high-profile new robot is also expected to be unveiled on the same stage. And this seems to be the "repertoire" that Musk created for this demo event.
Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, predicts that the Optimus Gen3 will be larger and more popular than Tesla's Roborobotaxi.
In many public occasions before this, Musk has never stopped endorsing and building momentum for this product. As early as when the Model series of electric cars became popular all over the world, he once publicly stated that Tesla's long-term future is not new energy vehicles, but will be centered on Optimus humanoid robots:
"I think the long-term value of Optimus will be greater than all of Tesla's other products combined."
In terms of credibility, similar statements are obviously different from his usual verbal cannons. Some employees said that Musk has also implemented his enthusiasm and importance for Optimus internally, and he has warned employees more than once that Tesla may have to lay off employees if the Optimus project cannot make progress in the short term.
Musk praises Optimus on social media Source: X@Elon Musk
With such attention and high demand, it is not surprising that the Optimus project has made rapid progress. According to the latest news, the new generation of Optimus Gen3 may bring new breakthroughs in technical aspects such as finesse and communication, not only to complete piano performance, but even to carry out simple communication.
And for those conservatives who have always had a distrust of technology and intelligent machinery, the iteration of Optimus Gen3 will not deepen people's association with the "mechanical crisis".
On the one hand, as a veteran science fiction fan, Musk himself has always maintained a high degree of attention and vigilance against human-machine ethics;
On the other hand, even with the progress made on the technical level, Optimus still needs to face a series of specific issues such as productivity and adaptability if it wants to take over human work on a large scale.
So far, Tesla has only manufactured a few hundred Optimus in total, and the company's short-term goal is to make its factory reach the capacity of producing thousands of Optimus per year by the end of 2024.
Fourth, after many years of painting pie Robotaxi, is Musk finally going to realize his dream?
"Robotaxi will bring $5 to $10 trillion to the company's market capitalization, and with the contribution of the humanoid robot Optimus, Tesla's total market capitalization will eventually reach 10 times that of Apple today, more than $30 trillion."
This is the blueprint drawn by Musk at this year's shareholders' meeting, in his opinion, the above two major business sectors are by no means a new chapter for Tesla's masterpiece, but "writing an unprecedented new book".
And since the fulfillment of the above promises, Musk still has nothing in his hands except a bright prospect and optimism.
In addition to Optimus, which still has a lot of uncertainties, Musk will also face challenges from multiple dimensions such as government, technology, cost, operation and service, and market acceptance from the visible commercialization process of Robotaxi.
At the government level, Bernstein's report suggests that Tesla is lagging behind its competitors in terms of regulatory approvals, and that the company is currently not conducting self-driving tests, while Google's Waymo has been doing so since 2017.
Not only that, at the technical level, Tesla's self-driving solution without lidar has helped them stay ahead of many competitors at the starting cost line, but it has also slowed down the progress of artificial intelligence training. Wu Xinzhou also said that although the FSD has raised the upper limit, "the problem of the lower limit has not been completely solved, the original logical error still exists in the FSD, and in the face of China's complex traffic situation, it still has a lot of work to do." ”
Many experts predict that the issue of self-driving will become a major burden on Tesla's path forward.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a well-known technology industry analyst, said that Tesla's Robotaxi will not be mass-produced until at least the first quarter of 2027, and the reason for such a slow mass production progress has nothing to do with the hardware design and manufacturing capabilities of the vehicle itself, but is completely restricted by Tesla's R&D progress on the autonomous driving side.
Ming-Chi Kuo's supply chain investigation and analysis of Tesla's Robotaxi Source: Ming-Chi Kuo, X@
What's more, United States is not prepared for any kind of large-scale robo-taxi network. While robo-taxi testing and pilot programs are underway in about 10 states, there are no real, comprehensive federal regulations.
For these reasons, many analysts believe that the prospects brought by Robotaxi may be greatly overestimated compared to Tesla's new energy vehicle and humanoid robot business.
It's just that these outside views can't affect Musk's determination and attitude for the time being.
Musk once said: "In the matter of self-driving, we have to gamble", which represents Tesla's long-term ambitions.
Since the beginning of this year, Chinese and American companies have accelerated the pace of Robotaxi landing, whether it is Baidu's "Carrot Run", Uber and Avride reached a strategic cooperation, or Google's Waymo announced not long ago that its driverless taxi service in Austin, Texas, United States will soon be open to the public, Robotaxi competition is still accelerating.
Whether Musk will give a perfect answer to the cake he has painted for many years, or pour a basin of cold water, it depends on the upcoming press conference.
Resources:
1. Dongxing Securities: Automotive Industry: Tesla's FSD Evolution Road - One of the in-depth report series of the intelligent driving industry
2. Open Source Securities: Depth of Smart Car Series (20): The transportation revolution is coming, and the future of Robotaxi has come