Here's an idea - take the Robocab car design, strip out all the FSD/autopilot stuff, put in a steering wheel and dash and sell it starting at the end of the year for ~$25k.
It has no rear window and wacky doors and only two seats. It would not sell. It's purpose built as an autonomous taxi, where those choices make perfect sense.
They are also doing a $25k car, they just aren't revealing it today.
This is why I want a pragmatic operational industry expert CEO[0] for Tesla, in the same way Shotwell is for SpaceX.
Announce and do the far stuff, but at the same time ship the near things that people want.
A pragmatic auto CEO would have had that $25k car moving already. A pragmatic industry CEO also wouldn't have such a large event without a call-to-action.
If they had a "reserve now for Feb 2025 delivery" button under todays announcement it would have gone offff
[0] edit: ok Gwynne is COO - let Elon keep the title, but we know what matters.
People really have gone off the deep end with Shotwell, yes she is awesome. But you know what makes it a huge amount easier to be awesome, having a reusable rocket to sell in the first place.
Musk makes the primary choices at SpaceX, he decides the company strategy, he decides where the money goes, he decides what future projects to take on.
If its so clear what a 'pragmatic auto CEO' would do, why do other car companies not have those cheap cars?
And the data shows pretty clearly that 2 person cars, even cheap ones don't sell very well.
I agree that Tesla's biggest mistake was doing Cybertruck before the $25k car. But if they solve autonomy and/or succeed with Optimus then everything else becomes irrelevant.
I agree, but these are moonshot announcements that should sit isolated from the core business.
The same thing that Google (ironically) did with X - which led to Waymo, which now already has autonomous taxis[0]
You can't keep perpetually hyping tomorrow when the next Q is due.
I have an affinity for Tesla since it's named after someone from a village my mums family is from (and who I'm named after), and I like environmentalist, decarbonise, and electrify Elon.. but sometimes he makes it hard.
[0] on that note - not only have I seen better taxi demos than today, also seen better robot demos from Boston Dynamics.
The question is how much does a Boston Dynamics robot full of complex hydrolics cost vs a Tesla bot that full of electric actuators. Boston Dynamics robots aren't really design to be produced in numbers and are designed for a different use-case.
Boston Dynamics' humanoid robots thus far have been R&D platforms so the cost isn't all that important. That said, they released a quick teaser for the next gen of Atlas which seems to be all electric.
Yeah Boston Dynamics is way better at locomotion, but their advantage in manipulation is smaller. You also won't see 50 at the same time like Optimus today. Tesla's advantage will be manufacturing.
Optimus has improved quickly. Gen 3 should be better. They showed Gen 3 hands today that looked pretty good.
I don't think Tesla have an advantage in manufacturing. China today is what Japan was in the 70s and their processes are so fucking good.
You can't win on manufacturing - this is, after all, a nation that is now building Volvo's better than the Swedes did.
Tesla fell into the China partnership trap, where the gov subsidises you and you open a "partnership" there, meanwhile they take your IP and knowledge for the benefit of the state (I was in that situation in '07 with Tencent and turned it down).
Hence now $10k Chinese cars - and Biden introducing tariffs to protect local industry (including Tesla - which Elon doesn't seem to appreciate)
On AI at Elon's recent recruitment event he put X.ai in Tier 1 with OpenAI and Anthropic and didn't even mention Meta. To me, as someone who applies these models across industries every day X.ai has never even come up.
That tells me he isn't informed on what Meta are doing (and that is - undercutting the commercial AI industry).
I'm hesitant to think it but there's a ton of hand waving and investor pumping happening here. Which is a shame, because a company with that market cap can do _a lot_ better.
I wasn't impressed by a single thing I saw today. I've seen the same autonomous car demo in a closed environment at my own uni 25+ years ago. I've seen better robots from Boston. I've also seen much better presentations than someone who looked like they are reading the text for the first time.
They have the capital, the mindshare, and the means and they're wasting it.
Tesla's advantage over Boston Dynamics will be manufacturing. Over China, it will have to be innovation and software. China is going to be much harder to beat than Boston Dynamics for sure. But remember that Tesla is no stranger to competing with Chinese companies and they are doing OK vs BYD today and not just in the US, with the bestselling car model in the world and in China. I think the "partnership trap" was more relevant years ago; today China has a lot less need to steal tech, at least in the domain of car manufacturing (note that Tesla is not manufacturing Optimus in China).
It's hardly new news that Elon is an awkward presenter and it isn't relevant to future performance of Tesla. You have to look at the pace of improvement of what Tesla is doing. Among humanoid companies that started in 2021 or later Tesla is the furthest along and improving much faster than the likes of Boston Dynamics. While they are still far behind, they have the time and the funding to catch up.
The Cybercab demo was an amusement park ride (and Elon explicitly billed it as such), however Tesla's FSD is released to the public and can be directly evaluated. While it is not yet near Waymo it is impressively good as of this month and the rate of improvement is very fast now. It just drove me across town for 20 minutes and I didn't have to touch the steering wheel a single time. It was incapable of that on that specific drive just two months ago. And I have the less powerful older variant of the Autopilot computer.
> I agree that Tesla's biggest mistake was doing Cybertruck before the $25k car.
While a $25k EV seems to be what we all want and is almost guaranteed to be a massive hit, there is no evidence such a thing can be done yet without losing money on every sale.
Why isn’t any other car company doing it?
Rivian are losing money on every car sold at 4 times the price.
Reuters said that, and Elon directly denied it. I think it is likely that the $25k car was delayed somewhat from whatever its initial plan was, but not canceled.
The 25k will be on the same chasis and drivetrain as the robo taxi. He couldn't get all the execs to move to mexico to build it, so he agreed to do the robo taxi first in texas, then when they build the mexico giga factory they will build the 25k there. So, one year for cybertaxi line, and a year and a half for mexico factory. Will probably start rolling off the mexico factory in late 2027
Tesla market cap is based on AI/robotaxi/FSD. Without that, they’re just playing catchup to BYD (who quietly, yet aggressively, executes at scale; they offer EVs today between $10k-$20k and already employ more workers than Toyota [for scale]).
Not at all. Global light vehicle sales are ~90M units/year. US ~17M/year. EU ~13M/year. China remains a factory to the world (and itself is the leading market). BYD can build in Mexico (NAFTA) and the EU to avoid tariffs, if desired.
Tariffs aren’t going to keep the EV printer at bay. They only delay the inevitable.
I disagree this would be effective or a path to success. The evidence does not show policy moves faster than capital, and auto tariff policy gymnastics only work until foreign corporations open factories in country (as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, BMW, Mercedes, Stellantis, and Hyundai all have done [US example]).
US EV demand is simply not at the point where this is economically rational (imho), yet. And so, you’re stuck with a legacy auto EV, a Tesla, or a BYD with 100% tariff markup for now. Even with the tariff, the BYD is still cheaper than a Tesla.
It's not rational, but the current tariffs are explicitly aimed at Chinese EVs and were created faster than they could hit the US market in any sizable quantity even using China's existing manufacturing infrastructure.
Policy in support of existing capital that is a heavy hitter politically can absolutely move faster than capital of new entrants.
And with both political parties explicitly being anti-chinese capital currently, it's not clear that a chinese factory would even be allowed to open domestically.
You are ignoring the fact that the world doesn't end with the USA (and EU)... Even in LatAm (which is "west") there is abundance of Chinese cars... In Africa it's probably even more visible...
China can easily get around that the same way they made western manufacturers get around its own tariffs. Only the Americans aren’t going to require 49/51 JVs, even though they should.
This is a bit of an aside, but why does everyone assume, if not for the sanctions, BYD would eat Western manufacturers alive? I for one, don't like to engage in anti-China hysteria, but having had experience with Chinese products, their quality and reliablity is a hit and miss. How would you know, that they didn't cheap out on caps in inverters, and they won't break down after a decade/200k km?
Also their cars are build like modern consumer electronics, welded/glued together at every opportunity.
Take a look at this video where a guy tries to pry apart a BYD battery pack:
I guess BYD's strategy of world domination involves a high degree of automation, so they can make their cars in countries without a large pool of free workers/high wages, that's why they're made like this.
And here in Europe, they're not even that much cheaper, before tariffs. A Seal costs almost as much as a Model 3.
BYD are literally handmade. I expect QA issues worse that Tesla’s Production Hell and in long term support. Plus, they’re doped up with subsidies like an Eastern Block Olympic Athlete; China needs to prop up its books after the Real Estate bubble turned to rubble
They seem to have significant quality issues - I have multiple friends with them in Thailand, and every second social post from them is bitching about whatever randomly stopped working or fell off this time - although I have a feeling they build their Thai market models elsewhere.
Has he like ever met his promised price? If we go by almost every single other car he has released, The 30k robotaxi will be available for like 1 week on a stripped down tier (maybe like 25kwH battery?) or available off menu for like 6 months until it disappears and no one dares speak of it again.
https://skills.ai/tesla-car-prices-analysis/ 37k model 3 for a good chunk of time, especially given the inflation since initial announcement, and given the amount of features in the base version which you'd have to pay out the ass with other OEMs, is actually very good.
Ehh I disagree, the main competition like the Mazda 3 has still been very competitive price wise in that they also kept prices either low or lowered them further post COVID inflation and if you are comparing to the luxury brands then consider the fact that the car launched with a very stripped down interior compared to their competition and still remains that way while their competition have clearly continued to excel in this regard indicates that Tesla have hidden the inflation there.
But the problem with comparing "features" is that tesla fanboys/haters get to assign arbitrary values to the features the cars have. It would be so much easier to just meet your promised price point. In that regard my point still stands.
The interior is minimalist, and ever since the model 3’s release, all other brands have been slowly trending in its direction. The 2024 model 3 interior is beautiful to the point that all the pointless plastic widgets present on other OEMs are kinda hilarious to look at.
what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?
>and ever since the model 3’s release, all other brands have been slowly trending in its direction.
This is probably the most untrue statement you've made all evening and you have made plenty.
>The 2024 model 3 interior is beautiful to the point that all the pointless plastic widgets present on other OEMs are kinda hilarious to look at.
The market seems to disagree given that the gasoline competition is still the overwhelming majority of new sales. There are many reason for that but if this interior was so good they should have swept the market after 7 years of this cost cutti I mean minimalism?
>what makes you think the mazda 3 is the main competition?
The mazda 3 is a non luxury sedan that competes in that segment. You can substitute the corolla the civic or any of those cars on the non luxury side. If you instead consider the Tesla to be a competitor to luxury cars (which is difficult to argue again because you cannot compare feature to feature) then you'd obviously go with the german/japanese luxury brands(as I also mentioned but you ignored).
Again going back to my point, Tesla has a history of never meeting their promised price point when they release their car. Not one model has ever hit their primosed price point. Not even the 12 year old Model S with its sub 50k price point. After 12 years of lies and false promises, there is no credibility that they will get to this magical 30k price point so it becomes moot when the market (which cannot afford their damn cars today gien their sales slump) will not be buying this contraption when it comes out years past its announced release window.
yup it’s only the world’s best selling vehicle :) they have swept the market.
indeed interiors of most other brands have morphed into a large screen instead of the 2010 circus of buttons. Model 3/Y is very competitive with premium german/japanese brands like bmw/audi etc.
I don’t disagree their pricing goals are usually not really met unless given the discount of inflation.
fyi EVs are 25% of the global car market and growing.
One reason is, and bear with me, that this robotaxi does not exist !
There is a good reason why it was all presented in a Hollywood studio, without any specifics. The car we've seen yesterday is a prototype at best, a prototype that's crucially missing a small but important part for a robotaxi - the ability to drive autonomously...
Cybetruck was supposed to cost 40k (1/3 of the initial price) and have twice the range or something like that.
It would sell +++