Tesla robotaxi promises clash with reality
▼ Summary
– Tesla’s robotaxi program is expanding to new cities and miles driven is increasing at 10% per week, but CEO Elon Musk tempered expectations by emphasizing safety and a cautious scaling approach.
– Despite Tesla’s claims of growth, robotaxi mileage is nearly flat, the number of unsupervised vehicles appears to be shrinking (only 16 in Austin, 4 in Dallas, 1 in Houston), and total mileage is less than 10% of competitor Waymo’s weekly figure.
– Tesla’s head of AI Ashok Elluswamy argued that the company’s camera-only approach validates safe autonomy without lidar or radar, though competitors like Waymo use multiple sensors and drive about four million miles per week.
– Regulatory challenges, such as a New Jersey bill that would ban robotaxis without multiple sensors, could limit Tesla’s addressable market, with Tesla’s VP acknowledging the situation as “disheartening.”
– Safety concerns persist, as Tesla’s robotaxi fleet has been involved in 18 incidents (56% other driver’s fault), and its Full Self-Driving system is under NHTSA investigation with a potential recall, while the company redacts crash details.
On an earnings call yesterday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk did his best to frame the company’s robotaxi program in a positive light. New cities are being added, more miles are being driven, and more people are experiencing Tesla’s unsupervised vehicles. Yet the typical Musk bravado seemed muted, as the occasional trillionaire worked to temper expectations about what lies ahead.
“We’re going as fast as humanly possible in scaling Robotaxi,” Musk said, “while trying to ensure that we do not harm anyone at all and ideally do not even run over a pet.”
That insistence on growth, however, is colliding with a more sobering reality. Mileage is essentially flat. The number of vehicles in operation appears to be shrinking. And despite the Tesla executive team’s claims of “zero notable incidents,” the safety of the company’s technology remains an open question.
Tesla tried hard to frame the situation as moving in the right direction. Ashok Elluswamy, the company’s head of AI, reported that Tesla’s unsupervised robotaxis have driven 380,000 miles across six cities in two states. Musk added that mileage was increasing at a rate of 10 percent per week.
Elluswamy also took a swipe at competitors that rely on lidar sensors, contrasting them with Tesla’s camera-only approach. “Historically, the so-called experts have always claimed that you need lidars, radars, HD maps, and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely,” he said. “Here we show that such is not true. You can have safe, comfortable, and affordable autonomy with just cameras. This record should be a huge validation of Tesla’s entire AI approach.”
But even those numbers seem to undercut the message. Waymo, which uses lidar and radar as redundant sensors alongside cameras, typically drives around four million miles per week. Tesla’s total mileage, a full year into its robotaxi program, is less than 10 percent of that figure. That gap is unsettling investors. BNP Paribas Equity Research senior analyst James Picariello called it “an alarming decline” in a research note to clients.
Tesla operates a mix of unsupervised and supervised vehicles in its fleet, but the ratio appears unstable. According to the crowdsourced Robotaxi Tracker, the company currently has only 16 unsupervised vehicles in Austin, four in Dallas, and one in Houston. During the earnings call, Elluswamy was asked why Tesla isn’t flooding the zone in Austin, where it launched robotaxis a year ago, instead of dropping small numbers of vehicles into new cities.
“The reason we have been expanding across different cities, instead of just doubling down on a single city, is that we want to make sure that our stack is a very general one,” Elluswamy said. “It is a general one. We just want to like, you know, both prove to ourselves and to other folks that it is working across a lot of different cities without too much effort per city.”
Regulation is another obstacle. New Jersey is considering a bill that would effectively ban robotaxis without multiple sensors like radar and lidar. Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco flagged this on the call, noting “there seems to be some evolving regulations at the state level, potentially around sensor requirements.” Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Morvay, acknowledged, “obviously the stuff in New Jersey, you know, is a little bit disheartening.”
A more restrictive regulatory environment could shrink the total addressable market for Tesla robotaxis, undercutting the company’s narrative of a generalized service that can drive anywhere, under any conditions.
Safety remains another hurdle. Musk’s comment about wanting to avoid running over a pet seemed like a subtle jab at Waymo, which has struck and killed animals in recent years. But Tesla’s safety record is mixed. The company tends to redact important details from crash reports, limiting public insight.
According to the Robotaxi Tracker, Tesla’s fleet has been involved in roughly 18 incidents, with 56 percent attributed to other drivers. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with the potential for a future recall. Tesla’s robotaxis currently run version 15 of FSD, while customer vehicles are on version 14.3.6.
Tesla is asking investors, supporters, and customers to look past these shortcomings as it continues to insist that its robotaxi program is expanding. But the company keeps running into a reality that contradicts that message.
(Source: The Verge)
