Tesla will need some Hollywood magic for its robotaxi reveal

The quality that Tesla volition apt uncover its long-awaited, much-debated autonomous robotaxi astatine the Warner Bros. movie workplace successful Los Angeles underscores however overmuch crushed the institution needs to screen successful bid to drawback up to its rivals successful the self-driving space. It besides inadvertently provides a ready-made metaphor for the types of Hollywood trickery Elon Musk and Co. volition nary uncertainty request to employment successful bid to person their supporters that Tesla’s driverless exertion is truly acceptable this time.

Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that Tesla was readying connected utilizing the movie studio’s batch successful Burbank, California, to reveal its next-generation robotaxi connected October 10th. (The lawsuit was primitively expected to instrumentality spot connected August 8th but was pushed backmost aft Musk ordered much enactment connected the prototype.)

It was an absorbing determination considering Tesla mostly likes to clasp these types of events connected its ain turf. But arsenic Bloomberg noted, the 110-acre batch contains implicit 2 twelve dependable stages, including fake suburban towns that could beryllium an perfect determination to trial a not-quite-ready-for-primetime autonomous vehicle. These see enactment houses, brownstones, and a virtual tiny downtown — each ready-made for a robotaxi demonstration.

The study gained further credence aft a Tesla bundle hacker known online arsenic @greentheonly noted connected X that the institution had started gathering mapping information successful and astir the movie workplace a fewer days anterior to the report. Green, who has gained immoderate notoriety successful Tesla circles by going done the root codification of Tesla’s bundle updates, said the institution was besides collecting information astir different locations, including the still-under-construction Tesla Diner successful Santa Monica and “various SF and Bay Area pieces.”

The revelation that Tesla is collecting information connected these areas successful beforehand of its robotaxi lawsuit suggests a mates of things. First, the institution wants to guarantee that its objection of driverless exertion goes disconnected flawlessly, truthful it’s mapping the areas successful which it could operate. That seems similar dependable reasoning. Tesla has a batch riding connected this lawsuit fixed caller comments by Musk that the institution should beryllium seen arsenic chiefly a robotics company.

“We are an AI, robotics company; if you worth america otherwise, the close reply is intolerable to the questions being asked,” Musk said earlier this year.

Rerouting the institution from its halfway concern of making and selling electrical vehicles to robotics and autonomy is important for Musk, particularly arsenic Tesla’s income proceed to sag globally. Tesla’s marketplace headdress is adjacent to astir each the different planetary automaker’s worth combined. Much of this worth is based connected Musk’s promises to not lone thrust the electrification of the car manufacture but besides “solve” autonomy by releasing a genuinely revolutionary conveyance that tin thrust itself. Whatever Tesla reveals connected October 10th needs to beryllium this is possible.

Any Tesla instrumentality would beryllium speedy to constituent retired that each the different autonomous conveyance operators besides stitchery geographic information earlier launching their robotaxis. Waymo, Cruise, and each the others absorption connected making their autonomous driving systems enactment successful geofenced areas of cities. But arsenic Electrek rightly points out, Tesla has ever claimed that its strategy would beryllium antithetic by utilizing information gathered from its fleet of regular conveyance owners, who nonstop camera images backmost to the institution for annotation and labeling.

With each that data, Musk has boasted that Tesla would beryllium unrestrained by immoderate geographic limitations. In different words, existent “Level 5” autonomy — a driverless car that could thrust anywhere, nether immoderate conditions.

Of course, that’s not what we’re getting connected October 10th. Tesla is apt to amusement a beauteous bully demo of a driverless car tooling astir connected the Warner Bros. lot, oregon astir downtown San Francisco, oregon astatine the Supercharger determination successful Santa Monica. But the thought that immoderate Tesla proprietor would beryllium capable to propulsion a fastener and nonstop their driverless conveyance retired into the satellite to commencement collecting passive income arsenic a robotaxi anytime soon is ludicrous.

That’s due to the fact that of each the glaring holes successful Tesla’s attack to autonomy. For one, the institution got escaped of its radar and ultrasonic sensors and present lone relies connected cameras arsenic portion of its sensor suite. This attack lacks the redundancy that is simply a cardinal constituent of higher-level autonomous systems that see radar, ultrasonic, and lidar to render a 3D situation astir the vehicle. If immoderate debris oregon mud hits 1 oregon much of the cameras, the conveyance would fundamentally beryllium riding blind. That’s not going to enactment for a batch of people.

This besides reinforces erstwhile reporting that Tesla’s “data annotators” person been giving “special treatment” to Musk and respective Tesla influencers erstwhile grooming the neural nets for its autonomous system, according to a Business Insider investigation. This suggests that the company’s efforts astatine processing a genuinely autonomous strategy are being misapplied and possibly aren’t capable for what Tesla claims to beryllium attempting.

Another glaring spread successful Tesla’s attack to self-driving is ineligible liability. To date, the institution has been unwilling to judge immoderate liability for crashes involving the company’s driver-assistance features, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. In fact, Musk adjacent laughed disconnected a question arsenic to whether his institution would judge ineligible liability for its self-driving vehicles successful the future. “There’s a batch of radical who presume we person ineligible liability,” Musk has said, “judging by the lawsuits.”

This strategy has worked truthful far. Last year, Tesla won a lawsuit that tried to blasted Autopilot for a 2019 crash. But if the institution attempts to deploy afloat driverless vehicles, similar Waymo oregon Cruise, it’s hard to spot however it tin proceed to debar liability. There person been thousands of crashes involving the company’s vehicles with Autopilot and astatine slightest 44 deaths. Even 1 decease successful a Tesla autonomous conveyance would beryllium a disaster.

We’ll cognize much erstwhile the institution yet pulls the curtain backmost connected October 10th. Maybe Musk could inquire immoderate of his friends successful Hollywood for a small assistance smoothing retired the unsmooth edges of what gets revealed.