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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 yea
by nikcub 2y ago
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 would sell +++
- m463 2y agoa ROUND steering wheel and add turn signal stalks!!
- qwerpy 2y agoThe squircle actually works pretty well in the CT! Agree about the turn signal stalks though.
- amluto 2y agoIt would need a NACS port. Otherwise it would be a rather expensive brick.
- porphyra 2y agoand a steering wheel i guess
- bravetraveler 2y agoToss in a spare tire, too. I care to do without! It's several thousand dollars. Signed, annoyed owner of a car with a fix-it-kit and a pat on the ass
- m463 2y agowithout a spare tire, every flat I've gotten is a giant unplanned waste of time (min was 4 hours)
- odysseus 2y agoLast flat I had, there was a giant Allen wrench stuck in the tire and it was rapidly leaking. Filled it back up as much as I could with the included inflator kit, took it a big box store, they patched it up and was on my way. Took maybe an hour total out of my day? No $ cost to me (under tire warranty)
- ClassyJacket 2y agoIt must already have one.
- iknowstuff 2y agoI think it has one but techcrunch/verge bloggers heard inductive charging and leapt into assuming thats the only way to charge
- Veedrac 2y ago"The robotaxi has no plug" — Elon Musk
- darth_avocado 2y agoThis. If you have a robotaxi for under 30k, why not just sell the car for that much?
- toomuchtodo 2y agoTesla 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]). https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/cars/china-tesla-byd-competition-hnk-intl-dg/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/cars/china-tesla-byd-competit... https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/chinas-byd-is-set-to-beat-tesla-in-2024-battery-ev-sales.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/03/chinas-byd-is-set-to-beat-te... https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/bev-sales-10-million-2024-hybrid-growth-surpass-bevs-ice-decline/ https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/bev-sales-10-m...
- thefourthchime 2y agoI think you're ignoring the fact that Chinese manufacturers are heavily tariffed in the west
- toomuchtodo 2y agoNot 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. https://electrek.co/2024/10/09/byd-to-sell-100000-evs-north-american-market-next-year/ https://electrek.co/2024/10/09/byd-to-sell-100000-evs-north-... https://electrek.co/2024/08/16/byd-plots-another-ev-plant-why-a-big-deal/ https://electrek.co/2024/08/16/byd-plots-another-ev-plant-wh... https://electrek.co/2024/03/12/byd-triple-ev-market-share-europe/ https://electrek.co/2024/03/12/byd-triple-ev-market-share-eu... https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/china-ev-driving-seat-us-and-eu-struggle-to-keep-up https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/china-ev-driving-seat-us-a...
- jsemrau 2y agoMake it a convertible.
- modeless 2y agoIt 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.
- nikcub 2y agoThis 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.
- modeless 2y agoI 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.
- nikcub 2y agoI 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.
- modeless 2y agoYeah 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.