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It's the context that they're planning a $25k robot taxi instead because automation is more important; it sounds like they can, and had wanted to make an afford
by petee 2y ago
It's the context that they're planning a $25k robot taxi instead because automation is more important; it sounds like they can, and had wanted to make an affordable one, but Musk had a "vision" or something. Is a robot taxi really cheaper to make than a manual car? And who even wants that?
That said, Musk has brought nothing to the table that someone else couldn't have, he gets far too much credit. He's just a talker. For example, the Cybertruck apparently had some great design ideas before he overrode the design team
- robocat 2y ago> Is a robot taxi really cheaper to make than a manual car? If we only look at the future costs to supporting a consumer vehicle over the long term there could be significant savings by avoiding those costs. No need to overengineer - design for X km not Y years. No need to engineer for fixing some accidents - maybe cheaper to write off vehicle: removes infrastructure costs and reduces parts inventory. No need to support vehicle after Y years - reduce long term maintenance. Design for fleet refreshes every Y years. Designing vehicle to be written off on accounts (depreciate - no resale): paper gains matter hugely to corporations. Optionality... If robotic hardware is improving rapidly then may be cheaper overall to build new vehicles than upgrade older fleet. Design for recycling. Handover old fleet from US to Mexico - keep using old vehicles in jurisdictions where liability and modern branding is less important.