13 ms·

Robots eat cars

68 points by JMill 6mo ago

Terr_ 6mo ago
> Steer-by-wire Thinking back to case-studies around the Therac-25 [0], I would like to pre-emptively highlight the differences between: 1. Technique X is unsafe. 2. Technique X is unsafe because too much can go wrong even with the best intentions. 3. Technique X is unsafe without strong QA and interlocking safety measures, and there's too much economic pressure for the manufacturer to cut corners. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25
- cyberax 6mo ago
  Moreover, Technique X does not actually provide any significant value. The whole steer-by-wire in CT happened because Musk wanted a yoke as the control system. And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire.
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
    > does not actually provide any significant value If that were true, it would not explain why other manufacturers are headed the same direction. The CT is not the only steer-by-wire vehicle.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - michaelt 6mo ago
      Vehicles include low-utility features for market positioning all the time. Do buyers need a motorised hood ornament? A tiny vase built into the dashboard? A built-in champagne chiller? Gull wing doors? A spoiler and a 300-horsepower engine? If it boosts sales by giving the vehicle a distinctive character, though, there's a place in the market for that tiny vase.
      - nickff 6mo ago
        The motorized hood ornaments on Rolls Royce vehicles were a solution to the problem of people being injured by, or stealing the (Spirit of Ecstasy) ornaments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ecstasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ecstasy
        soopypoos 6mo ago
        How does it being motorized prevent injury?
        sarchertech 6mo ago
        > Today's Spirit of Ecstasy, from the 2003 Phantom model onward, stands at 3 inches (7.6 cm) and, for the safety of any person being accidentally hit, is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction.
        soopypoos 6mo ago
        I don't think that mentions it being motorized
        sarchertech 6mo ago
        The motor allows you to raise it after it has been retracted.
        soopypoos 6mo ago
        Then why is it spring-loaded?
        SR2Z 6mo ago
        > For the safety of any person being accidentally hit (the spring handles the retraction)
    - cyberax 6mo ago
      What other manufacturers? There's Mercedes EQS and Geely. Both are trialing it in one model each as luxury gimmicks.
  - rconti 6mo ago
    steer-by-wire makes safety nannies way easier, eg, the ones that jerk the wheel out of your hands when they decide you're too close to a line on the road.
    - Scholmo 6mo ago
      I don't think thats true. Its power steering already and cars use that to turn a wheel when you are not driving. So why would that make it safer?
      - rconti 6mo ago
        I didn't say safer, I said easier. https://ddl.stanford.edu/publications/thesis/steer-wire-implications-vehicle-handling-and-safety https://ddl.stanford.edu/publications/thesis/steer-wire-impl... https://www.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/1qnkxpz/reason_for_adas_delay_steerbywire_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/1qnkxpz/reason_for_ad...
        Scholmo 6mo ago
        Yeah sry but I meant easier. But why do you think it would make it easier? Power-steering doesn't mean there are sensors build in or more precise ones. Your reddit comment references autonomes vehicle and in that case it shouldn't matter if the car also moves a steering wheel no one is using while it moves the wheels which is a lot heavier. And in case of your nanny, the main argument of your referenced paper are issues with the hands of the driver. In that case it could make it better for the driver, I might agree, but I would then question how the driver acts if the wheel is suddenly / temporarily not aligned with the wheel. I might also argue that in such a case were my thumb gets in the way, it might be an emergency and i wouldn't worry then?
  - wat10000 6mo ago
    Other models got the yoke but not the steer by wire.
    - cyberax 6mo ago
      Yes. And it was a disaster without progressive steering, they quietly switched back to the round wheel.
  - ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
    > And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire. But also look at Citroën's DIRAVI system, used on the CX, SM, and some XMs. There's no direct mechanical link between the steering wheel and the rack when the system is pressurised. When you turn the wheel a kind of dogbone link thing pushes a spool valve one way or the other allowing hydraulic fluid to push the rack along, which pushes the other end of the link back to shut the fluid off again. So far, so similar to the Danfoss valve in a conventional power-assisted steering system, except that uses a rotary valve and a big torsion spring in the steering rack (that's why your steering wheel feels springy with the engine off). But DIRAVI is fully powered with no mechanical link, so how do you get increasing resistance with increasing speed? Well, there's a governor on the gearbox that allows hydraulic fluid into a little cylinder that pushes a spring-loaded roller against a heart-shaped cam attached to the steering wheel shaft. This will try to spring back to the middle, and the faster you go the harder it springs back. At 70mph you can barely move the steering wheel, but it will flick a large heavy car from lane to lane with fingertip pressure. You have to get used to this and for the first few miles you'll be zig-zagging down the road like you're tacking a dinghy, but after that you'll get used to just thinking about your right pinky finger being a gram heavier and going round a corner. I've driven some seriously high-end sports cars with legendary handling and performance and they feel pretty rough and tractory now ;-) If the pressure fails of course then there's no powered steering (notice I say powered, not power-assisted), although in practice what tends to happen is that the "resistance" part goes first giving you very sensitive steering. What happens once there's no pressure is that the steering wheel moves about 20° before you run the valve to its end and then the dogbone pushes directly on the drive gear for the rack. So the steering is very loose and wobbly but you can at least steer well enough to get it out of the parking space and into the workshop. You still have brakes for an hour or so if the pump belt breaks, and enough steering to get safely to the side of the road, or at least out of the fast lane. In the 1960s they had a prototype Citroën DS controlled by a joystick using pretty much the same setup (hydraulic valve to push the rack around, heart-shaped cam to apply resistance). Apparently it was very comfortable and natural to drive but ultimately a bit to weird even for Citroën. Not a scrap of electronics in it, unless you count the pressure switch and dashboard lightbulb.
    - psd1 6mo ago
- AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
  The obvious problem with steer-by-wire is that in the traditional design, it's not uncommon to lose power assist but not the mechanical connection to the wheels, so you can still steer the car. To completely lose steering control you'd need significant mechanical damage. If the whole thing goes through the computer then there are lots of new ways to fail. Steering wheel position sensor goes bad on the highway? Computer gets bad data. Control wires get disconnected or damaged? No data. Completely unrelated wires get shorted and fry the computer? No steering. Anything pops the wrong fuse? No power, no computer or steering motors. Some of those can be mitigated with redundancy but you're still vulnerable to common causes. You have three position sensors and someone dumps their beverage down the steering column, are there any left and do you have any good way to determine which one(s)? The vehicle took some minor damage allowing water to get somewhere it's not intended to, any way to guarantee you're not about to lose both sides of a redundant electrical system the next time it goes through a puddle infused with conductive road salt?
  - spwa4 6mo ago
    Of course, a counterpoint is what's been happening in aviation. Autopilot became a thing. Autoland became a thing. And, to keep improving planes (first military planes, then commercial aircraft), it was much easier to drop the mechanical connection to the wings. Autopilot started as a help to pilots, and evolved to something that is a necessity and pilot control inputs are "suggestions" or "goals", not inputs like turning the wheel on a bike. To be followed in what you might refer to as "the long term" from the perspective of controlling the aircraft, but in the short term, the computer is to fly the plane in a way IT thinks is reasonable. An extreme example would be to enforce the flight envelope. But today there exist autoland-only airports (as well as huge airports that go autoland-only if things are too hard for humans, like LHR) Most of today's passenger aircraft cannot be flown if fly-by-wire is not operational. Most of today's aircraft actually used for passenger transport cannot land without fly-by-wire. A number of military aircraft, and rocket planes and rockets, even the ones carrying humans, and more and more passenger planes cannot be flown by humans, not just because the mechanical force humans can generate cannot move the control surfaces (which "can be fixed" with hydraulics, if you don't mind serious caveats), but because the human brain is incapable of generating sufficient control inputs at a fast enough rate, or just can't keep stable flight going. Hilariously, this also goes for hobby quadcopters. They are flown by algorithms. Humans can't do it. Not fast enough. Humans provide direction. Algorithms, even AI algorithms that aren't even guaranteed to succeed at all (in professional/military drones), actually fly the thing. But, yes, you're entirely correct by saying "then there are lots of new ways to fail". It also works better, cheaper, faster, safer, more comfortable, ... if it doesn't fail. And ... robotaxis are already far safer than even a good human driver. So whatever the problems ... they don't actually make things worse. Also you should check out geohot's business. A lot of cars already are "fly-by-wire". Their solution? They now have 2 CAN buses instead of one. One for the critical stuff. Cylinder timings. Checking the oil levels. Turning the wheels. Actuating the brakes. That sort of stuff. A second CAN bus for your bluetooth music, and displays and what have you. I hear a certain new Mercedes now has like 7 buses. We are making things safer. We can make this work. We will make this work.
- jillesvangurp 6mo ago
  Safety is a great reason to not do something. Utility and enhanced safety are great reasons to override that reflex. A lot has happened since the Therac 25 incident in the medical world with AI, machine learning, robotic neuro surgery, all sorts of computer aided diagnostics, etc. This stuff undeniably saves lives. The incident did inspire some level of scrutiny of course. But compared to modern medical equipment, that machine is from the stone age. Steer by wire (which the article highlights) is common on all modern airbus planes for decades. The first ones flew shortly after the Therac incident. Boeing has also started implementing that on their newer models. And of course most of the vtol planes/drones currently starting to operate and progress through certification programs also commonly use steer by wire. Several of these flew without pilots before their first manned test flights. These are computer controlled, pilot directed pretty much by default with that part being optional by design. Beyond Tesla, there are now several other manufacturers implementing steer by wire in the car industry. Nio, Lexus, Toyota, Mercedes, and a few others each either already have cars on the road for this or are working on new ones. And while Tesla has received quite a bit of criticism on their FSD system, I don't think there have been a lot of incidents implicating the steer by wire in Cybertrucks. It seems to work and drivers seem to mostly like it once they get used to it. The car is controversial of course. But there's a lot of cool tech inside that is being copied across the industry now. The implied warning "we should be careful with this stuff because Therac-25" is a bit of a cliche at this point. Yes, we need lots of checks and balances when using automation in safety critical systems. And that has been common for decades.
  - psd1 6mo ago
    All analysis should also keep in mind the "who", no matter how logically separable it is. I put this less strongly since boeing contracted MBA cancer and yolo'd the 737-max, but that aside, the civil aviation engineering field controls risks to a fault. Commercial pilots are selected to follow checklists without deviation. I allow them the grace to implement steer-by-wire. Ford kept selling Pintos with exploding fuel tanks, Toyota sold priuses with runaway acceleration defects, and depending on region maybe the worst twenty per cent of drivers ought to be operating nothing more dangerous than shirt buttons. No matter how good the plan is, those people shouldn't be anywhere near it.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
otikik 6mo ago
Cars that nobody buys replaced by robots that nobody buys
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  Who is this "nobody" that bought more than half a million Teslas last year?
  - MK_Dev 6mo ago
    Who bought half a million Model S and Model X?
    - rootusrootus 6mo ago
      What kind of weird question is that? Do you not count Ford's F-series trucks in their sales numbers? Guess they are not very popular, either.
      - otikik 6mo ago
        Second paragraph on the article: > Model S and Model X production is over. Roughly 600 vehicles remain in inventory worldwide. The Fremont factory lines that built those cars So yeah, cars that nobody buys.
- delichon 6mo ago
  The best selling car in the world in 2025 was the Tesla Model Y, with a little over 1 million sold. ~350k total vehicles have been sold in 2026 as of April. https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/ https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/, https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-production-deliveries-and-deployments https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-...
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - 6mo ago
SrslyJosh 6mo ago
> The Fremont factory lines that built those cars are converting to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots: one million units per year at $20,000 each, with public sales beginning in 2027. Sure, why not? Seems just as likely as Tesla having 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of 2026. =)
- actionfromafar 6mo ago
  I heard it will be 100 billion robotaxis on the road by the end of 2026!
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- vessenes 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - mediaman 6mo ago
    Sorry, are all of those model 3 and Y vehicles robotaxis? Or are you saying that because they produced 1.5 million non-robotaxi cars in 2025 that the estimate of producing 1 million robotaxis in the following year is pretty reasonable, because making them autonomous taxis is a minor feature bump...?
    - vessenes 6mo ago
      No, I'm saying that the original content is low-effort shitposting, and that Tesla has the ability to scale industrial production to over 1mm 'things' per year, as evidenced by production last year. I did the OP the mild courtesy of asking him to open up a useful conversation. For instance, "Is there going to be demand for 1mm robots, and if so, when?" Or "How much actual retooling is necessary in Fremont for this?" Both seem like useful and interesting things to talk about.
      - mchusma 6mo ago
abcde666777 6mo ago
One million robots to be manufactured in a year - one million robots which will likely be obsolete within five years (if that, I wouldn't be surprised if they're dead on arrival). I don't know the figures for Earth's resources and their sustainability, so this may be a naive take, but I'm always left with the impression that these organisations want to speedrun the depletion of the planet.
- lmz 6mo ago
  More customers for the related Space exploration company.
  - paulryanrogers 6mo ago
    Assuming they don't starve to death before insert-space-company can get them to the next Goldilocks planet.
    - c0balt 6mo ago
      The next step is just selling tickets to that flight in advance as a preorder. One could call it roadster preorders because of the difficult road ahead
- psd1 6mo ago
  You're anthropomorphising humanity. Humans are sapient; industrialists and politicians have intent. But the incentive structure is an evolved system, and that's what selects these people. The result is that humanity, collectively, is amoebic. We are probably doomed to expand until we have a population crash or until another species arises to keep us in check.
dangus 6mo ago
This article is written with a little bit of a journalist’s misunderstanding of a topic. They seem to have done research but have strung together unrelated subjects due to their lack of expertise in the subjects. As a result it reads more like a summary or recap of vaguely related stories. For example, Tesla’s pivot to robots has nothing to do with their advanced nature of their wiring harnesses, but it’s spoken in the same breath as if to imply that a Tesla Cybertruck (which is a Model Y with paneling literally glued on top) is more similar to a humanoid robot than a Mustang Mach-E. In reality, what has happened is that the Model S and X have been discontinued and they’re the only products the Fremont, CA plant produces. Tesla has literally nothing else they can make in that plant. They either make Optimus robots or shut the plant down. Optimus robot production is a face saving move. Tesla barely needs a fraction of that factory to build robots…it’s a much lower-volume and physically smaller product. I should note that none of that has anything to do with Tesla being great at robotics and seeing it as a better business than automobiles. It has everything to do with competitors catching up and Tesla having insufficient development capability to iterate on those vehicles. Who in the buyer demographic for a Model S wouldn’t take a Porsche Taycan, AUD A6 Sportback, or Lucid Air over that vehicle? Who in the buyer demographic for the Model X won’t take a Kia EV9, Lucid Gravity, or Volvo EX-90? Maybe if you aren’t paying attention to the car industry you’ll disagree with me but the problem here is the Model S and X are positively ancient with about zero dollars spent on keeping them updated and they’ve become completely irrelevant to the market as a result.
- ericd 6mo ago
  > Who in the buyer demographic for a Model S wouldn’t take a Porsche Taycan, AUD A6 Sportback, or Lucid Air over that vehicle? I guess me, though I’d probably opt for the Y instead. I have a friend who drives a Taycan, one of the sportier variants with 4 wheel steering and blistering acceleration, and it’s nice, but it’s clear that they’re still crap at computers and interfaces, and I just really don’t want to go back to traditional car industry software interfaces and feature sets after our Tesla. I doubly don’t want to deal with a dealership ever again. Also, love their mobile service which comes to our garage and fixed a flat on two different occasions while I was working at home, super convenient. Roadside assistance was great when we got a flat in the middle of nowhere with no shops open anywhere nearby, they coordinated getting a tow truck out to us to tow it to a Costco like 40 miles away, gratis. Also, it’s just been a great car for us, extremely practical, great for long road trips, fun to drive, the autopilot works well and makes long drives much more pleasant, especially traffic. I don’t know why people confidently declare them to be bad cars - our experience hasn’t been flawless, but as a total package, it’s been the best car ownership experience I’ve had, including Acura, Toyota, Subaru, BMW, Nissans. I guess some combination of not liking Elon, and the issues from the scale-up period when they were making model 3s in tents, though those are long gone.
Ethanalker 6mo ago
[dead]
monero-xmr 6mo ago
[dead]
ipsum2 6mo ago
I read the title 2-3 times, and every time I swore it said "Robot cat ears". Wtf.
- swiftcoder 6mo ago
  Definitely read it that way at first too
- voidUpdate 6mo ago
  Yep, same here. Its the only reason I clicked on the article TBH
- danecek099 6mo ago
  I was disappointed there were no cat ears in the article...
  - calbear81 6mo ago
    Agreed I was going to buy a set of robotic cat ears for my partner.
- SenHeng 6mo ago
  I read it multiple times, read your comment and clicked on the article and I still got it wrong. I saw Robot ear cats and couldn’t make sense of it. But clicking in the article and seeing the title in huge whatever sizes fonts made it click. I think it’s the small font sizes in HN causing our brains to ‘fill in the blanks’.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- throw310822 6mo ago
  Then you complain about the Rs in strawberry...
  - BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
swiftcoder 6mo ago
> Yesterday, Tesla confirmed that Model S and Model X production is over Did the the 3 and the Y completely cannibalise sales of S and X, or what's going on here?
yalogin 6mo ago
Building robots at that scale without any indication that the market wants it is weird. I wouldn’t want to say atupid because with musk there is no rational thought. However this is not cars where the concept exists and we know people spend 100k towards a car. We don’t know if people will even spend on a robot that doesn’t do shit. Figure is looking at 100-150k robot if built at scale, so u less they revised this estimate down drastically, what does a 20k robot do?
- dyauspitr 6mo ago
  They’re meant to clean your house, do your dishes, do your laundry, some gardening probably mowing your lawn and weeding. The possibilities are endless. It would 100% be worth at least $50,000 if it could do those things even 85% of the time.
  - autoexec 6mo ago
    There's zero chance I'll let a robot into my home to do my dishes when I know it'll be filming and audio recording 24/7 and sending that data directly back to Elon who will mine the feed and sell that data or use it against me every chance he gets. It's so much worse that the idiots who bug their own homes with "smart" assistants and ring cameras. You'd have to be crazy to let someone else's drone into your house. Give me a similar device that I own and control, one without access to the internet, and I'll be happy to let a robot do my dishes, but otherwise such robots are strictly for fools (and sadly there are plenty of those).
    - toss1 6mo ago
      THIS! An autonomous robot that I program, I update (or don't) as and when I see fit, and does not need to connect to the internet or to anything, for $20k that does dishes, or helps me lift things at the shop, and returning data to it's maker IF AND ONLY IF, AND WHEN, I CHOOSE (or dont)? Great - take my money! An ambulatory machine with eyes, ears, touch sensors, continually watching, listening, observing, mapping, recording everything it encounters in my home and/or shop and sending all that data back to it's manufacturer "for improved user experience"? HELL, NO! The latter, supplied by Musk, even if he's paying me $1 million per year to 'host' it? I'll buy the equipment to destroy it as soon as it comes onto my property. I don't think there is any supplier I could even begin to trust when they require a connection. Can anyone here think of one?
johsole 6mo ago
Really looking forward to seeing Optimus and what the timeline actually will be.
accelbred 6mo ago
I somehow misread the title as "Robot cat ears" and was quite confused when scrolling through the article.
Bombthecat 6mo ago
So, what will be the capabilities of those robots after leaving the production line? And not promised after.. Anyone knows?

68 points by JMill 6mo ago

Terr_ 6mo ago

> Steer-by-wire Thinking back to case-studies around the Therac-25 [0], I would like to pre-emptively highlight the differences between: 1. Technique X is unsafe. 2. Technique X is unsafe because too much can go wrong even with the best intentions. 3. Technique X is unsafe without strong QA and interlocking safety measures, and there's too much economic pressure for the manufacturer to cut corners. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

cyberax 6mo ago
Moreover, Technique X does not actually provide any significant value. The whole steer-by-wire in CT happened because Musk wanted a yoke as the control system. And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire.
- rootusrootus 6mo ago
  > does not actually provide any significant value If that were true, it would not explain why other manufacturers are headed the same direction. The CT is not the only steer-by-wire vehicle.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelt 6mo ago
    Vehicles include low-utility features for market positioning all the time. Do buyers need a motorised hood ornament? A tiny vase built into the dashboard? A built-in champagne chiller? Gull wing doors? A spoiler and a 300-horsepower engine? If it boosts sales by giving the vehicle a distinctive character, though, there's a place in the market for that tiny vase.
    - nickff 6mo ago
      The motorized hood ornaments on Rolls Royce vehicles were a solution to the problem of people being injured by, or stealing the (Spirit of Ecstasy) ornaments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ecstasy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_Ecstasy
      - soopypoos 6mo ago
        How does it being motorized prevent injury?
        sarchertech 6mo ago
        > Today's Spirit of Ecstasy, from the 2003 Phantom model onward, stands at 3 inches (7.6 cm) and, for the safety of any person being accidentally hit, is mounted on a spring-loaded mechanism designed to retract instantly into the radiator shell if struck from any direction.
        soopypoos 6mo ago
        I don't think that mentions it being motorized
        sarchertech 6mo ago
        The motor allows you to raise it after it has been retracted.
        soopypoos 6mo ago
        Then why is it spring-loaded?
        SR2Z 6mo ago
        > For the safety of any person being accidentally hit (the spring handles the retraction)
  - cyberax 6mo ago
    What other manufacturers? There's Mercedes EQS and Geely. Both are trialing it in one model each as luxury gimmicks.
- rconti 6mo ago
  steer-by-wire makes safety nannies way easier, eg, the ones that jerk the wheel out of your hands when they decide you're too close to a line on the road.
  - Scholmo 6mo ago
    I don't think thats true. Its power steering already and cars use that to turn a wheel when you are not driving. So why would that make it safer?
    - rconti 6mo ago
      I didn't say safer, I said easier. https://ddl.stanford.edu/publications/thesis/steer-wire-implications-vehicle-handling-and-safety https://ddl.stanford.edu/publications/thesis/steer-wire-impl... https://www.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/1qnkxpz/reason_for_adas_delay_steerbywire_is_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MVIS/comments/1qnkxpz/reason_for_ad...
      - Scholmo 6mo ago
        Yeah sry but I meant easier. But why do you think it would make it easier? Power-steering doesn't mean there are sensors build in or more precise ones. Your reddit comment references autonomes vehicle and in that case it shouldn't matter if the car also moves a steering wheel no one is using while it moves the wheels which is a lot heavier. And in case of your nanny, the main argument of your referenced paper are issues with the hands of the driver. In that case it could make it better for the driver, I might agree, but I would then question how the driver acts if the wheel is suddenly / temporarily not aligned with the wheel. I might also argue that in such a case were my thumb gets in the way, it might be an emergency and i wouldn't worry then?
- wat10000 6mo ago
  Other models got the yoke but not the steer by wire.
  - cyberax 6mo ago
    Yes. And it was a disaster without progressive steering, they quietly switched back to the round wheel.
- ErroneousBosh 6mo ago
  > And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire. But also look at Citroën's DIRAVI system, used on the CX, SM, and some XMs. There's no direct mechanical link between the steering wheel and the rack when the system is pressurised. When you turn the wheel a kind of dogbone link thing pushes a spool valve one way or the other allowing hydraulic fluid to push the rack along, which pushes the other end of the link back to shut the fluid off again. So far, so similar to the Danfoss valve in a conventional power-assisted steering system, except that uses a rotary valve and a big torsion spring in the steering rack (that's why your steering wheel feels springy with the engine off). But DIRAVI is fully powered with no mechanical link, so how do you get increasing resistance with increasing speed? Well, there's a governor on the gearbox that allows hydraulic fluid into a little cylinder that pushes a spring-loaded roller against a heart-shaped cam attached to the steering wheel shaft. This will try to spring back to the middle, and the faster you go the harder it springs back. At 70mph you can barely move the steering wheel, but it will flick a large heavy car from lane to lane with fingertip pressure. You have to get used to this and for the first few miles you'll be zig-zagging down the road like you're tacking a dinghy, but after that you'll get used to just thinking about your right pinky finger being a gram heavier and going round a corner. I've driven some seriously high-end sports cars with legendary handling and performance and they feel pretty rough and tractory now ;-) If the pressure fails of course then there's no powered steering (notice I say powered, not power-assisted), although in practice what tends to happen is that the "resistance" part goes first giving you very sensitive steering. What happens once there's no pressure is that the steering wheel moves about 20° before you run the valve to its end and then the dogbone pushes directly on the drive gear for the rack. So the steering is very loose and wobbly but you can at least steer well enough to get it out of the parking space and into the workshop. You still have brakes for an hour or so if the pump belt breaks, and enough steering to get safely to the side of the road, or at least out of the fast lane. In the 1960s they had a prototype Citroën DS controlled by a joystick using pretty much the same setup (hydraulic valve to push the rack around, heart-shaped cam to apply resistance). Apparently it was very comfortable and natural to drive but ultimately a bit to weird even for Citroën. Not a scrap of electronics in it, unless you count the pressure switch and dashboard lightbulb.
  - psd1 6mo ago
AnthonyMouse 6mo ago
The obvious problem with steer-by-wire is that in the traditional design, it's not uncommon to lose power assist but not the mechanical connection to the wheels, so you can still steer the car. To completely lose steering control you'd need significant mechanical damage. If the whole thing goes through the computer then there are lots of new ways to fail. Steering wheel position sensor goes bad on the highway? Computer gets bad data. Control wires get disconnected or damaged? No data. Completely unrelated wires get shorted and fry the computer? No steering. Anything pops the wrong fuse? No power, no computer or steering motors. Some of those can be mitigated with redundancy but you're still vulnerable to common causes. You have three position sensors and someone dumps their beverage down the steering column, are there any left and do you have any good way to determine which one(s)? The vehicle took some minor damage allowing water to get somewhere it's not intended to, any way to guarantee you're not about to lose both sides of a redundant electrical system the next time it goes through a puddle infused with conductive road salt?
- spwa4 6mo ago
  Of course, a counterpoint is what's been happening in aviation. Autopilot became a thing. Autoland became a thing. And, to keep improving planes (first military planes, then commercial aircraft), it was much easier to drop the mechanical connection to the wings. Autopilot started as a help to pilots, and evolved to something that is a necessity and pilot control inputs are "suggestions" or "goals", not inputs like turning the wheel on a bike. To be followed in what you might refer to as "the long term" from the perspective of controlling the aircraft, but in the short term, the computer is to fly the plane in a way IT thinks is reasonable. An extreme example would be to enforce the flight envelope. But today there exist autoland-only airports (as well as huge airports that go autoland-only if things are too hard for humans, like LHR) Most of today's passenger aircraft cannot be flown if fly-by-wire is not operational. Most of today's aircraft actually used for passenger transport cannot land without fly-by-wire. A number of military aircraft, and rocket planes and rockets, even the ones carrying humans, and more and more passenger planes cannot be flown by humans, not just because the mechanical force humans can generate cannot move the control surfaces (which "can be fixed" with hydraulics, if you don't mind serious caveats), but because the human brain is incapable of generating sufficient control inputs at a fast enough rate, or just can't keep stable flight going. Hilariously, this also goes for hobby quadcopters. They are flown by algorithms. Humans can't do it. Not fast enough. Humans provide direction. Algorithms, even AI algorithms that aren't even guaranteed to succeed at all (in professional/military drones), actually fly the thing. But, yes, you're entirely correct by saying "then there are lots of new ways to fail". It also works better, cheaper, faster, safer, more comfortable, ... if it doesn't fail. And ... robotaxis are already far safer than even a good human driver. So whatever the problems ... they don't actually make things worse. Also you should check out geohot's business. A lot of cars already are "fly-by-wire". Their solution? They now have 2 CAN buses instead of one. One for the critical stuff. Cylinder timings. Checking the oil levels. Turning the wheels. Actuating the brakes. That sort of stuff. A second CAN bus for your bluetooth music, and displays and what have you. I hear a certain new Mercedes now has like 7 buses. We are making things safer. We can make this work. We will make this work.
jillesvangurp 6mo ago
Safety is a great reason to not do something. Utility and enhanced safety are great reasons to override that reflex. A lot has happened since the Therac 25 incident in the medical world with AI, machine learning, robotic neuro surgery, all sorts of computer aided diagnostics, etc. This stuff undeniably saves lives. The incident did inspire some level of scrutiny of course. But compared to modern medical equipment, that machine is from the stone age. Steer by wire (which the article highlights) is common on all modern airbus planes for decades. The first ones flew shortly after the Therac incident. Boeing has also started implementing that on their newer models. And of course most of the vtol planes/drones currently starting to operate and progress through certification programs also commonly use steer by wire. Several of these flew without pilots before their first manned test flights. These are computer controlled, pilot directed pretty much by default with that part being optional by design. Beyond Tesla, there are now several other manufacturers implementing steer by wire in the car industry. Nio, Lexus, Toyota, Mercedes, and a few others each either already have cars on the road for this or are working on new ones. And while Tesla has received quite a bit of criticism on their FSD system, I don't think there have been a lot of incidents implicating the steer by wire in Cybertrucks. It seems to work and drivers seem to mostly like it once they get used to it. The car is controversial of course. But there's a lot of cool tech inside that is being copied across the industry now. The implied warning "we should be careful with this stuff because Therac-25" is a bit of a cliche at this point. Yes, we need lots of checks and balances when using automation in safety critical systems. And that has been common for decades.
- psd1 6mo ago
  All analysis should also keep in mind the "who", no matter how logically separable it is. I put this less strongly since boeing contracted MBA cancer and yolo'd the 737-max, but that aside, the civil aviation engineering field controls risks to a fault. Commercial pilots are selected to follow checklists without deviation. I allow them the grace to implement steer-by-wire. Ford kept selling Pintos with exploding fuel tanks, Toyota sold priuses with runaway acceleration defects, and depending on region maybe the worst twenty per cent of drivers ought to be operating nothing more dangerous than shirt buttons. No matter how good the plan is, those people shouldn't be anywhere near it.

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otikik 6mo ago

Cars that nobody buys replaced by robots that nobody buys

rootusrootus 6mo ago
Who is this "nobody" that bought more than half a million Teslas last year?
- MK_Dev 6mo ago
  Who bought half a million Model S and Model X?
  - rootusrootus 6mo ago
    What kind of weird question is that? Do you not count Ford's F-series trucks in their sales numbers? Guess they are not very popular, either.
    - otikik 6mo ago
      Second paragraph on the article: > Model S and Model X production is over. Roughly 600 vehicles remain in inventory worldwide. The Fremont factory lines that built those cars So yeah, cars that nobody buys.
delichon 6mo ago
The best selling car in the world in 2025 was the Tesla Model Y, with a little over 1 million sold. ~350k total vehicles have been sold in 2026 as of April. https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/ https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/, https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-production-deliveries-and-deployments https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-...
- deleted 6mo ago
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- 6mo ago

SrslyJosh 6mo ago

> The Fremont factory lines that built those cars are converting to manufacture Optimus humanoid robots: one million units per year at $20,000 each, with public sales beginning in 2027. Sure, why not? Seems just as likely as Tesla having 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of 2026. =)

actionfromafar 6mo ago
I heard it will be 100 billion robotaxis on the road by the end of 2026!
deleted 6mo ago
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vessenes 6mo ago
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- mediaman 6mo ago
  Sorry, are all of those model 3 and Y vehicles robotaxis? Or are you saying that because they produced 1.5 million non-robotaxi cars in 2025 that the estimate of producing 1 million robotaxis in the following year is pretty reasonable, because making them autonomous taxis is a minor feature bump...?
  - vessenes 6mo ago
    No, I'm saying that the original content is low-effort shitposting, and that Tesla has the ability to scale industrial production to over 1mm 'things' per year, as evidenced by production last year. I did the OP the mild courtesy of asking him to open up a useful conversation. For instance, "Is there going to be demand for 1mm robots, and if so, when?" Or "How much actual retooling is necessary in Fremont for this?" Both seem like useful and interesting things to talk about.
    - mchusma 6mo ago

abcde666777 6mo ago

One million robots to be manufactured in a year - one million robots which will likely be obsolete within five years (if that, I wouldn't be surprised if they're dead on arrival). I don't know the figures for Earth's resources and their sustainability, so this may be a naive take, but I'm always left with the impression that these organisations want to speedrun the depletion of the planet.

lmz 6mo ago
More customers for the related Space exploration company.
- paulryanrogers 6mo ago
  Assuming they don't starve to death before insert-space-company can get them to the next Goldilocks planet.
  - c0balt 6mo ago
    The next step is just selling tickets to that flight in advance as a preorder. One could call it roadster preorders because of the difficult road ahead
psd1 6mo ago
You're anthropomorphising humanity. Humans are sapient; industrialists and politicians have intent. But the incentive structure is an evolved system, and that's what selects these people. The result is that humanity, collectively, is amoebic. We are probably doomed to expand until we have a population crash or until another species arises to keep us in check.

dangus 6mo ago

This article is written with a little bit of a journalist’s misunderstanding of a topic. They seem to have done research but have strung together unrelated subjects due to their lack of expertise in the subjects. As a result it reads more like a summary or recap of vaguely related stories. For example, Tesla’s pivot to robots has nothing to do with their advanced nature of their wiring harnesses, but it’s spoken in the same breath as if to imply that a Tesla Cybertruck (which is a Model Y with paneling literally glued on top) is more similar to a humanoid robot than a Mustang Mach-E. In reality, what has happened is that the Model S and X have been discontinued and they’re the only products the Fremont, CA plant produces. Tesla has literally nothing else they can make in that plant. They either make Optimus robots or shut the plant down. Optimus robot production is a face saving move. Tesla barely needs a fraction of that factory to build robots…it’s a much lower-volume and physically smaller product. I should note that none of that has anything to do with Tesla being great at robotics and seeing it as a better business than automobiles. It has everything to do with competitors catching up and Tesla having insufficient development capability to iterate on those vehicles. Who in the buyer demographic for a Model S wouldn’t take a Porsche Taycan, AUD A6 Sportback, or Lucid Air over that vehicle? Who in the buyer demographic for the Model X won’t take a Kia EV9, Lucid Gravity, or Volvo EX-90? Maybe if you aren’t paying attention to the car industry you’ll disagree with me but the problem here is the Model S and X are positively ancient with about zero dollars spent on keeping them updated and they’ve become completely irrelevant to the market as a result.

ericd 6mo ago
> Who in the buyer demographic for a Model S wouldn’t take a Porsche Taycan, AUD A6 Sportback, or Lucid Air over that vehicle? I guess me, though I’d probably opt for the Y instead. I have a friend who drives a Taycan, one of the sportier variants with 4 wheel steering and blistering acceleration, and it’s nice, but it’s clear that they’re still crap at computers and interfaces, and I just really don’t want to go back to traditional car industry software interfaces and feature sets after our Tesla. I doubly don’t want to deal with a dealership ever again. Also, love their mobile service which comes to our garage and fixed a flat on two different occasions while I was working at home, super convenient. Roadside assistance was great when we got a flat in the middle of nowhere with no shops open anywhere nearby, they coordinated getting a tow truck out to us to tow it to a Costco like 40 miles away, gratis. Also, it’s just been a great car for us, extremely practical, great for long road trips, fun to drive, the autopilot works well and makes long drives much more pleasant, especially traffic. I don’t know why people confidently declare them to be bad cars - our experience hasn’t been flawless, but as a total package, it’s been the best car ownership experience I’ve had, including Acura, Toyota, Subaru, BMW, Nissans. I guess some combination of not liking Elon, and the issues from the scale-up period when they were making model 3s in tents, though those are long gone.

Ethanalker 6mo ago

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monero-xmr 6mo ago

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ipsum2 6mo ago

I read the title 2-3 times, and every time I swore it said "Robot cat ears". Wtf.

swiftcoder 6mo ago
Definitely read it that way at first too
voidUpdate 6mo ago
Yep, same here. Its the only reason I clicked on the article TBH
danecek099 6mo ago
I was disappointed there were no cat ears in the article...
- calbear81 6mo ago
  Agreed I was going to buy a set of robotic cat ears for my partner.
SenHeng 6mo ago
I read it multiple times, read your comment and clicked on the article and I still got it wrong. I saw Robot ear cats and couldn’t make sense of it. But clicking in the article and seeing the title in huge whatever sizes fonts made it click. I think it’s the small font sizes in HN causing our brains to ‘fill in the blanks’.
- deleted 6mo ago
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throw310822 6mo ago
Then you complain about the Rs in strawberry...
- BLKNSLVR 6mo ago

swiftcoder 6mo ago

> Yesterday, Tesla confirmed that Model S and Model X production is over Did the the 3 and the Y completely cannibalise sales of S and X, or what's going on here?

yalogin 6mo ago

Building robots at that scale without any indication that the market wants it is weird. I wouldn’t want to say atupid because with musk there is no rational thought. However this is not cars where the concept exists and we know people spend 100k towards a car. We don’t know if people will even spend on a robot that doesn’t do shit. Figure is looking at 100-150k robot if built at scale, so u less they revised this estimate down drastically, what does a 20k robot do?

dyauspitr 6mo ago
They’re meant to clean your house, do your dishes, do your laundry, some gardening probably mowing your lawn and weeding. The possibilities are endless. It would 100% be worth at least $50,000 if it could do those things even 85% of the time.
- autoexec 6mo ago
  There's zero chance I'll let a robot into my home to do my dishes when I know it'll be filming and audio recording 24/7 and sending that data directly back to Elon who will mine the feed and sell that data or use it against me every chance he gets. It's so much worse that the idiots who bug their own homes with "smart" assistants and ring cameras. You'd have to be crazy to let someone else's drone into your house. Give me a similar device that I own and control, one without access to the internet, and I'll be happy to let a robot do my dishes, but otherwise such robots are strictly for fools (and sadly there are plenty of those).
  - toss1 6mo ago
    THIS! An autonomous robot that I program, I update (or don't) as and when I see fit, and does not need to connect to the internet or to anything, for $20k that does dishes, or helps me lift things at the shop, and returning data to it's maker IF AND ONLY IF, AND WHEN, I CHOOSE (or dont)? Great - take my money! An ambulatory machine with eyes, ears, touch sensors, continually watching, listening, observing, mapping, recording everything it encounters in my home and/or shop and sending all that data back to it's manufacturer "for improved user experience"? HELL, NO! The latter, supplied by Musk, even if he's paying me $1 million per year to 'host' it? I'll buy the equipment to destroy it as soon as it comes onto my property. I don't think there is any supplier I could even begin to trust when they require a connection. Can anyone here think of one?

johsole 6mo ago

Really looking forward to seeing Optimus and what the timeline actually will be.

accelbred 6mo ago

I somehow misread the title as "Robot cat ears" and was quite confused when scrolling through the article.

Bombthecat 6mo ago

So, what will be the capabilities of those robots after leaving the production line? And not promised after.. Anyone knows?