Tesla has invested billions of dollars over the years toward vehicle autonomy. The mission continues as Elon Musk and Tesla now prepare to unveil their ride-hailing product, Robotaxi this August. Or, as Musk called it on Tuesday, Tesla CyberCab.
Early Days
Five years ago, during Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day in April 2019, Elon Musk said he felt “very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla in the following year [2020]”. At the time, Musk added a bolder claim, predicting that Tesla wouldn’t even make cars with steering wheels or pedals by 2022. While timeliness may not be Musk’s strong suit, he has a track record for getting things done that others were unwilling to try or thought were impossible. Musk later admitted he can be overly optimistic and said “sometimes I am not on time, but I get it done.”
Now, 5 years later, we have the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August 8th. After the release of FSD v12, it’s clear that we’re much closer to autonomy than we were in 2019, although FSD v12 is still a far cry from full autonomy.
While Tesla still has the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August, Tesla announced yesterday that it’d be prioritizing a simpler “next-gen” model that could be released by early 2025.
Latest Updates
On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.
Tesla said it has been investing in the hardware and software ecosystems necessary to achieve vehicle autonomy and a ride-hailing service. The company is confident that it can establish a scalable and profitable autonomous driving business by employing a vision-only architecture.
think of it [Tesla] as combination of Airbnb and Uber meaning that there will be some number of cars that Tesla owns itself and operates
Tesla = Uber + AirBnb
Later on, Elon Musk unveiled that the new service will operate and result in a mix between Uber and Airbnb where the Tesla driver decides if and when he wants his Tesla to be used and by whom. Tesla stated:
“We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App.”
Tesla’s CEO clarified that the owners will be able to add or remove their car from the fleet “whenever they want” adding that it will be up to them to decide if they want to only let the car be used “by friends and family or only by five-star users or by anyone at any time”. The flexible program will, just like Airbnb, allow the owners to take the car out of the market when they want.
The upcoming ride-hailing service will enable users to easily request a Tesla vehicle, control the car's temperature, monitor its real-time location, and adjust the audio system. The only question is when.
Tesla previously told its employees on the Cybertruck production line that work would be halted for three business days and that they would not be required to show up to Giga Texas for any other work. Work was halted on the Cybertruck line from December 3rd until December 6th.
Many speculated that Tesla had hit a demand mark with the Cybertruck or run into other production-related difficulties. However, pausing production for such a short period is a fairly normal business operation, as Tesla continuously retools and upgrades its production lines.
Halts for business demand tend to look more similar to Ford’s F-150 Lightning production halt - where they halted production from November 18, 2024, until January 6, 2025. Ford also announced that this production halt was due to reduced demand for its electric truck in the face of stiffer competition.
Cybertunnel
In this case, part of the reason for the halt could potentially have been due to upgrades to the underground tunnel that is used to move Cybertrucks fresh from the production line to the holding lot at Giga Texas. Tesla has been working on improving the production flow rate for its vehicle - and rather than encountering issues with production, they’ve previously mentioned they’ve had issues with getting vehicles out of their outbound parking lots and off their assembly lines - and into customers’ hands fast enough.
The Cybertunnel moves trucks from inside Giga Texas to the holding lot just outside the factory. At that holding lot, they’re either loaded into trains or trucks to be transported across North America. The tunnel passes underneath Texas Highway 130, helping to ensure that Tesla isn’t clogging up traffic crossing the highway with brand-new trucks.
More Shut Downs?
It’s likely we’ll see even more shutdowns at Giga Texas in the coming months. Tesla has shown that it intends to continue increasing production rates at Giga Texas, which means it will need time to upgrade its assembly lines and processes. In addition, the Model Y is also produced at Giga Texas—and once the Model Y Juniper arrives, there will need to be shutdowns to accommodate re-tooling.
So, no need to stress - it's just regular operations. And we get to see a cool Cyber-themed tunnel too. In the meantime, check out Joe Tegtmeyer’s drone video of Giga Texas below.
Giga Texas on this cold 6 December 2024 morning! Big news with the @boringcompany paving & tunnel covering structure on W side, new mystery construction on W side of GA, continued work on SW corner for tunnel alternate exit & production of both @cybertruck & Model Y today,… pic.twitter.com/94a894ix1I
Tesla’s FSD V13 introduced a host of new features, including the ability to Unpark itself, travel in reverse, and Park at its destination. While FSD can now navigate itself out of a parking spot or garage, there are limited options when arriving at your destination, but that’s about to change.
Garage Support
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI, confirmed on X that a future revision of FSD V13 will introduce a variety of parking options, including parking in garages, driveways, parking spots, or simply pulling over on the side of the road. Drivers will presumably be able to pick when choosing a location, or maybe the vehicle will offer suggestions based on the location.
This will be a big addition, as today, FSD doesn’t understand how to park in a garage or driveway. Some owners trick FSD into parking in their driveway by using tape or road paint to outline parking spots.
Soon, that may not be necessary, and instead, FSD will simply back itself into your garage. This feature will probably work best in larger garages—extremely tight garages may not work, given the reduced precision of vision at extremely close distances.
We hope that if Tesla introduces this feature, they’ll sell printable guides you can stick on the garage walls or floor to help ensure your vehicle is in the perfect spot every time. Many commenters mentioned that they park in urban/suburban garages with only inches to spare around their vehicles, so this will be an interesting challenge for Tesla to address.
Parking Garages
Parking garages offer their own unique problem set. For the most part, FSD can already navigate its way out of a parking garage, assuming that there aren’t any special gates or sequenced/signaled signage.
It is also able to find a parking spot in multi-level garages and navigate its way out. More support for multi-level parking garages is coming, as FSD seems to stick to the garage walls until it can find the exit itself. It seems that Tesla’s data gathering and vehicle-to-fleet communication could aid Tesla in figuring out parking garages in terms of knowing the entrances and exits.
FSD 13.2 enters a parking garage. I then park it on the second floor and it escapes the parking garage. I then park it on the snow covered roof and... pic.twitter.com/GxfsldfkUz
In the Upcoming Improvements section of FSD V13, Tesla mentions that more destination options will be supported, including pulling over (at the side of the road) and parking in a spot, driveway, or garage.
These other destination options are going to be important soon - because one of the biggest FSD features we’re all still waiting for is Banish AutoPark. Once your vehicle can pull over at the entrance of a location and then go park itself, we’re going to be super close to Unsupervised FSD becoming a reality.
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