Elon: “we expect the first operational robotaxis next year - with no one in them”.
Brandon: "that could mean he thought they would be testing a small number of robotaxis without passengers, or it could mean actual robotaxis with passengers but no driver. Parsing these kinds of Musk statements is its own art form"
There is no art form needed because the statement is crystal clear unless you're a mental contortionist trying to bend the statement into something that wasn't said. "No one in them" means no-one. Nobody. No driver. No Passengers. No cops. No sentient robots. Aka empty. Aka devoid of humans. Aka if you looked through the windows the seats would be empty. If you were to fill the car with poisonous gas, nobody would die. This is like an unintentional recreation of the famous Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch: "is no more", "has ceased to be", "bereft of life, it rests in peace".
I understand you want to be perceived as an impartial, unbiased observer who isn't a fanboy or a hater in order to more credibly criticize FSD as likely never beling delivered later. But when you hedge and hem and haw over crystal clear, unambiguous language in order to create a false controversy of "Well both sides have valid interpretations" then your impartiality looks silly.
Just state the obvious: Elon Musk was wrong. You can debate whether he's lying or just woefully ignorant but there is no debate that he has been nothing but consistently, spectacularly unreliable in his predictions.
I think FSD will be delivered later (one way or another), just not on HW3 vehicles (without further hardware retrofits).
Go back and watch the video. I don’t think what he means is clear at all, and it’s similar enough to other statements about “no driver” that it’s not surprising reasonable people would interpret it that way. Indeed, I think many people would say I’m being too charitable even suggesting that he could have meant a small number of empty test vehicles.
(Also, there’s the matter that nobody really operates empty test vehicles - they have a safety driver when in that phase of testing - and even for some time after they have passengers!)
Taxis will often be on dead-head runs without passengers between pickups and drop-offs.
The full quote in context is he says just before that statement:
"this year... we feel very confident about being feature complete with self driving"
"we expect to have the first operating robo taxis next year. With no one in them, next year."
"I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year. [regulatory discussion] so any customer will be able to add or remove their car to the Tesla Network."
[Describes Tesla Network of summoning a Tesla without anyone in it to your location and it driving "fully autonomously"]
If he's claiming, "Feature Complete this year" then what's the difference between "feature complete" and "fully operational robotaxi with no one in it" (except a safety driver)?
He even pauses for dramatic effect before saying "with no one in them".
There's no ambiguity. He immediately justifies his claim with saying that "software is exponential." and dismisses his critics as dumb linear thinkers who can't comprehend exponential growth--while also giving himself an out for the claims he just made might be delayed a little because exponential curves mean it might "look" like he's way behind his prediction--but the exponential growth in reliability will mean a short delay with massive improvements.
The fact that he also spends a good amount of time hedging his timeline as being limited to just the jurisdictions where "regulators allow it" is further proof he's talking about level 4 robotaxis... with nobody in the vehicle.
He refers to these Robotaxis as "Autonomous", "Operational", "No one in them". There's no ambiguity or there's no such thing as being unambiguous.
I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t suggesting they’d only have taxis that somehow are only between jobs. Frankly I’m having trouble understanding what you’re arguing here. His next statement, as you showed, really makes it sound like he was predicting actual *active* “autonomous robotaxis”. But in your prior reply, you were arguing that he wasn’t talking about actual usable robotaxis.
I think you’re only making my case that what he said was confusing and subject to various interpretations. Either way, it was a ridiculous prediction and they didn’t achieve it.
However, the more sane goal of having 1 million cars with HW3 was likely met.
No not exclusively between jobs. But "No one in them" is a proxy for Level 4. Aka operating without anyone in the vehicle ready to take over. Yes, there would be paying passengers sometimes, but they would other times be between customers aka "dead head" empty drives. Level 3 would require a safety driver present to take-over within a few seconds. So, he was saying they would have empty truly fully autonomous Level4+ robotaxis next year (2020) driving around between passenger filled trips.
It's like claiming the alien dreadnought factory would operate with lights-out and have "nobody inside". That doesn't mean there'll never ever be a human in the factory building. It means that the factory *can* operate without employees--even if sometimes an employee comes in to perform repairs or install new equipment. It's a capability to illustrate the fact that the employees are non-essential for standard manufacturing operations.
It would be silly to interpret that to say, "Does that mean nobody would ever come and take a tour?"
Like I said, he made a vague claim which, at least during that event, did not include "one million operational robotaxies in a year" as was widely reported. "First operational robotaxies by the end of 2020" would have been a more accurate way to represent it, though I do think it would be worth calling out that he explicitly prefaced this prediction by saying he's usually too optimistic about timelines.
I think it was a crazy prediction either way. I was just trying to explain what was said and how different people appeared to interpret it.
Elon: “we expect the first operational robotaxis next year - with no one in them”.
Brandon: "that could mean he thought they would be testing a small number of robotaxis without passengers, or it could mean actual robotaxis with passengers but no driver. Parsing these kinds of Musk statements is its own art form"
There is no art form needed because the statement is crystal clear unless you're a mental contortionist trying to bend the statement into something that wasn't said. "No one in them" means no-one. Nobody. No driver. No Passengers. No cops. No sentient robots. Aka empty. Aka devoid of humans. Aka if you looked through the windows the seats would be empty. If you were to fill the car with poisonous gas, nobody would die. This is like an unintentional recreation of the famous Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch: "is no more", "has ceased to be", "bereft of life, it rests in peace".
I understand you want to be perceived as an impartial, unbiased observer who isn't a fanboy or a hater in order to more credibly criticize FSD as likely never beling delivered later. But when you hedge and hem and haw over crystal clear, unambiguous language in order to create a false controversy of "Well both sides have valid interpretations" then your impartiality looks silly.
Just state the obvious: Elon Musk was wrong. You can debate whether he's lying or just woefully ignorant but there is no debate that he has been nothing but consistently, spectacularly unreliable in his predictions.
I think FSD will be delivered later (one way or another), just not on HW3 vehicles (without further hardware retrofits).
Go back and watch the video. I don’t think what he means is clear at all, and it’s similar enough to other statements about “no driver” that it’s not surprising reasonable people would interpret it that way. Indeed, I think many people would say I’m being too charitable even suggesting that he could have meant a small number of empty test vehicles.
(Also, there’s the matter that nobody really operates empty test vehicles - they have a safety driver when in that phase of testing - and even for some time after they have passengers!)
Taxis will often be on dead-head runs without passengers between pickups and drop-offs.
The full quote in context is he says just before that statement:
"this year... we feel very confident about being feature complete with self driving"
"we expect to have the first operating robo taxis next year. With no one in them, next year."
"I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year. [regulatory discussion] so any customer will be able to add or remove their car to the Tesla Network."
[Describes Tesla Network of summoning a Tesla without anyone in it to your location and it driving "fully autonomously"]
If he's claiming, "Feature Complete this year" then what's the difference between "feature complete" and "fully operational robotaxi with no one in it" (except a safety driver)?
He even pauses for dramatic effect before saying "with no one in them".
There's no ambiguity. He immediately justifies his claim with saying that "software is exponential." and dismisses his critics as dumb linear thinkers who can't comprehend exponential growth--while also giving himself an out for the claims he just made might be delayed a little because exponential curves mean it might "look" like he's way behind his prediction--but the exponential growth in reliability will mean a short delay with massive improvements.
The fact that he also spends a good amount of time hedging his timeline as being limited to just the jurisdictions where "regulators allow it" is further proof he's talking about level 4 robotaxis... with nobody in the vehicle.
He refers to these Robotaxis as "Autonomous", "Operational", "No one in them". There's no ambiguity or there's no such thing as being unambiguous.
I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t suggesting they’d only have taxis that somehow are only between jobs. Frankly I’m having trouble understanding what you’re arguing here. His next statement, as you showed, really makes it sound like he was predicting actual *active* “autonomous robotaxis”. But in your prior reply, you were arguing that he wasn’t talking about actual usable robotaxis.
I think you’re only making my case that what he said was confusing and subject to various interpretations. Either way, it was a ridiculous prediction and they didn’t achieve it.
However, the more sane goal of having 1 million cars with HW3 was likely met.
No not exclusively between jobs. But "No one in them" is a proxy for Level 4. Aka operating without anyone in the vehicle ready to take over. Yes, there would be paying passengers sometimes, but they would other times be between customers aka "dead head" empty drives. Level 3 would require a safety driver present to take-over within a few seconds. So, he was saying they would have empty truly fully autonomous Level4+ robotaxis next year (2020) driving around between passenger filled trips.
It's like claiming the alien dreadnought factory would operate with lights-out and have "nobody inside". That doesn't mean there'll never ever be a human in the factory building. It means that the factory *can* operate without employees--even if sometimes an employee comes in to perform repairs or install new equipment. It's a capability to illustrate the fact that the employees are non-essential for standard manufacturing operations.
It would be silly to interpret that to say, "Does that mean nobody would ever come and take a tour?"
Like I said, he made a vague claim which, at least during that event, did not include "one million operational robotaxies in a year" as was widely reported. "First operational robotaxies by the end of 2020" would have been a more accurate way to represent it, though I do think it would be worth calling out that he explicitly prefaced this prediction by saying he's usually too optimistic about timelines.
I think it was a crazy prediction either way. I was just trying to explain what was said and how different people appeared to interpret it.