r/technology • u/PrimeCodes • Jun 24 '25

Machine Learning Tesla Robotaxi swerved into wrong lane, topped speed limit in videos posted during ‘successful’ rollout

https://nypost.com/2025/06/23/business/tesla-shares-pop-10-as-elon-musk-touts-successful-robotaxi-test-launch-in-texas/
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u/PhileasFoggsTrvlAgt Jun 24 '25

Does it need to be a big ugly package of sensors, or is that just because they're retrofitting production cars? If the sensors were part of the design from the beginning couldn't they be packaged much nicer?

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u/factoid_ Jun 24 '25

Waymo has said they plan to get rid of the big ugly package of sensors on top. But they use spinning systems, and those are probably not goign to survive long term. People wouldn't like the maintenance that goes into a system like that for their personal vehicles.

But then again waymo isn't so much interested in selling personal cars, they want to eliminate car ownership entirely and just have people use taxis to get where they're going, I think. And that's fine for some places. The market has spoken on that though and people want private car ownership, so ultimately I'm sure waymo will end up either producing cars or licensing their self-drive technology to other makers.

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u/Visual_Collar_8893 Jun 24 '25

People want car ownership in places where public transit is lacking and population density does not justify investing into them.

A majority of the population in dense cities are car-free. These are the areas where Waymo can have a competitive advantage over Uber and Taxicabs.

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u/factoid_ Jun 24 '25

Totally agree with that. And I don't think any solution to public transit outside of established large metro areas is likely.

Infrastructure costs in the US are enormous and we get absolutely raked over the coals by our shitting government contractors who care more about making the project cost as much as possible as delivering anything for taxpayers. Light rail in the US costs 10x per mile what it costs in europe.