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Spoiler alert: My Tesla Mannequin 3 with “Full Self Driving” (FSD) will be unable to function and accumulate income as a robotaxi this 12 months. No Tesla will probably be ready to take action, until fairly narrowly geofenced so as to launch one thing.

Moreover, there will probably be no new robotaxi automobile on the market and no Tesla robotaxi operations with that automobile. I do know — Elon Musk stated a robotaxi can be unveiled on August eighth (or 8/8, which has its personal points). When was the Tesla Roadster 2.0 unveiled? When was the Tesla Semi unveiled, and what number of are on the street immediately? A Tesla mannequin reveal celebration, traditionally, implies that mannequin is a number of years away from retail gross sales.

No doubt, Tesla Full Self Driving (Supervised) model 12.3 is significantly better than variations that got here earlier than it. Nevertheless it nonetheless has loads of obvious issues with edge circumstances. Whether or not that’s turning proper from a left flip lane in the midst of an intersection, straddling a lane marking on the interstate and driving 50-50 in two lanes, getting into a parking zone by way of a transparent “don’t enter” exit, or driving properly over the pace restrict in a college zone, it isn’t arduous to seek out examples of why Tesla FSD 12.3 can’t be let free to function as a robotaxi.

I get it — after years of little to no progress, it looks like Tesla FSD has improved by leaps and bounds. That’s certainly nice and galvanizing. I additionally perceive the argument that Tesla will probably be processing exponentially extra information within the months to come back and may be taught and enhance. Nevertheless, with it being really easy proper now to seek out methods FSD fails, I don’t see it magically turning into fully secure driverless tech anytime quickly.

Moreover, as soon as it’s really ok to undergo regulators for testing or approval, that course of might takes months or years and is on the discretion of regulators. And there are a few issues to contemplate with that:

1. If there’s simply accessible proof on-line of FSD making errors, regulators can have a powerful case for not greenlighting its use for robotaxi providers. With so many individuals utilizing it and importing movies to social media, it can take a lot of labor and enchancment earlier than edge-case errors don’t pop up.
2. If a real full self driving Tesla hurts or kills anybody, or will get into an accident, even when the fleet is 10× safer than a median driver, Tesla robotaxi operations might be considerably delayed and have larger challenges getting accredited once more. Have a look at what’s occurring with Cruise in the mean time, for instance.

All issues thought of, I can’t see Tesla launching robotaxis or getting near launching robotaxis in 2024. If FSD is prepared, it’s prepared; if it’s not, it’s not, and assuming will probably be prepared in 4 months is simply … properly, the joke about why you need to assume nothing. Asserting {that a} robotaxi reveal occasion will happen in 4 months makes me much less assured reasonably than extra assured that will probably be something greater than a automobile mannequin launch, as a result of Tesla doesn’t know the place FSD will probably be in 4 months (and Elon Musk has been unsuitable about FSD progress and forecasts sufficient to not belief him on timelines anyway). Setting a date this early implies that this occasion shouldn’t be concerning the software program, however reasonably a few {hardware} product. Placing all the items collectively, it appears fairly possible that the August eighth reveal occasion will simply be an occasion to unveil a robotaxi-specific automobile mannequin that Tesla plans to mass produce sometime.

As a remaining be aware, one might hypothesize that the August eighth robotaxi reveal occasion is essentially a response to Q1 gross sales dropping, Tesla gross margins dropping, Tesla inventory declining, and Elon Musk attempting to pump up a Tesla inventory revival. One might additionally argue that AI and self driving are Tesla’s final hopes to retain its inventory value and market cap, that with out some stage of hope round these issues, Tesla inventory will crash again to a a lot decrease stage. Automakers sometimes have a lot, a lot decrease P/E ratios that Tesla has proper now. With out gross sales development, and even with out important (+50% 12 months over 12 months) gross sales development, Tesla’s extraordinarily excessive P/E ratio should be linked to one thing else. So, it’s not outdoors the realm of cause to imagine that this large robotaxi reveal is essentially in response to Tesla’s gross sales and inventory issues.

Or it could be that Tesla is just prepared now (in 4 months, that’s) to unveil a robotaxi automobile mannequin idea. It might be that Elon Musk and others at Tesla are actually so bullish concerning the FSD path they’re on that they need to roll out a brand new mannequin they suppose will probably be used for robotaxi operation in the future, and they’re lastly far sufficient together with that mannequin to plan an unveiling occasion.

Regardless of the case could also be, I believe anybody getting their hopes up about precise Tesla robotaxis hitting the streets in 2024 is being idealistic. I simply don’t see that occuring, and I believe it might be good for folks to not have unrealistic expectations about Tesla robotaxis but once more. However we will see what August eighth brings, and we will see how properly FSD progresses and solves edge-case failure after edge-case failure after edge-case failure after edge-case failure. Possibly the neural nets can be taught higher and sooner than I and others suppose, and possibly I will probably be confirmed unsuitable on Tesla robotaxis within the reverse manner from how I used to be confirmed unsuitable on them prior to now — for being too pessimistic reasonably than being too optimistic. No doubt, I’ll keep in mind this text if Tesla by some means releases true robotaxis in 2024, and even in 2025, which I additionally suppose could be very unlikely.