Trillions from Tesla Robotaxi Will Come From China First

38 thoughts on “Trillions from Tesla Robotaxi Will Come From China First”

1. You know what I tried to do, for a good part of my professional life is that I really did not want to f*** up. Oh hell, that’s Goddam true. What I wanted to do, was to do my job so well, nobody noticed. Guess what others do not notice? Guess what? Guess what the people did not notice? I can chose to have people

2. There wont be any trillions anytime soon. Another false prediction, like autopilot release dates.
   It was claimed 12.4 would be released to the end of April and that it would be revolutionary. 12.5 to the end of May.

   Now it is June and still no 12.4 out yet!!!!! Nothing.

3. China is like borg communist collective. They have problem with being individual and word I. They use we.

   Cheap robotaxis could be really great. But I don’t believe it yet. I have to see if 12.4 is really so advanced as it was marketed, promised all over again and again. Now is it or not?

4. I don’t see how we get to trillions in revenue anytime soon.
   The global taxi+ride hailing market is around $300B, with a cagr of around 3% (20 year doubling time). So $1T revenue in around 35 years. I can see the valuations of robotaxi companies getting into that range, but not the revenue, even with a fairly dramatic shift away from car ownership.

   • If you “eliminate” the drivers in taxis, the cost of using the car go down considerably.
     Add in bus and minibus for more crowded routes of people going from home to work and back.
     Add delivery from Amazon or local supermarkets, restaurants.

     And, in many cases, you can optimize speed for lower energy use. If I’m using my phone, I don’t care if the travel need 10 or 15 minutes. My attention and my hands are free.

     • Spot on. This is the greatest disruption that the world will face during the next 10 years.

     • But why would someone want to live and propogate such a ‘live in the moment’/ ‘no life skills’/ ‘convenience-above-all’ world? This is what it would be like living on that space cruise-liner in Wall-E. A bunch of organic blobs transitioning from one virtual non-existent experience in a real space to another, craving the next novel situation and providing possibly some work/ creative productivity, but little better than the hikikomori, mostly sheltered within their personal screen and tiny group of covenience-friends/family, technically moving about their urban community, mostly iPhone zombies.

5. While I think that we will have self driving vehicles in the future, I think tesla fsd is vaporware. The biring company buult a short tunnel un vegas, tesla gas all the specs and could nit deploy self driving cars in a tunnel (which is nit even a publuc road but a private infrastructure subject to different regulations) with all the unforeseen variables removed. When i lived in Lausanne (Switzerland) 15 years ago we had a driverless autobomous metro line.

6. It’s depressing to me, that a sizable number of people on the far right wing in my country ( USA) think of our system/government as “tyrannical”. Go to China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and a bunch of other countries, and you’ll experience what TRUE tyranny is. And people wonder, why so many people will risk their lives to get here. Duh…

   • Our government IS tyrannical. That some other governments are ultra-hyper tyrannical doesn’t change that.

     • Oh, you think so, do you? So let me get this right: A “little tyrannical” is “OK” but if it crosses a certain line, it ain’t? And what is that line? Who decides? You? Who? I have had it with so many of my fellow Americans who have no knowledge of history, who chose to live in their own little world of social media.

       They don’t want to get “new” information that may just challenge what they believe. Because any new ideas scare them. Sometimes, you need to be scared, to learn anything. Deal with it, my brother. Honest-to-God, our government is only as “tyrannical” as we allow it to be. No, we as the people ARE NOT powerless. But it’s only those of us who know that, we are people who can control our destiny. If so many of us, just understood that. Trust me, we as a people have the power to make AMAZING things happen.

       It’s up to us to elect people to office to represent us who know they have that power. And it’s up to us, to elect people to office to believe in a better future, then what we’ve had yesterday. Predicting the future is in our hands. And you know what? IT IS!

   • It’s depressing to me there are people who think there are “a sizable (sic) number of people on the far right”! Funny enough, these same people fretting and frowning about “the far right” are often in favor of big government dictating how things “should be”.

     • If people on “the far right” get into power, you, me, and everyone else won’t have a choice about what our government does to us. Big government dictating to us? That’s exactly what the far right seeks. Because their so sure of what’s “correct” for all of us. I “fret” about the far right because they think they “know everything”. Honestly, no one can know “everything”. And the far right is to ignorant by choice, to realize that.

7. Most people in the west can not imagine the level of surveillance and control the Chinese government has over it’s people. You J-walk? Facial recognition and personal movement ID technology tags you and you “loose points”. What’s that mean? You may find a little less in your paycheck (regardless of your job) next month. A business man may find his vendors having “delivery problems”. And this is just a taste of the problems anyone can have for making a little mistake. God help you if you make a mistake not considered (by whoever) little. China has video and audio coverage EVERYWERE. Monitored by computers that look for certain patterns, and evaluated by a vast number of people when the computers tag some behavior as odd, interesting, whatever.

   China makes Orwell’s 1984 look like a nudist colony. (At least “there” everyone knows their seeing everything, at least what people really look like, but not what their thinking) China goes to amazing technological and social-intelligence analysis of it’s people to know just that. All that said, just how good a business decision is it to invest in China? An absolute totalitarian state whose motivations and actions are antithetical to who we think we are.

   That said, it’s better IMO to make business, not war with nation states that may conflict with our ideology. But only to a certain point. Knowing what that “point” is, of course problematic.

   • “That said, it’s better IMO to make business, not war with nation states that may conflict with our ideology.”

     Yeah, that’s the excuse our government had for helping China become an advanced nation: That wealth would liberalize them. It didn’t, and we knew it wasn’t working several decades ago.

     But China is really good at buying politicians, so we kept it up anyway.

     • So what were we supposed to do, nuke them? First of all, understand this: China has nuclear weapons, and the ability to hit our country with them. Deal with THAT. What scars me are idiot politicians, for the most part are on the right wing, don’t get this simple “truth”. Good God, it scars me sh****** that such uninformed ignorant people can be elected to represent us. Very scary indeed. What does that say about the people who vote for such idiots? Not much., IMO…

       • There are also scary idiot politicians on the left in major positions of power who believe a man is a woman if he says so, 0.04% CO2 in the atmosphere will turn Earth into Venus, evolution is correct BUT humans stopped evolving the second it became homo sapiens etc. Trashing “the other side” when your own side is just as dumb makes you look…dumber.

         Most politicians, no matter where they reside on the political spectrum, are egomaniacs and sociopaths. Just think of the ego, hubris and ignorance required to believe you are so smart you can, should, must be trusted to command and control literally hundreds of millions of people you’ve never met!

         • Yes there are scary idiots on the “left” It’s important to understand “definitions’. A “sociopath” by clinical definition does not have any “{sense of identity with any other person. They have no empathy. They can not feel another persons pain If that’s because they choose not to, or just “can’t”, I don’t know.

           And because IMO, whoever has such fantastic power, as our President of the United States does, yes can actually kill not millions but billions of people in a heartbeat. That means a lot less then persons “right or left wing”. POV. What matters to me, is what I call a persons “ethical center”. That’s not a right or left thing it’s a human thing. And that’s what matters to me most. No s***.

           • Yes, many politicians are sociopaths, more than in the average population. They lack but can fake empathy. They only care that we care. That’s how they can manipulate enough voters for power, prestige and wealth. Just consider how many of these “selfless” “public servants” retire from politics many millions or many times richer than when they entered.

             It’s obvious to me People drawn to political power are the very ones who shouldn’t be allowed to exercise it. Do I have a perfect solution? Nope. But I’ll never fall into the trap of “my side” is smarter, kinder, nicer, which makes me smarter, kinder, nicer. Let’s face it, most voters ultimately support candidates that makes them feel like they’re better people – or at least appear to.

   • Ingsoc in 1984 was a dismal impoverished society that like the Stalinist Soviets had no private enterprise, no possibility of success at business or fulfilling needs. China has a vibrant, growing, innovating economy with nearly as many billionaires as the US. The idea of Social Credit scores, widespread public surveillance and AI tracking of minor crimes is a social experiment we don’t know the outcome of. It’s not inherently more dystopian than our system of doing nothing to punish minor crime especially juvenile crime or lawlessness of the “homeless” until at some random point we throw the perpetrators in prison for years where they can be tortured and abused by other inmates. Surveillance (and AVs) that can catch minor crimes and misdemeanors quickly and consistently and see that they get minor punishments seems like a much more humane system than draconian punishments for crimes that are rarely caught. There has always been an inverse correlation between the likelihood crime will be punished and the severity of punishment. Europe had hundreds of crimes that were punished with death and torture when the likelihood of being caught was minimal. Surveillance and very likely punishment mean much less need for prisons, violent police, draconian punishment. That’s not dystopian.

     • Guess what? That’s NOT dystopian? Then what by your set of values is? You seem to think Chinas total monitoring of it’s population is designed to only ketch “bad guys”. People who commit violent crimes, and commit other crimes against people. Well, no. That’s not even secondary, or tertiary to why China monitors it’s population so completely. It’s primary purpose, is to detect behavior that some arbitrary government edict says deviates from some status quo. Imagine living in a society where crossing “that line” is impossible to know, if you don’t know what that line is.

       By the way, China is no more a “communist” country then I’m a communist. Which I am certainly not. Communism as a system does not work because it does not recognize the individual person. Who are “the masses”? But a bunch of individuals having a meeting, or whatever. China is a capitalist dictatorship. (It’s really not that complicated) It’s controlled by a very few people at the top, who make all the rules. That’s all folks.

8. My questions? How connected is Tesla in China? With the deteriorating conditions between the U.S. & China, is Tesla at risk?

   • For Tesla, and Musk to be in China, believe me, they are SERIOUSLY connected. For Chinas government controlled society, it’s all about who you know. Is Tesla as a company “at risk” if the s*** hits the fan? In a word; yes, of course. (OK, more then one word) Historically, when a company based in another country finds it’s home country, and the one their in at war, they get eaten. (Blunt but true).

     But today, conflicts between nation-states is far more nuanced. “Conflict” is far more complicated then shooting at each other. (If it comes to that, everyone has f***** up) There are multiple shades of grey, whose constantly shifting patterns embody “conflict” today.

   • The larger risk from the U.S. Government is to its own people no as much Tesla in China. From the open border policy which is eroding all major cities with increased crime and large support costs to the growing risk to the overall National Security that will result in massive terrorist acts then the forever war creation and involvement which will drain resources and increase desires for return attacks. Then layer on the Governments unwavering support to all things pharma which is proving to reduce the entire populations health to pretty dangerous levels albeit slowly. China is actually more supportive of Tesla than the Biden admin is and that is beyond the Union focus that Joe has.

     • Border policy only mattered after 2020. Be honest for once, it never came up, no one cared. Advocates of ‘shutting down the border’ forget it was Saint Reagan who gave amnesty to millions in the early 1980s, under pressure from Republican business owners who wanted to exploit cheap labor.

       • Except those advocates haven’t forgotten or don’t consider it relevant what “Saint Reagan” might have done 40 years ago…oh wait, you’re setting up what’s called a “strawman”. Sure, maybe a few prominent paleo-conservatives think Reagan did no wrong. Who cares? We don’t live in 1984, we live in 2024, where the USA is now the third most populous country in the world. Please convince us how a country of 340 million people still doesn’t have enough people. Please persuade us how importing consumers with low carbon footprints from poorer countries into a wealthier economy where their consumption will multiple several times is good for the environment and fighting “climate change”.

         • Of course, some could argue we DO live in 1984 – Orwell’s version! LOL

         • Ok, it’s not we “don’t have enough people”, It’s that we don’t have enough people with the specific skills our business’s need. Hey, I don’t know how people coming here affect climate change. I do know, of several companies who are desperate to hire people with certain, often very specific technical skills to work in these companies.

           And these companies are DESPERATE. Believe me. If someone from another country can fill that role, why the hell not?

           • Yes, the illegals flooding over the border are all rocket scientists, brain surgeons and chemical engineers. Picking fruit, driving Ubers or delivering pizzas involve “very specific technical skills” the local yokels couldn’t possibly ever learn. They’re just too good to be doing THAT kind of work. And draining developing nations of the very talent they need to fully develop? No problem – as long as it benefits and enriches all the white countries, right?

             It staggers me how many don’t see how repugnant and destructive their immigration positions are even when. It’s. All. Laid. Out. For example, not understanding how someone coming from a poor Third World country to a rich Western country is obviously going to impact the environment more with their newfound elevated Western standard of living and consumption rates of energy and natural resources.

9. Low skill labor is pretty cheap in China. Why are robotaxi going to be cheaper or better than human taxis there?

   • They don’t go on strike.
     Work 24 hr/day
     Closely follow approved traffic laws
     Harmonize close-spaced travel at decent velocities
     Relieve the parking-madness problem of all Chinese cities
     And ‘regular parking’ lots … by parking in remote locations
     Revolutionize vehicular travel to not-owned, and not-gasoline/diesel
     Perfect for capturing malcontents-of-the-State
     Can easily double as food-and-grocery delivery vehicles
     Can shut down centrally if uprisings are problem
     Manufacturable to limited diversity standards
     … especially lacking expensive ‘driver eye candy’ gauges, etc.

     Like having a really well behaved army of human-driven taxis.

     ⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
     ⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅

     • Most private car owners in China have drivers who already do all of the above.

       You can rent a car for the day and they’ll throw in a driver. The car plus driver rental starts at $55/day for a Passat. https://www.delightcar.com/shenzhen-car-rental/

       So, about $2-3hr for a driver. Earning trillions in this market seems unlikely.

       Drivers in California cost about $50/hr. https://yourcarourdriver.com/

       AVs are high value, far less so in China.

       • Yes, your right. In China you rent a car, it often comes with a driver as “part of the package”. Some locations in India as well. And in North Korea, you get a driver AND a “handler”, and if you don’t like it, think it’s overkill, whatever, that’s just to bad… You want the car? The “guys” just come with it. It can be rather comical. The guys are not actually able (usually) to help you get where you want to go. (There is no commercial GPS in North Korea)

         That’s actually not their job. There job is to monitor were you go, and who you meet. I guess they figure two guys are less likely to “miss anything”. The two guys also monitor (spy) on each other. A visitor realizes this very quickly, and it’s quite creepy. With a keystone cops kind of silliness.

     • Good points, many that I had not thought of. Many analysts of technology look at the utility to the end user to measure the price that can be applied and then the financial rewards that the technology owner can reap. In China the political calculation is very much to the forward. As far as the Communist party is concerned control and tracking of who is travelling around and the ability to remove access to transport for troublesome individuals and even in the case of mass disturbances provides very desirable functionality. Of course all the other items that you list are also welcome. Seems like the Chinese people are slipping into a nightmare of government control beyond what even Orwell could forsee.

       • Let me tell you something. In 1988, just before the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, I was in east Berlin, before the fall of the Berlin wall. What I experianced was both sobering, and terrorizing. I will do my best to explain to you what thar was like. Hang on to your ass people, this is going to be VERY scary. You see, in western societies you have this sense of “predictability” In East Germany, in the late 1980’s there was no sense of “predictability” I can not tell you how scary this was for people in that country.

         There was a TV movie in the 1980’s called “Intruders” were a general in our military spoke to a psychologist trying to recruit him, when he told him: You know what? WE DON”T KNOW what the hell is going on. All this UFO stuff, we don’t have a clue what’s going on. Guess what? I believe that .People think our military “knows stuff” the rest of us don’t (the basics of conspiracy thinking mindsets, is to think “they” know something you don’t)

         Know what? That’s rarely true. What’s interesting, is how many people do not know how just much they DO know. The average person, can ask reasonable questions, about rational answers to those questions. and come up with (most of the time) reasonable answers.

         Those answers may not be “right” or “correct”. but know what? They won’t be “crazy or insane”. And isn’t that the best one can hope for on certain day’s.? Christ, I do.

         • And anyone who disagrees with you is “far right”, right?

       • Understand this, the definition of a communist simply does not apply to the current system in China. The communist party, as defined by Karl Marx simply does not exist any were on Earth today. And how could it? Communism has a foundational, basic flaw: It can not recognize who an individual is, let alone their value, as an individual person.

         This is were all society begins. With individuals starting with each and every one of us, who are the foundation of every society, and culture. If you deny the importance and primacy of the individual, in time, your people are doomed. Scary, but very true .Any society that does not recognize the individual, will surely die. As sure as if an asteroid hit you in the head, or ass. Either way, your dead.

   • They happen to be cheaper and better for many reasons including Goatguy’s but Brian says from China “first”. All that matters is that China is the first big market for large scale adoption of FSD – not how profitable it is there. It just needs to be enough to drive mass adoption. Tesla benefits from perfecting the system there and ultimately is able to take it everywhere and make Trillions. Chinese EVs as well as robotaxi and ride sharing will adopt it if it’s better than the rival LiDAR/Hidef map system running on Nvidia – which it is, and because it’s already mass produced. Nvidia is an American company too so it’s not like it’s taking on indigenous Chinese AV tech. One killer app attribute is that EVs that can drive themselves with Tesla FSD will drive those that can’t out of the market very quickly once FSD is accepted as a genuine AV system. Every OEM will license it.

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