What will it take to make you seriously consider an EV?

We know it's cheapest, just like having one camera only is cheapest. It doesn't make it safer though. Waymo's objective is to make self driving safe first, then cost effective later. Elon's approach is to make it cost effective, and then safe.

If Waymo is 99.9% safe and Tesla is 99.5% safe, who will be choosing each? That means every single day, assuming 100k rides, there are 500 accidents to Waymo's 100. So Tesla has 5x the accidents. No one will be trying to get in a Tesla. I still haven't seen a FSD vehicle in the rain, snow, or any sub-optimal driving conditions.

 

How will these companies handle disaster scenarios like rapid evacuations, opening reverse lanes, earthquake rubble, riots and protests, parts of town being shut down due to bombs or fires, and other unexpected events?

Not every day will be a blue-sky day.

 

I honestly don't think just cameras will ever be the answer. Yes, it's cheaper, but by the time they make really viable, Lidar will be cheap enough where people will just choose that. Waymo uses expensive systems, but wouldn't take much for them to switch over to all the less expensive LIDAR tech they put in Chinese EV cars. I would also like to see the safety reports on Chinese self driving vehicles.

 

Consumers will not be basing their ride sharing decisions based on technology. It will be price foremost and preferred bias second. Additionally Tesla will offer a whole suite of additional features that an Uber/Waymo experience has not even begun to develop.

 

It will be overwhelmingly based on price, not safety record. If safety is even a remote concern, the service will not run.

 

It's going to be based on perceived safety. By the time Tesla can get their tech without drivers sitting in the seat, Lidar tech will be cheap enough where it will be a non factor in an commercial environment. People will choose the perceived safer option which is LIDAR and currently Waymo.

 

Are the cheaper Chinese LIDARs as good as what Waymo uses? I don’t believe the substitution is as easy as you think.

The real bottom line is whether autonomy can be done just by cameras, not how much the cost of LIDAR can be trimmed.

 

Uber has lost money for decades. There's plenty of VC money to sustain these ride share programs at a loss for a while. Tesla for sure won't be winning on price. It will be more about who can sustain a loss for as long as possible in order to drive the competitor out. Waymo may "lose" a lot more money per ride at the beginning but they are going to keep their price competitive for as long as it takes, while their costs go down.

 

Some people here say this is the future

 

Posting content from an obvious Tesla shill account, LMAO. Even using the word "un-alive" is crazy because there's no way anyone would die from a collision at the speeds in the video.

I can find dozens of vids of Teslas messing up.

 

That's just Jeff Goldblum and his Dad trying to go against the traffic to get to the White House because...well...the aliens are hovering all around us...

 

arent you the poster that has been on here for years touting tesla and its stock? it's just like politics isnt it? find your team then ignore everything bad about your team and focus only on the bad for the other team.

does it get tiring to look at everything through that lens and not be able to look at the whole picture objectively? i am glad that there are individuals out there that can look at the positives/negatives on both sides like a rational adult.

 

Aren't you the poster who continues to make grand assumptions? If you insist on being rude regarding peoples investments, Ill share with you that I didn't purchase TSLA until early this year. The stock and the performance of the product are completely different topics.

I have mocked those who keep banging on about 'the competition is coming'. Im sure you still think Rivian is competition.

Objectively, I have used FSD. It performs exceptionally well at high speeds. Its not perfect and its not quite ready to be completely released unsupervised. Its laughably ignorant to think lidar is going to work autonomously at 85mph. Just like its laughably ignorant to think any American or European car company is going to compete with Tesla in volume in the next 10 years. Or that Tesla is just a car company.

I look at the whole picture objectively. I understand Tesla is vertically integrated. They control some of their lithium production. They control some battery production. factories are highly automated. The vehicles are now delivering themselves to the customers. Massive volume production for energy storage gives significant volume discount across all product lines. xAI, which will likely be absorbed by Tesla, has some of the highest compute power in the world. Tesla battery packs stabilize energy issues in these data centers. All of this AI technology will be absorbed into these vehicles. Eventually data communication in the vehicles will be handled by Starlink. I could go on and thats before we start talking about humanoid robots.

But all you see is a battery on wheels with a few expensive lidar sensors and somehow you call that the 'whole picture'.