57 pointsby toomanyrichies4 hours ago18 comments
  • Animats3 hours ago
    Not surprised. As I wrote yesterday, the videos of the robots performing household tasks look much smoother than the actual walking robots seen live.

    Tesla is not doing well as a car company. Tesla needs a good, low-cost car. Something that can compete with the BYD Seal, which reviews indicate is a good low-priced electric car. BYD is taking over the world of electric cars outside the US.[1] Only tariffs keep them from taking over the US market. They have many new models at good prices. BYD even has a pickup truck now.

    Tesla also is not doing too well in batteries. Despite "Battery Day" and other hype, Tesla failed at making cells themselves.[2] They buy cells from Panasonic and CATL, mostly. Panasonic has some plants co-located with Tesla, but they're Panasonic technology.

    Plus Tesla still has trouble with parts and service. The company is twenty years old now. They should have that figured out.

    Tesla did fix its production volume problems. But "according to its own figures, the electric automaker produced 46,561 more vehicles than it delivered to customers during the first quarter of 2024. Where are all these cars going? Parking lots at its factories, malls and airports."[3]

    Tesla launched the electric car industry. But they've blown their lead. This is what happens when the CEO's attention is elsewhere. Will someone please get Musk into drug rehab? He used to be good at this stuff.

    [1] https://www.byd.com/us/news-list

    [2] https://electrek.co/2024/07/17/elon-musk-might-give-up-tesla...

    [3] https://jalopnik.com/tesla-is-running-out-of-room-to-store-u...

    • FireBeyond3 hours ago
      > Plus Tesla still has trouble with parts and service. The company is twenty years old now. They should have that figured out.

      I think there's more nuance to this. It seems much more that, to Elon, every part sitting on a shelf for parts availability, repair and service is a part that's not on the production line going on a vehicle to increase the almighty quarterly numbers.

      Tesla -could- solve this tomorrow, but the Boss Man doesn't care. He has your money, and he wants to sell you another one, not repair yours.

      • TheAlchemist3 hours ago
        The reason he's doing it is that ... it costs a lot of money to provide adequate service for the millions of cars they sold. It's much cheaper to just not do it.
        • nothercastle2 hours ago
          Service is a profit center idk why you wouldn’t focus on Selling parts and labor at 200-300% markup vs 10% car margins
      • Animats2 hours ago
        Customer service is so not Silicon Valley.

        It's surprising that Waymo is doing OK in a service business. All those cars have to be stored, recharged, and cleaned. Somewhere there's probably someone that didn't come from Google in charge of that.

    • worstspotgain3 hours ago
      As far as false dichotomies go, "Tesla or BYD" is about as bad as it gets. On the whole, the world is a little worse off if you buy either. Might as well buy a gasoline car then.

      If you're on the fence, consider giving the other US/EU/Japanese automakers a couple years to catch up. They know the future is 100% EVs. They're steering enormous ships with large investments and many stakeholders.

      • presentation2 hours ago
        Is it bad to buy BYD because you don’t like China?
    • 14an hour ago
      What I hate is that we keep yelling global climate change we need to act now then we tarrif byd and prevent the masses from being able to afford an EV. The average person can not afford a $50k plus car. I know allowing China to flood our market would kill the North American car industry but I honestly think allowing climate change to take a back seat instead will ultimately end up being the more costly choice. I wish American car companies could see this and find some way to provide a sub $15k car. It doesn't need to be ultra long range. It doesn't need fancy touch screens. It doesn't need power windows even. Just a basic car with a half decent battery meant to go around 150km or so.
    • worstspotgain3 hours ago
      [flagged]
  • gorpy728 minutes ago
    The goal of this robot is not just to be as articulating as existing bots but to do so cheaply. so it’s, as often said, about the factory that makes them not the bespoke million dollar shelf pieces we’ve seen before. in some cases, like the actuators, they are making in-house, otherwise, the strategy is likely to be to use as many cheap existing hardwares as possible to get the movement without the costs of greater complexity. let the software handle the rest.
  • xpl3 hours ago
    It's obvious. Imagine the PR disaster if the robot 'hallucinated' and said something inappropriate, or worse, accidentally pushed or hit someone. Why take the risk when everything needs to run smoothly?

    The first time they showed Optimus, they literally had a human in the suit, so this is a huge step forward.

    That said, a teleoperated humanoid body is an impressive tech feat by itself, seriously.

    • DeepYogurt3 hours ago
      > That said, a teleoperated humanoid body is an impressive tech feat by itself, seriously.

      Hard disagree. The point of the event was to show off autonomous robots and this is pure deception.

      > The first time they showed Optimus, they literally had a human in the suit, so this is a huge step forward.

      That is quite the curve to grade on.

      • gorpy733 minutes ago
        Many many videos can be seen where the optimus robot explicitly says to the crowd around them great they are being tele-operated.
    • weare13823 minutes ago
      Telerobotics is nothing new. The Lindbergh operation was 23 years ago. Check out Boston Dynamics current generation of autonomous robots. The Optimus is years behind the current tech.

      It's just a game of smoke and mirrors. There's a reason Tesla had the demo at a Hollywood movie studio.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindbergh_operation

    • worstspotgain3 hours ago
      Only if by "run smoothly" you mean "any publicity is good publicity."
      • hindsightbias3 hours ago
        What if millions no longer needed to cross borders and could telehandle flipping your burgers? Rising tides…

        You’d think a WFH bastion would be more open minded.

        • wodenokoto3 hours ago
          Then sell it as that, not as an AI.
    • 3 hours ago
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    • tapoxi3 hours ago
      I mean we have robots doing telesurgery regularly (Da Vinci), serving drinks is literally a party trick.
      • xpl3 hours ago
        It's actually difficult to achieve even something as simple as getting a robot to stand upright. Most of them walk with bent knees and constantly shift from one foot to the other (e.g. Boston Dynamics).
  • iwaztomack3 hours ago
    Guy owns two AI companies and still is a decade behind.
    • forgot-im-old3 hours ago
      Elon's preoccupied with his semi-secret national security work (which turned into all the political shenanigans)

      https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/1fy10k1/comment/...

      AI is on the back burner and the investment/hiring has been mostly puff.

    • briandw3 hours ago
      Behind whom? You are most likely referring to Boston Dynamics based on the 10 year comment. Optimus doesn't do back flips, so sure it's 10 years behind on backflips. Boston Dynamics famously doesn't do AI for control, not sure what you are talking about.
  • an hour ago
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  • freitasman hour ago
    Can we agree that he is leading the company down a path which it will be really hard to come back from later?
  • edm0nd3 hours ago
    The future is going to be so weird and interesting.

    Imagine being able to control these things remotely and then walking a few of them into a bank to rob it. Then the robots attach the stolen money/goods to a drone which then flies off to another point to drop off the loot to its threat actors and masters who then get away.

    I suppose the price points of them will need to come down drastically before this becomes commonplace and normal. Leaving $150k of burner robots behind to steal $50k doesn't seem that financially feasible.

    We are gunna have a lot of new interesting laws in the pipeline.

    Imagine having to solve a captcha to get into a building or buildings who have to install anti-robot traps and technology to prevent them from entering. We already have man traps, now we'll need robot traps.

  • xyst3 hours ago
    It’s all a Potemkin Village.
  • light_triad2 hours ago
    The robots pretend to work, while the audience pretends to be mystified.

    "People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses"

  • etca2z2 hours ago
    So, ‘fake it until you make it’ is Elon’s success mantra
  • CatDaaaady23 minutes ago
    "...Agatha All Along"
  • LarsDu883 hours ago
    Impressive that the machine was that good of an avatar, but it was pretty darn suspicious all the robots had different accents.

    I mean are we to believe that Tesla designed their robots to have a California dude accent, a Chicano accent, AND an Indian accent just for the hell of it?

    I'd love to see footage of the backroom where they no doubt had a bunch of operators with Valve Indexes and VR headsets.

  • ilrwbwrkhv3 hours ago
    Of course it was.. Which dum dum still believes any of this is actually real? It's all a wink wink, stock pump show which didn't work this time.
  • wnevets3 hours ago
    Imagine falling for this pt bardum act in the year 2024.
    • ilrwbwrkhv3 hours ago
      I think everyone knows, but pretend to not know.

      Why? Because most people do not have any other option. Play along in the hopes of some scrap.

      This, LinkedIn posts, Leetcode, Slack conversations, are all this gigantic game of everybody knows is BS but still play along.

      • TheAlchemist3 hours ago
        I don't think so. In case of Tesla it's just fraud. People do believe him - there is no doubt that a lot of people do believe the robots seen yesterday were autonomous and they will invest in Tesla accordingly.
  • s53003 hours ago
    [dead]
  • worstspotgain3 hours ago
    [flagged]
  • anonbanker3 hours ago
    I don't buy it. The only evidence is the robot itself saying something vague. Their insistence based on flimsy evidence just screams irrational hate intended to inflame confirmation bias.
    • steve_adams_863 hours ago
      I’d argue that Tesla needs to provide stronger evidence for us to believe their claims, not the other way around.

      It has yet to be shown that these robots can do anything useful in any meaningful timeframe. We’re still well within the sphere of vapour ware that Musk has created for many years now. It would be naive not to ask questions at this point, or not to expect clear answers for that matter.

    • bagels3 hours ago
      Last time the robot was a literally a person in a stretchy suit. Forgive our incredulity that this one wouldn't also be a dog and pony show, not unlike the two concept cars shown (the bus has no ground clearance, and the robocab does not have the lighting required to be sold).
    • michelsedgh3 hours ago
      Its funny how logic goes away when all u see is hatred
  • briandw3 hours ago
    They didn't say otherwise, they showed robots walking around and doing things, but never said anything about not having people controlling them. It was clear that there was a person that was talking on the other end if you listen to the video. Honestly having 20 tele-operated robots walking around in a crowd is pretty impressive. I haven't seen anything like that before.
    • FireBeyond3 hours ago
      > They didn't say otherwise

      It was literally their "Autonomy Event". Right there in the title.

      • briandw2 hours ago
        Yeah sure, that's the promise in the future, it's a demo of an unreleased product. It's all about someday when they are done. It was pretty clear from the talk at the beginning that Optimus is years out from being for sale to consumers.
        • zimpenfishan hour ago
          > it's a demo of an unreleased product.

          I dunno, if it's not actually an autonomous robot, I'd say it's more a non-demo of a fantasy product.

        • ulfw2 hours ago
          Then what's the point of the event if you can't even show a prototype?

          A big announcement of "a promise in the future"? Like hyperloop or "rockets flying from New York to Tokyo and to Mars in 2024"? Or the 2017 Roadster?

        • more_corn2 hours ago
          This is some mental gymnastics.