In early April 2022, Musk hinted at the opening ceremony of Tesla’s Texas factory that they were developing a vehicle specifically for Robotaxi use. Less than two weeks later, Musk confirmed directly during the Tesla Q1 earnings call that this Robotaxi would have a design without steering wheels or pedals and is expected to be in mass production by 2024.
This brings to mind the famous Tesla whistleblower Sawyer Merritt, who announced on Twitter in September 2021 that Tesla’s $25,000 vehicle in development would consider not being equipped with a steering wheel or pedals and rely entirely on Full Self-Driving (FSD) to drive. The announcement of this vehicle dates back to Tesla Battery Day in 2020, where they hoped to introduce a more affordable $25,000 vehicle after significant battery cost reductions.
It is worth noting that during the Tesla 2021 full-year earnings call, Musk confirmed that Tesla was not in a rush to push forward with this $25,000 vehicle. This suggests that first, the $25,000 vehicle and the Robotaxi may be two completely separate models, and second, Tesla has actually been working on this Robotaxi vehicle much earlier.
Why is Tesla entering the Robotaxi market? According to research data from McKinsey and research reports from CICC, the global market space for Robotaxi businesses is expected to exceed $2 trillion by 2030.
Google’s Waymo One began its autonomous ride-hailing business in the United States in 2018. Cruise, invested in by General Motors, Honda, and Microsoft, began its Robotaxi business in 2020. Domestic autonomous driving companies such as Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide, and Didi have also laid out their Robotaxi testing businesses in multiple cities. Last year, XPeng Motors announced that it would launch its Robotaxi service in the second half of 2022. Tesla, as a leading commercial company in the field of autonomous driving, will surely not miss this market, and more importantly, they have cost advantages that no other company can compare to.The Chief Architect of Huawei Forward Car Business Unit, Qing Su, stated in a media interview that “we will never do Robotaxi, and companies that are doing it now will go bankrupt. Robotaxi is a result, not a business goal. The ride-hailing experience in China is already good enough, and autonomous driving will not improve this experience.” It is apparent that the Robotaxi industry not only faces the urgent need to solve problems with autonomous driving technology but also, more importantly, commercialization problems. For instance, how can Robotaxi, which requires high overall investment, escape the high vehicle and operation costs.
Tesla has always insisted on its pure vision-based autonomous driving solution. Compared to the autonomous driving solutions of other Robotaxi companies, Tesla’s pure vision system has unparalleled cost advantages. After all, even the lowest-cost lidar is still much more expensive than the cost of several million pixels of cameras, and the final cost for retrofitted Robotaxi, whether it is for equipment or refitting, may end up being several times higher than Tesla’s “Robotaxi,” which is based on mass-produced cars.
In addition, Tesla’s autonomous driving system also has strong generalization ability. The data of Tesla’s FSD mass-produced car fleet can be shared with Robotaxi. Tesla has already put more than one million HW3.0-equipped cars on the road. When FSD Beta is officially launched around the world, no other company can match Tesla in terms of the efficiency of accumulating real driving data and collecting special corner cases. This means that Tesla may lead the way in the iteration of Robotaxi capabilities, and for users, this may result in a safer, more widely available, and more comfortable autonomous driving experience.
Also, the Robotaxi business not only includes vehicles for pure travel services but also user-owned vehicles. Tesla’s another business consideration is to put private cars with Robotaxi capability on the platform as shared rental cars during idle time at work. This model can significantly improve the utilization efficiency of users’ vehicles, making vehicles valuable items that can earn money during idle periods. At the same time, according to Tesla’s plan, their Robotaxi will have higher energy utilization efficiency, making every unit of electricity produce greater value and embodying their corporate mission of accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy.
Why does Tesla develop a Robotaxi model? If you talk to car owners on ride-hailing platforms like Didi about what they are most concerned about in their daily operations, the top two points are undoubtedly vehicle damage and daily energy costs.The characteristics of operational vehicles, such as taxis, determine that their annual mileage may be more than five years of private cars. And the commercial model of taxi itself is to make a profit between energy consumption and revenue. If the repair cost is high and the energy consumption cost cannot be reduced, then such an operation model is doomed to be unsustainable.
In Tesla’s 2019 Autonomy Day event, they explicitly stated that in order to prolong the life of vehicles, they will optimize the vehicle’s battery system, electric drive system, and even tires, so that the lifespan of the Robotaxi could reach 1 million miles. In terms of energy consumption, the current energy utilization rate of Model 3 has reached 4.5 miles/kWh, and Musk hopes to achieve at least 5 miles/kWh on the Robotaxi model.
As a pure operational model, the Robotaxi aims to maximize the benefit of the vehicle lifecycle. However, these modifications and values for C-end models will be different. Therefore, Tesla decided to develop a model specifically for the Robotaxi.
Obviously, the existing models still have some gaps in terms of cost and energy utilization rate. Moreover, the utilization rate of space is affected because of the design principles of the existing models that focus on operation, with unnecessary components such as the instrument panel, center armrest, and at least four doors in addition to the steering wheel and pedals in the vehicle.
Compared with Tesla’s current models, the Robotaxi that has already determined to eliminate the steering wheel or pedals will naturally transition from being driver-centered to passenger-centered. As described in Tesla’s recently released “2021 Impact Report,” Robotaxi will pay more attention to maximizing energy efficiency from a design perspective, and accordingly, features such as door handles, acceleration, and maximum vehicle speed are no longer as important.
Based on this, I will make some predictions about Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi.
Question 1: Will Lidar be used?
When we look at Robotaxi, whether it is retrofitted vehicles from ride-sharing companies such as Waymo, Cruise, and Xiaoma Zhixing, or front-equipped vehicles from Zoox, Baidu Apollo Moon, or automakers like XPeng, all of them without exception use Lidar. Therefore, the question arises as to whether Tesla’s Robotaxi will adopt Lidar or not, and whether it will be for the sake of so-called perception redundancy?Perhaps some references can be found in Elon Musk’s explanation of Robotaxi during Tesla’s Autonomy Day event in 2019. According to Tesla’s plan, all vehicle models produced after October 2016 are equipped with hardware for full self-driving capabilities. Musk also stated explicitly in the event that they would retrieve some Model 3 vehicles and put them into the Robotaxi fleet. Of course, vehicle owners could also choose to join the Tesla Network platform, letting their vehicles be used as Robotaxis when they are not being used.
This means that Tesla is inevitably going to define this Robotaxi product based on its current vision-only self-driving scheme, and the costly lidar will not appear. As for the so-called perception redundancy, Tesla’s attitude towards it has been demonstrated by the cancellation of millimeter-wave radar in the North American market.
However, it must be said that Tesla’s FSD is still some distance away from a true Robotaxi. Although many test users in the US market have shared their fully “hands-off” trips on social media, the reality is that FSD still requires drivers to be ready to take over at any time in accordance with regulations. And the ultimate requirement for Robotaxi is full autonomy, which can only be achieved by reaching this level to truly remove the steering wheel or pedals.
Musk has been saying since Tesla’s Q1 conference call in early 2022 that the safety of FSD will exceed human driving levels this year. Continuous small version iterations have also enabled FSD to handle more extreme scenarios, as evident by its coverage of all states in the US and certain areas of Canada. Combining Tesla’s mentions of Robotaxi in the past six months, it is clear that Musk’s confidence in FSD achieving full self-driving capability is growing. Robotaxi is expected to go into production in 2024, leaving Tesla with two years of time, and FSD Beta will use these two years to continue quick iterations and improvements.
Question 2: Will Robotaxi be sold to consumers?
Ask yourself a question first. If Robotaxi really arrives, would you be willing to own a self-driving car of your own?
During Tesla’s Q1 conference call this year, an analyst asked whether Robotaxi would be sold to the consumer market or used for Tesla’s own travel services. Musk did not directly answer the question, but instead used the tactic of deferring to future product launch events to reveal more details.# Robotaxi has been a form of travel service that appears in our lives. Is Tesla’s Robotaxi targeting the general public or commercial companies in the travel service industry? Tesla must be very clear about this from the beginning, as it will affect the design concept of the autonomous car, Robotaxi.
From a business perspective, travel service giants such as Uber, Didi, and Lyft do not directly own vehicles, but shift such costs to thousands of drivers. Otherwise, any travel company is vulnerable with huge fixed assets.
In Tesla’s “Master Plan, Part Deux” in 2016, the “Sharing” section mentioned that while owners add their vehicles to the shared fleet, Tesla will also provide its own fleet in some areas where travel demands are high to improve users’ travel experiences.
Moreover, in Tesla’s 2019 Autonomy Day, owners can choose to add their cars to Robotaxi, just like the business model of Uber or Airbnb. And Tesla will deduct approximately 25-30% from each order.
If we take into account the above aspects, Tesla’s Robotaxi will most likely still be sold to the general public. Tesla will establish a shared travel platform that links all Robotaxis. This can increase revenue from car sales and also earn significant service fees like travel platforms.
Whether it’s early carriages, steam-powered cars, or now internal combustion engine and electric cars, their purpose is to transport people or goods geographically. However, when autonomous driving is achieved, people’s needs for cars will no longer be limited to transporting us from point A to point B. Technological change will make cars more like an extension of our work and life scene. People hope to watch movies, play games, and work in the car, as evidenced by the current trend of intelligent cabins.
Also, if the price is reasonable and it can really be trusted to drive autonomously, I am very willing to own a Robotaxi of my own.
Question 3: What will a car without a steering wheel or pedals look like?
Looking at the global car and travel market, among the models that have appeared that cancel the steering wheel and pedals from the beginning of the design, the highest profile model is Zoox.
With the appearance similar to a mini-bus, de-front-and-rear-designed structure, bus-style doors, a compact body of 3,630mm, a super high body of 1,936mm, and a four-seat design allowing passengers to face each other, this is Zoox’s understanding of the Robotaxi design, founded in 2014.
Just as the positioning of Zoox for the Robotaxi suggests, it is designed for passengers, not drivers. CEO Aicha Evans even emphasized in an interview that it is not a car, but a means of transportation. Furthermore, Zoox is not a car company, but a travel service provider, and this Robotaxi will not target the consumer market.
So, what kind of design will Tesla’s Robotaxi have to cater to the ordinary consumer market?
At the end of 2020, Franz, Tesla’s Chief Designer, was asked by Chinese media in an interview if SUVs, MPVs, and sports cars would disappear from the market from the perspective of design after achieving full self-driving (FSD). Franz replied, “I think history has proven we like to have some things that are more attractive, we want to keep some level of individuality, which Tesla has always done. The last thing we want is every car to look like a bubble. We want our product to be desirable and to give you an amazing experience.”
This can be seen from the design concept of the Cybertruck, which indicates that Tesla will not blindly follow certain design language, either in appearance or interior. For this Robotaxi design, Musk’s description only used one word: “futuristic,” full of a sense of the future.
So, how will the Robotaxi, which requires more consideration for passengers’ comfort while traveling, and do not need to focus too much on door handles, acceleration, and top speed, be designed? How would the interior be designed without a steering wheel or pedals? Perhaps we can find some answers from the existing Tesla models’ features.Starting from Model 3, Tesla has been constantly exploring how a car should be designed when autonomous driving arrives. For example, canceling the dashboard as occupants do not need to pay excessive attention to speed when the vehicle is in assisted or autonomous driving mode; adopting a horizontal central screen for easier viewing of videos and playing car games; canceling the adjustable option for regenerative braking to reduce interaction between the driver and the vehicle in terms of control; adding millimeter wave radar inside the car for easy monitoring of vital signs and passenger activities; adding exterior speakers to allow the car to communicate with the outside world through sound.
In addition, the updated Model S’s automatic gear shifting function has trained the car to reverse and move forward on its own capabilities; equipped with the AMD Ryzen chip to provide gaming experience comparable to Sony PS5 inside the car; and in the recently updated Model S, the ability to tilt the central screen left and right is added, indicating that Tesla is gradually strengthening the concept of in-car entertainment.
Furthermore, Musk has always emphasized that the Cybertruck adopts a design without door handles, and the vehicle will recognize the occupants and open the doors automatically, and the initial design without exterior mirrors is also in preparation for autonomous driving.
Therefore, we can predict that Tesla’s Robotaxi will:
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At least have a horizontal screen. Musk has always emphasized that the in-car entertainment system will become crucial after autonomous driving arrives, whether it is car games or streaming video. It is worth mentioning that Tesla was rumored to have partnered with the gaming platform Steam earlier this year to introduce more rich games.
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Have a smaller body size. By eliminating steering wheels or pedals, the design of the vehicle can reserve more interior space. As a Robotaxi, it usually does not carry more than four passengers. Therefore, to obtain the same interior space as the current models, Robotaxi can become smaller, which can also reduce the weight of the vehicle and improve energy efficiency.
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Have longer range. Musk has explicitly stated that he hopes the Robotaxi’s energy consumption can reach 5 miles/kWh according to EPA standards. Of course, this goal may not be impossible for Robotaxi models with smaller bodies and fewer accessories. If calculated based on a 75 kWh battery, the range of Robotaxi will exceed 375 miles (600 kilometers). If calculated based on an average traveling speed of 60 km/h, Robotaxi can work continuously for up to 10 hours.- Tesla already has the technology reserve for automatic shift, so it does not need to adopt two motors at all costs like Zoox, in order to implement front and rear wheel drive. As for Tesla Robotaxi, which is extremely sensitive to cost, does not pursue extreme power and will naturally not increase the cost of adding an extra motor, nor will it unnecessarily increase the load capacity of the vehicle with an extra motor.
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The seats in the car can be changed and combined, and Franz once commented that the interior design after the advent of autonomous driving can refer to what we do in the car when we don’t drive, and rest may be a demand for many people besides entertainment. The comfort of existing cars for those who want to rest is not always friendly, unless it’s a very spacious MPV, and when Robotaxi is not fully loaded, it’s possible to take a nap through changes in the combination of seats.
- There is not only one version. After Musk confirmed the Robotaxi, analysts in the United States revealed that Tesla’s Robotaxi will have 6 seats. But as a Robotaxi, do you really need so many seats? This is still questionable.
Conclusion
After Musk confirmed the debut time of the Robotaxi in the conference call, I went back and watched Musk’s explanation of Robotaxi again at the Tesla Autonomy Day event in 2019. In fact, Musk was very clear at that time that they hoped to produce a car model without a steering wheel and pedals. If they want to achieve this goal as soon as possible, they can simply cancel unnecessary parts such as the steering wheel in the existing car models. Musk even mentioned that in 2022, the price of a Robotaxi with canceled parts will not exceed 25,000 US dollars.
Perhaps at that time in 2019, few people believed that Tesla, which could not even deliver the promised FSD on time, would design and develop a car model specifically for Robotaxi. But now, it seems that Tesla started early on the road of Robotaxi, and has never stopped.
Tesla’s Robotaxi, see you in 2024!
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.