If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
I do think 'self driving' is still their 'moat' when it comes to EVs. I use it every day, and nothing else comes close. But other than that, building EVs is becoming a cut-throat slim-margin business. I don't think that's where Elon, or Tesla employees, want to spend their energy.
Now imagine you're selling robots. If the robot "disengages" and breaks 10% of your plates while emptying the dishwasher, you're going to be pissed. There's no fallback to manual mode. It has to work 100% of the time out the gate.
Based on past history, I don't think Tesla has an engineering culture capable of hitting a home run with this kind of frontier technology out of the gate. So they either delay it until it's ready or they launch it prematurely, in which case everyone mocks it and the dream crashes (along with the stock price).
There's plenty of other companies making robots. Robots can either be controlled by AI or by humans. In the case of humans, there's no moat because everyone can do that. In the case of AI, it can either be on device or on a server, but we're already hitting power supply concerns for data centres, rising prices and supply issues for the components for even local servers, and the historical timeline over which hardware and algorithms have become more energy efficient (and the available power envelope) suggests that on-device AI sufficient for an Optimus to get into a non-self-driving car and drive it at some competence score* happens around a decade after that competence is reached by self-driving cars.
It doesn't even matter if your perception on the relative ranking of different self-drive systems is right or wrong, we're still not yet seeing Tesla vehicles do as Musk said in January 2016:
I think that within two years, you'll be able to summon your car from across the country. It will meet you wherever your phone is
* Any competence score, i.e. 2016 self-drive quality is likely already doable.
Kind of yes, the competition, especially from China, is catching up, and exceeding Tesla's offers.
Kind of no - EVs were around for a very long time before Tesla, Tesla's sales pitch (at one point) was that it was a software company not a car company.
On that front - almost every vehicle manufacturer has caught up, and Tesla is still stuck /promising/ a self driving car, but still not delivering.
The Twitter acquisition is widely seen as the marking point where Musk lost his appeal - something that was not smart because, coupled with his foray into politics was an attack on his core market - middle class left of centre people who were buying for the environment.. etc
He poisoned his brand, and Tesla's too (because the two brands, his and Tesla's, were so intertwined)
He lost the impetus in European markets, leaving a dying (for him) US market, and Asia (which is largely interested in Chinese made vehicles).
My Anecdata: In Australia, where I am, it used to be Tesla's were fairly common, now, I think I've seen two in the last week, compared to maybe a dozen BYD (and I am in a middle class suburb)
The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
In the US at least we’re gearing up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition. Yes, there will be margin compression, but without it domestic businesses become inefficient. It’s going to be “80s/90s Detroit” all over again with bigger bailouts because at some point it’ll be too politically popular to reduce prices. When that happens the public will be the ones footing the bill.
And all that says nothing of the fact cheap labor alone doesn’t make a better car. But the fact China can both make a better car (EV) and with lower labor costs really shows how dependent US automakers are on market inefficiencies. The US, and Europe, were massively ahead in quality but that lead been destroyed.
I’m not a fan of capitalism, but if the US is going to sell it and preach it— we might as fucking well embrace it. Otherwise we’re just subsidizing the rich without rhyme or reason (other than blatant corruption and exploitation). The cost of those subsidies will be stagnation, and the outright capitulation of quality long term.
I don’t understand this. Why would COGS impact quality? Are Chinese people inherently inferior “Western” people?
The market inefficiency is partly the difference in price of labor, which is being made more efficient by Chinese manufacturers succeeding.
BYD owns the mines, the batteries, the cars, the USA doesn't have that available, and are having to force other countries to provide their lithium/rare earth deposits to US companies in order to try and become competitive.
> In the US at least we’re gearing up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition
Uhhh - you want to prevent competition by using subsidies and regulations, but then complain the US companies are not competitive because they avoid competition?
The US vehicle manufacturers have been here multiple times - VW, Japanese "compacts", and now Chinese EVs
The Germans were competing on quality and fuel consumption.
The Japanese were competing on quality and price, they started out naff, and became gold standard, whilst US manufacturers were stuck delivering low rate products.
The Koreans followed the same playbook.
And, now, the Chinese are doing it again, following the Japanese playbook - offering better and better quality at a lower price.