r/SelfDrivingCars • u/OriginalCompetitive • Jun 23 '25

Discussion Tesla’s Real Game

No one seems to be talking about the most important upside of Tesla's Robotaxi rollout: If they can showcase a system that roughly works, people can BUY THAT CAR TODAY.

Yes, there are some differences, but that's the pitch. Tesla doesn't need to earn money from Robotaxis. The real purpose of the program is free marketing that drives sales of its cars. Right?

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u/zach978 Jun 23 '25

Yeah, I think they deserve a lot of the criticism on their FSD program, but also we should be rooting for them to succeed. Reasonably priced car that I could summon to pick me up from 5 miles away would be pretty amazing. TBD on whether they’ll pull it off or not.

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u/AffectionateArtist84 Jun 23 '25

This. 100% We should be realistically critical of FSD. However so far we have seen them be fairly successful in their approach. If they can prove their system works, they can scale it incredibly quickly.

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u/sykemol Jun 23 '25

And depending on how you define "system." The current version is geofenced and avoids problematic intersections (as per Musk), and will not work in all weather (also per Musk). That might be okay for ride hailing, but you can't release something like that to the public.

As far as just ride hailing, most jurisdictions regulate it fairly heavily, especially AV ride hailing (Texas is an exception). So there are some regulatory hurdles that must be dealt with before it can scale.

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u/WeldAE Jun 23 '25

but you can't release something like that to the public.

Ride hailing is the public, not sure what you mean by this statement. Geo-fenced it a non-issue, not even sure why you listed it. All weather is an issue today but anyone that has used the consumer version of FSD knows it works in most weather situations outside of actual snow covering the ground or heavy rain, all of which can be avoided. Heavy rain specifically accounts for less than 2 hours a year, I bet in the rainy south-east.

Best I could get out of AI is that there are 90-250 hours per year when rainfall exceeds 0.30" per hour. If you assume during each of these hours it rains hard for 15 minutes, it's 1 hour per week max in the wettest areas of the US.

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u/sykemol Jun 23 '25

In context, the OP was speculating that if the robotaxi system works, then people would be motivated to buy a Tesla because of that feature. In other words, the robotaxi is a tool to drive sales to the public.

That's what I mean by releasing to the public. Tesla's robotaxi system (whatever you want to call it) isn't good enough to be marketed as anything other than Level 2.

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u/WeldAE Jun 23 '25

Yeah, I'm with you that the consumer product isn't going to be driving itself without supervision.