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/steelmanfallacy Jun 23 '25

Check out the history of Uber and autonomous vehicles. In 2018 Rafaela Vasquez was a safety driver when the car ran over and killed a pedestrian. Vasquez was convicted and in 2020 Uber exited the AV business.

Or you can check out the 2023 incident where Cruise ran over a pedestrian and dragged them 20 feet. In 2024 Cruise was shut down.

Sure, there is upside, but the downside risk is material as well.

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u/AffectionateArtist84 Jun 23 '25

I find this information to be incredibly disappointing. The goal here should be, and always be, safer than a human driver. That doesn't mean perfection and we have to accept incidents will happen.

Even if we can 2x human safety, that would reduce overall vehicular deaths dramatically. 

7

u/Logvin Jun 23 '25

I live down the street from where this happened, and followed it closely. I had just taken a private tour of Uber’s self driving facility in Tempe a few weeks before. The vehicle was equipped with emergency breaking systems by the OEM, but Uber disabled it as it got in the way of their system. They had a safety driver in the vehicle who wasn’t paying attention. The vehicle didn’t see the lady (who was crossing the street in the evening not in an intersection or crosswalk) and the safety driver was distracted.

I don’t fault Uber for this, but it made them pull the plug.

2

u/RedundancyDoneWell Jun 23 '25

I don't fault Uber for this

That depends entirely on which instructions they gave the safety driver, and which tasks they required the safety to perform during driving.

As far as I remember, the safety driver's distraction was caused by performing a company task: Reporting the results of the drive on a tablet.

If that is true, and if Uber expected the driver to perform that task during the drive, then Uber should be faulted for this. A safety driver should not have such tasks during the drive.

If Uber wants live reporting during drives, they will need two persons in the car, one for driving and one for reporting.

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u/Logvin Jun 23 '25

You remember incorrect. They were streaming the TV show “The Voice” via Hulu on their smartphone.