We’re getting the first videos of “select guests” getting access to Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin, and the level of polish leaves something to be desired.
For instance, one gaggle of Tesla influencers was dropped off directly in an intersection, leading to these wooly screenshots.
Tesla’s Full Self Driving feature is definitely not “Full Self Driving”. At best, it is useful for freeing up a driver’s attention for other things. At worst, it tricks people into thinking that the car is driving by itself when it cannot.
Similar to how if you use cruise control, you don’t have to pay as much attention to speed, and you can use that attention to look at the road and other cars. Staying in a lane and following cars and even turning a corner are all things that free up the driver’s attention so that the driver can pay more attention to the road and other drivers.
So, it’s a useful tool for experienced and attentive drivers, but it is not “Full Self Driving”, and it obviously lacks polish.
Plus, a lot of the completely necessary features for a robot taxi are completely missing, like keeping passengers from accidentally disengaging FSD. Taxis are used to transport drunk people. Drunk people will press all sorts of buttons and do things like touch a steering wheel that is moving by itself.
Musk is completely shameless. Always doing these cash grabs by promising things that are impossible, and then doing an alternative half-assed version. It’s really weird. You’d think at some point that a grifter that managed to become the richest person in the world would stop doing the most obvious grifts ever.
So far the grift has always worked though…so why would he stop?
It’s not his fault if some people are just falling for that BS time and time again. Unless consumers and stock holders stop him, he’s gonna do the thing he does best (drugs and being a shit human being not withstanding) - grifting.