“As it turns out, the charging infrastructure is still pretty light north of the 49th parallel”.

I don’t see how this is impressive at all. Considering all the claims made about these “trucks?” this should have been a sunday drive.

I just wish there was a different term for this then raw dog. I really don’t want my 13 year old running around the house saying he raw dogged his bicycle trip with his friend.

Throwing the “and I’m only 27” out there like you think it’s some kind of achievement.

Meh - kind of a boring article. Is the whole premise really just “you’re old and set in your ways and should change because I like something you don’t”? I mean... sure?

Ragebait will definitely get you clicks, but well thought of articles can too. I remember Jalopnik used to have some really good interview articles and investigate articles. Can we get back to that? I feel like the only reason I'm still here is the comment section and it's a hot or miss if that is even working.

Not really. It’s Texas.

Oh, I completely agree that it is feasible, and I give it more than a 0% chance, but it would just be insane if it were true and it happened.

Yeah I don’t see Tesla surviving, with a full pivot to robot taxis. They can’t even figure out level 2 autonomous.

I wouldn’t put it past a company with a nut like Musk at the helm and senior management/BoD stacked with his yes-men. And now he’s using company ad money to try to get his massive comp package approved ASAP instead of trying to use ads to actually sell cars.

I think that’s the idea. But none of their current cars have the hardware to do it. Even Tesla has indirectly admitted as much when they started buying up tons of LIDAR equipment.

That’s why Musk is so desperate to get that $55b payday approved he’s forcing Tesla to spend ad dollars to tell shareholders to vote yes (and profiting from it himself by buying those ads on X.)

I actually agree with Elon that you shouldn’t own Tesla shares if you don’t believe they will achieve fully autonomous driving. For the record - I don’t believe, and I don’t own shares.

Exactly. The billionaires are never left holding the bag. They walk, while the peasants get to pick up the pieces.

Tesla will never make a robotaxi. Unless they buy a company with the tech. And even then, they’ll find a way to cut corners and fuck it all up.

While I don’t actually think they have two sets of books. It would be absolutely insane if they did. That would make the Enron fiasco seem like child’s play.

I don’t think there’s really much consumer value in robotaxis. All it’s doing is saving the company managing them overhead on paying employees (savings which I’m sure would only be passed onto consumers long enough to drive competitors out of business before jacking the rates up so the shareholders don’t suffer). But…

It’s unfortunate that when this company finally collapses (as it should), the only people who will lose out are regular workers while the lunatic who destroyed the whole thing will walk away richer than ever. Even knowing that it’s hard not to root for Tesla to completely implode.

This is one of the things I never understood about Tesla. “Check out the amazing performance on this car! The instant torque! The unrivaled acceleration! But the coolest feature is not driving it at all!”

Tesla will never solve autonomous driving. Hell, they can’t even manufacture a normal car to satisfactory standards.