Rob Maurer
@robmaurer • 377,113 subscribers
Managing partner @fpg. Hosted Tesla Daily from 2017-2024.
Videos
Cybercab is absolutely magical. Tesla has actually done it. A domestically mass-produced affordable autonomous electric vehicle is available to the general public. A car with no steering wheel generating revenue. It’s sad to come back to a city without Robotaxi after being in Austin. Like stepping back in time. The event was awesome. I know it was tough to follow online, but we all knew the story going in. This was a launch, not an unveiling. It felt like the city transformed immediately. Cybercabs were everywhere, you couldn’t take a trip without seeing another one. Outside of the ride experience itself, the scale of this launch is what I want to make sure people understand. On previous trips, Robotaxi felt like a test network (an amazing one). Not anymore. Suddenly it’s real. It’s hard not to laugh when you ride past a Waymo in a Cybercab. Good luck… As I’ve said before, Robotaxi is way smoother than Waymo. It feels natural. Supernatural, really. This holds true for Cybercab. Waymo feels like a computer. And it looks like one too. The production Cybercab is beautiful. It really is special. The color, the lines, the lighting, the doors. It looks great. While also being the most efficient car in history? Insane. I think it fits perfectly in the space between familiarity and the future. It doesn’t stick out, but it catches your attention. After exiting our first ride, there was a large group of 10-20 people. They were all talking about the Cybercab as we walked by. These doors are like gasoline on a word of mouth wildfire. Our rides were flawless. Better than a human driver. No anxious moments. Cybercab is very comfortable, even at 6’2. Leg room is particularly notable. It would be tough to find a car that has this much leg room for two passengers at the same time. No pedals, center console, or multiple rows of seating creates a lot of space and a very open feel. Robotaxi is unquestionably one of those products that will be way cheaper and way better than what existed before. I like those. No one is going to want to roll the dice on some random person and their car when the alternative is a private, safe, comfortable, clean, consistent, quiet, personalized Tesla with tons of room and a massive screen. It’s a premium experience on every level, and we get it cheaper thanks to technology. No noise or air pollution, either. I don’t have much to critique. Little refinements that I know will happen. Pick up and drop off were satisfactory, over time will become excellent. Grok integration is already impressive, and it’s clear that we’ll eventually be able to just give directions like “pull over around the corner up there.” You can already have Grok update your destination in Robotaxi, it pushes the update to the Robotaxi app on your phone for approval. I leave the event with more confidence in Tesla’s ability to scale, but also renewed patience. I have a greater appreciation for the intentionality of limitations (service area, times, fleet size) rather than seeing them simply as barriers that have yet to be overcome. I now believe the objective is to build slowly, safely, to critical mass. A tail-risk event is inevitable. The absolute last thing we need is some bad luck on a tail-risk event at an early stage before enough data exists to prove its rarity. That data is accumulating quickly and will become undeniable soon enough. Huge congrats to Tesla and Elon for this incredible milestone. Decades of work culminating in a life-saving, sustainable, affordable, economically exceptional product. It’s all pretty surreal, a testament to vision and determination. I love this company!
Rob Maurer831,419 views • 2 months ago
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Tested FSD v12.3 in downtown Chicago yesterday — zero disengagements / interventions in the first 30 minutes despite incredibly dense traffic & pedestrians during St. Patrick's Day festivities. Extremely impressive. A couple of my favorite moments are at 5:17 and 7:00. Overall, v12.3 seems like a major step forward and I'm excited to keep testing. It feels smoother, much more natural, and more capable of creative decision making in challenging scenarios. My camera overheated, but I tested for a total of about an hour and a half in this same environment. The most impressive moments were lost, unfortunately, but it flawlessly handled back-to-back extremely complex intersections, which were all-way stop signs with 6 lanes of traffic and 50+ pedestrians. Pretty mind-blowing. Throughout the whole drive, there were 3 disengagements and no other interventions: 1) Tried to turn one block too early, the wrong way on a one-way. Not great, but not a show stopper long-term, IMO. 2) At an intersection, shortly after the light changed to green, there was a fire truck with its sirens on approaching on the cross street. Visibility was obscured by a large SUV in the lane to the left of the vehicle. I head the sirens getting louder and the SUV stopped proceeding, so I had to brake. Without audio input, I don't know how FSD could ever properly react to this situation due to the occluded vision. 3) In heavy traffic, FSD moved out of the lane we needed to be in. It tried to get back over, but there was not enough time or space, so it proceeding to a new route. This led to a planned u-turn in extremely heavy traffic. I got a notice saying FSD could not complete the maneuver, and FSD kept going to the next intersection, which led to the same plan. It attempted to start the maneuver, but I had to take over. The video shows how crazy Chicago was yesterday, St. Patrick's Day celebrations are huge here. If you are not used to this environment, many drivers would struggle. FSD handled things calmly and confidently, with only one instance that I recall annoying any other drivers due to being too slow or cautious, something that would happen a lot on previous versions of FSD. FSD v12.3 seems like a major step forward from my early testing, and hopefully it provides the proper foundation to accelerate the rate of progress significantly. It's not perfect, and it's still going to take time, but I am excited. Congrats to the Tesla team.
Rob Maurer218,128 views • 2 years ago
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