Because the launch of Tesla's robotaxi was the easy part, Marketing & Advertising News, et brandequety

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Tesla finally has a robotaxi. Now comes the difficult part. The electric vehicle manufacturer has deployed its first driver without driver in Austin, Texas, Sunday in a small scale of Model Y vehicles carefully monitored. Subsequently, the company faces the steep challenge of performing the ambition of the CEO Elon Musk to perfect the software and load it on millions of Teslas within a year.Such a rapid expansion will prove to be extremely difficult, about a dozen sector analysts and experts in autonomous technology have told Reuters. These observers have expressed a series of opinions on Tesla’s prospects, but all warned by assuming a robotaxi launch at clear speed.

Some indicate the advantages that Tesla could take advantage of to overcome rivals including Alphabet’s Waymo and a myriad of Chinese car and technological companies. Tesla has a mass production capacity and has opened the way for remote software updates that it can use for autonomous driving updates. Even the car manufacturer does not use sensors such as radar and lidar as a waymo and most rivals; Instead, it depends exclusively on cameras and artificial intelligence.“A launch could be really fast. If the software works, Tesla Robotaxi could drive any path in the world,” said Seth Goldstein, an analyst of Morningstar Senior Equity, while warning that Tesla is still “testing the product”. In Austin, Tesla has launched a choreographed experiment that perhaps involves a dozen cars, operating in limited geography, with safety monitor on the front passenger seat; remote “teleoperators”; plans to avoid bad weather; and pro-stroke influencer collected by hand as passengers.

For years, Musk has said that Tesla will soon manage its autonomous service and also transform any Tesla, new or used, into a robotaxi that generates in cash for its customers. This will be the most difficult “most difficult orders” of Austin, said Bryant Walker Smith, professor of law of the University of Carolina of the South, focused on the regulation of autonomous driving.

“It’s like announcing it,” I go to Mars “and then, you know, go to Cleveland,” said Smith. Musk said Tesla will reach Mars, in that metaphor, quickly enough: “I plan that there will be millions of Teslas that operate completely independently in the second half of next year,” he said in April.

Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Tesla shares ended by 8.2% more at $ 348.68 on Monday with the enthusiasm of investors for the launch of robotaxi.

Given the approach dependent on Tesla, his challenge will be the robotass Training to manage “cases on board of traffic”, said Philip Koopman, professor of computer engineering of Carnegie Mellon University and autonomous technology expert. They may take many years.

“Do you feel, how long did Waymo take?” Koopman asked. “There is no reason to believe that Tesla will be faster.”

Long Slog Waymo’s autonomous driving efforts date back to 2009, when Google started his autonomous driving car project. A egg -shaped prototype made its first lap in public roads in 2015, also in Austin.

Waymo has since been taken to build a fleet of 1,500 robotaxi in selected cities. A Waymo spokesman said he plans to add another 2,000 vehicles by the end of 2026.

Some analysts believe that Tesla can expand faster, in part because Waymo has helped open the way to overcome regulatory and technical challenges.

“Waymo and other pioneers have contributed to guiding the regulatory changes and made cyclists, pedestrians and other users of the road aware of autonomous vehicles,” said Paul Miller, analyst of the Forrester market research company.

Being a mass producer also helps Tesla, Miller said. Waymo buys Jaguar I-Pace and there or hates with more expensive sensors and technologies than Tesla integrated into its vehicles.

Waymo refused to comment on the robotaxi-di Tesla expansion potential. The former CEO of society, John Krafcik, remains skeptical. The Tesla precautions used in Austin reveal that it has no confidence that its technology is safe on a large scale, Krafcik said.

“And they shouldn’t,” he said. “It is not as sure how it must be and is not well below the robust approach and well documented security that Waymo has shown.”

“Wrong side” of the road

Tesla’s clumsy strategy could actually slow down his progress and that of the autonomous vehicle industry if he undermines the trust of the public, said some analysts. Tesla has historically dealt with legal and regulatory problems involving its autonomous driving driver assistance system (FSD), which is not completely autonomous. In a recent federal security probe on Tesla, investigators are examining the role of FSD in accidents – some fatal – involving rain or other inclined climate that interfere with the system cameras. Before the Austin test, Musk published on his social media platform, X, that Robotaxis technology would differ little from any Tesla, apart from an update of the software: “These are not modified cars of Tesla that come directly from the factory, which means that each Tesla”, he wrote, “is able to not be supervised Autodrition!”

The car manufacturer invited Tesla -scale influencers to make its first robotaxi races and generally exulted the experience. A social-media video published by a Passenger Robotaxi, however, showed the vehicle that proceeds through a four-lane crossroads with a traffic light in the wrong lane, for about six seconds. At the time no traffic arriving was in the lane. “Obviously we are on the wrong side of the double yellow line here,” said the passenger, Rob Maurer, in a video narration of the experience he published on X, observing that he felt safe but that the car behind him has played in “maneuver confusion”.

Maurer did not respond to requests for comment. Reuters checked the position of the video by combining the surrounding buildings, business and road signals with the intersection of West River Drive and Barton Springs Road in Austin.

Separately, a Reuters witness followed another Tesla Robotaxi and measured its speed while traveling between 40 and 45 mphs in an area of 35 mph in First Street, adjacent to the Texas school for the deaf. A sign warned to look at deaf pedestrians.