Elon Musk flip flops for Tesla’s big day
Elon Musk has accustomed his millions of fans to beautiful promises.
He did not hesitate to promise autonomous vehicles for 2018.
He was there back in 2018, when he promised that version 9 of the FSD feature would start rolling out in August. He did it again on Tesla Autonomy Day in 2019, proclaiming that “in a year” there would be “over a million fully autonomous cars, with software, everything.”
Musk plays down expectations
Tesla, which he leads, still does not sell autonomous cars despite a driver assistance system – Full Self-Driving said FSD – which allows the vehicle to perform many maneuvers on its own.
“The Autopilot, Enhanced Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features currently enabled require active driver supervision and do not make the vehicle self-driving,” the automaker said on its website. “Total range will depend on achieving reliability well beyond that of human drivers, as demonstrated by billions of miles of experience, as well as regulatory approval, which may take longer in some jurisdictions. .”
Recently, Musk promised that humans will be able to live on Mars in a few years.
“Humanity will reach Mars in your lifetime,” he told Twitter users last July.
Certainly, SpaceX, its aerospace company, has helped revive the conquest of space and space tourism, but we still seem far from the first human camps on the red planet.
The richest man in the world has also promised a machine into which we will upload our personalities and our memory.
Basically, making grandiose promises is a sort of hallmark of the whimsical and charismatic entrepreneur. This lack of modesty is the main reproach made to him by his detractors who consider him megalomaniac.
But now the billionaire has just shown modesty, something very rare with him. Indeed, Musk has just tempered expectations for the second edition of Tesla AI day, scheduled for September 30.
“Note that this event is for recruiting AI and robotics engineers, so it will be very technical,” Musk downplayed Sept. 28 on Twitter, along with the poster photo for the event.
The next day, he insisted that the purpose of the event was to attract talent. Basically, it’s a job fair.
“As well as advanced chip and supercomputer engineers for next-generation training and inference,” the chief executive added on Sept. 29.
The entrepreneur clearly seems to be minimizing expectations around the event.
“There will be lots of tech details and cool hardware demonstrations,” Musk replied to a Twitter user who asked him for “hints.”
“Okay cool so people don’t expect this event to move the markets,” one Twitter user summed up.
AI Day Details
Musk’s statements sound like a volte-face as the event, launched in 2021 to show off the group’s advances in artificial intelligence, was originally scheduled for mid-August but the mogul pushed it back because he wanted to make it one huge event.
“Tesla AI Day has been pushed back to September 30 as we may have a working Optimus prototype by then,” Musk announced on Twitter on June 2.
“Tesla AI Day #2 will be epic,” he added.
The announcement had filled his fans with optimism.
“He[re] we go. Save qtr [quarter] for upcoming deliveries and profits for Tesla and AI Day! $tsla,” Tesla investor Ross Gerber tweeted Sept. 28.
Optimus, or Tesla Bot, the humanoid robot developed by Tesla’s AI teams, is supposed to be the star of this event.
But besides Optimus, Musk is also expected to showcase the latest developments related to the Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer as well as Dojo, the supercomputer that FSD could use to enhance the brains behind Tesla’s driving systems by analyzing data. massive that the automaker has collected. of volunteers.
The event, which takes place in Palo Alto, Calif., will begin at 5 p.m. local time, or PT, (8 p.m. ET) and end at 11 p.m. PT, according to invitations sent to guests. Only the first part should be broadcast live.
Musk more or less admitted that the masses were likely to be disappointed by the event when a Twitter user made a summary supposedly anticipating all the reactions.
The TSLAQ symbol is used on social media by the most extreme critics of Musk and Tesla. They are convinced that the manufacturer of electric vehicles will go bankrupt.
“Pretty much. AI/robotics engineers who understand what problems need to be solved will like what they see,” Musk said Sept. 29.
Optimus
The billionaire said in January that an Optimus prototype would be ready by the end of the year and that Tesla planned to market it from 2023.
“I think actually the biggest product development we’re doing this year is actually the Optimus humanoid robot. That, I think, has the potential to be bigger than the automotive business over time. “, said the tech mogul during the first-quarter earnings call.
It’s a big bet as Musk has struggled to generate much excitement around Optimus. The Optimus concept is fueled by the tycoon’s desire to replace humans with robots in his factories. It was introduced in August 2021, during the first Tesla AI Day.
Optimus looks like a human in a robot suit, standing nearly six feet tall and weighing 125 pounds. It will use the same AI systems that helped power Tesla vehicles, Musk said at the time.
The Tesla Bot will help with repetitive tasks around the factory, the company said. Tesla wants to produce 20 million vehicles a year, up from nearly a million in 2021.
