Sure, why not? Seems just as likely as Tesla having 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of 2026. =)
It seems like the focus should be on making the arms extremely capable and just use a wheeled base for some substantial number of use cases.
If there are use cases where wheels are too limiting, then a four legged base like Boston Dynamics dog seems like it would be simpler and possibly adequate for most uses.
For those who need help recovering from the crushing self induced disappointment, here’s some brainwave controlled cat ears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSZg0oiYuM
I saw Robot ear cats and couldn’t make sense of it. But clicking in the article and seeing the title in huge whatever sizes fonts made it click.
I think it’s the small font sizes in HN causing our brains to ‘fill in the blanks’.
Unfortunately we fed this current iteration of AI with human behaviour (not only that: human behaviour on the Internet...)
Not that I know of. An entity dealing only in cold facts is not intelligent, it's a theorem prover- extremely narrow, rigid and incapable of interpretation and insight- basically of bridging the smallest gap of knowledge. That's exactly what intelligence isn't.
Thinking back to case-studies around the Therac-25 [0], I would like to pre-emptively highlight the differences between:
1. Technique X is unsafe.
2. Technique X is unsafe because too much can go wrong even with the best intentions.
3. Technique X is unsafe without strong QA and interlocking safety measures, and there's too much economic pressure for the manufacturer to cut corners.
If the whole thing goes through the computer then there are lots of new ways to fail. Steering wheel position sensor goes bad on the highway? Computer gets bad data. Control wires get disconnected or damaged? No data. Completely unrelated wires get shorted and fry the computer? No steering. Anything pops the wrong fuse? No power, no computer or steering motors.
Some of those can be mitigated with redundancy but you're still vulnerable to common causes. You have three position sensors and someone dumps their beverage down the steering column, are there any left and do you have any good way to determine which one(s)? The vehicle took some minor damage allowing water to get somewhere it's not intended to, any way to guarantee you're not about to lose both sides of a redundant electrical system the next time it goes through a puddle infused with conductive road salt?
Autopilot started as a help to pilots, and evolved to something that is a necessity and pilot control inputs are "suggestions" or "goals", not inputs like turning the wheel on a bike. To be followed in what you might refer to as "the long term" from the perspective of controlling the aircraft, but in the short term, the computer is to fly the plane in a way IT thinks is reasonable. An extreme example would be to enforce the flight envelope. But today there exist autoland-only airports (as well as huge airports that go autoland-only if things are too hard for humans, like LHR)
Most of today's passenger aircraft cannot be flown if fly-by-wire is not operational. Most of today's aircraft actually used for passenger transport cannot land without fly-by-wire.
A number of military aircraft, and rocket planes and rockets, even the ones carrying humans, and more and more passenger planes cannot be flown by humans, not just because the mechanical force humans can generate cannot move the control surfaces (which "can be fixed" with hydraulics, if you don't mind serious caveats), but because the human brain is incapable of generating sufficient control inputs at a fast enough rate, or just can't keep stable flight going.
Hilariously, this also goes for hobby quadcopters. They are flown by algorithms. Humans can't do it. Not fast enough. Humans provide direction. Algorithms, even AI algorithms that aren't even guaranteed to succeed at all (in professional/military drones), actually fly the thing.
But, yes, you're entirely correct by saying "then there are lots of new ways to fail". It also works better, cheaper, faster, safer, more comfortable, ... if it doesn't fail.
And ... robotaxis are already far safer than even a good human driver. So whatever the problems ... they don't actually make things worse.
Also you should check out geohot's business. A lot of cars already are "fly-by-wire". Their solution? They now have 2 CAN buses instead of one. One for the critical stuff. Cylinder timings. Checking the oil levels. Turning the wheels. Actuating the brakes. That sort of stuff. A second CAN bus for your bluetooth music, and displays and what have you. I hear a certain new Mercedes now has like 7 buses. We are making things safer.
We can make this work. We will make this work.
Cars are non of that and we have billions of them on the street.
Cars also became a lot more expensive due to their complexity which def creates problems for a lot of people who can't afford all of that. I'm really torn by this because I think its very good that my side mirror shows me if there is a car next to me but in our capitalistic economy, we are excluding a lot of people from affordable cars. Drive by wire needs to be cheaper and easier to fix/repair.
Btw. Waymos are slowly learning to drive on highways so I might agree that they drive saver than humans in certain controlled envs. For sure not in any environment.
Steer by wire (which the article highlights) is common on all modern airbus planes for decades. The first ones flew shortly after the Therac incident. Boeing has also started implementing that on their newer models. And of course most of the vtol planes/drones currently starting to operate and progress through certification programs also commonly use steer by wire. Several of these flew without pilots before their first manned test flights. These are computer controlled, pilot directed pretty much by default with that part being optional by design.
Beyond Tesla, there are now several other manufacturers implementing steer by wire in the car industry. Nio, Lexus, Toyota, Mercedes, and a few others each either already have cars on the road for this or are working on new ones. And while Tesla has received quite a bit of criticism on their FSD system, I don't think there have been a lot of incidents implicating the steer by wire in Cybertrucks. It seems to work and drivers seem to mostly like it once they get used to it. The car is controversial of course. But there's a lot of cool tech inside that is being copied across the industry now.
The implied warning "we should be careful with this stuff because Therac-25" is a bit of a cliche at this point. Yes, we need lots of checks and balances when using automation in safety critical systems. And that has been common for decades.
I put this less strongly since boeing contracted MBA cancer and yolo'd the 737-max, but that aside, the civil aviation engineering field controls risks to a fault. Commercial pilots are selected to follow checklists without deviation. I allow them the grace to implement steer-by-wire.
Ford kept selling Pintos with exploding fuel tanks, Toyota sold priuses with runaway acceleration defects, and depending on region maybe the worst twenty per cent of drivers ought to be operating nothing more dangerous than shirt buttons. No matter how good the plan is, those people shouldn't be anywhere near it.
The whole steer-by-wire in CT happened because Musk wanted a yoke as the control system. And a yoke requires progressive steering which is impractical without steer-by-wire.
If that were true, it would not explain why other manufacturers are headed the same direction. The CT is not the only steer-by-wire vehicle.
Do buyers need a motorised hood ornament? A tiny vase built into the dashboard? A built-in champagne chiller? Gull wing doors? A spoiler and a 300-horsepower engine?
If it boosts sales by giving the vehicle a distinctive character, though, there's a place in the market for that tiny vase.
Its power steering already and cars use that to turn a wheel when you are not driving.
So why would that make it safer?
But also look at Citroën's DIRAVI system, used on the CX, SM, and some XMs. There's no direct mechanical link between the steering wheel and the rack when the system is pressurised. When you turn the wheel a kind of dogbone link thing pushes a spool valve one way or the other allowing hydraulic fluid to push the rack along, which pushes the other end of the link back to shut the fluid off again.
So far, so similar to the Danfoss valve in a conventional power-assisted steering system, except that uses a rotary valve and a big torsion spring in the steering rack (that's why your steering wheel feels springy with the engine off).
But DIRAVI is fully powered with no mechanical link, so how do you get increasing resistance with increasing speed? Well, there's a governor on the gearbox that allows hydraulic fluid into a little cylinder that pushes a spring-loaded roller against a heart-shaped cam attached to the steering wheel shaft. This will try to spring back to the middle, and the faster you go the harder it springs back. At 70mph you can barely move the steering wheel, but it will flick a large heavy car from lane to lane with fingertip pressure.
You have to get used to this and for the first few miles you'll be zig-zagging down the road like you're tacking a dinghy, but after that you'll get used to just thinking about your right pinky finger being a gram heavier and going round a corner. I've driven some seriously high-end sports cars with legendary handling and performance and they feel pretty rough and tractory now ;-)
If the pressure fails of course then there's no powered steering (notice I say powered, not power-assisted), although in practice what tends to happen is that the "resistance" part goes first giving you very sensitive steering.
What happens once there's no pressure is that the steering wheel moves about 20° before you run the valve to its end and then the dogbone pushes directly on the drive gear for the rack. So the steering is very loose and wobbly but you can at least steer well enough to get it out of the parking space and into the workshop. You still have brakes for an hour or so if the pump belt breaks, and enough steering to get safely to the side of the road, or at least out of the fast lane.
In the 1960s they had a prototype Citroën DS controlled by a joystick using pretty much the same setup (hydraulic valve to push the rack around, heart-shaped cam to apply resistance). Apparently it was very comfortable and natural to drive but ultimately a bit to weird even for Citroën.
Not a scrap of electronics in it, unless you count the pressure switch and dashboard lightbulb.
Have you experienced that failure mode yourself? How alarming was it? Do you think it's a reasonable trade-off for the benefits?
They seem to have done research but have strung together unrelated subjects due to their lack of expertise in the subjects.
As a result it reads more like a summary or recap of vaguely related stories.
For example, Tesla’s pivot to robots has nothing to do with their advanced nature of their wiring harnesses, but it’s spoken in the same breath as if to imply that a Tesla Cybertruck (which is a Model Y with paneling literally glued on top) is more similar to a humanoid robot than a Mustang Mach-E.
In reality, what has happened is that the Model S and X have been discontinued and they’re the only products the Fremont, CA plant produces. Tesla has literally nothing else they can make in that plant. They either make Optimus robots or shut the plant down.
Optimus robot production is a face saving move. Tesla barely needs a fraction of that factory to build robots…it’s a much lower-volume and physically smaller product.
I should note that none of that has anything to do with Tesla being great at robotics and seeing it as a better business than automobiles. It has everything to do with competitors catching up and Tesla having insufficient development capability to iterate on those vehicles.
Who in the buyer demographic for a Model S wouldn’t take a Porsche Taycan, AUD A6 Sportback, or Lucid Air over that vehicle?
Who in the buyer demographic for the Model X won’t take a Kia EV9, Lucid Gravity, or Volvo EX-90?
Maybe if you aren’t paying attention to the car industry you’ll disagree with me but the problem here is the Model S and X are positively ancient with about zero dollars spent on keeping them updated and they’ve become completely irrelevant to the market as a result.
In practice they essentially got replaced with the Model 3 and Y, which didn't exist when the models being discontinued first came out.
It's because of the decline in battery prices. When the Model S came out, an electric car with that range had to be that price. Now it's overpriced for what it is so they'd either need to design one which is significantly more premium while still selling into an inherently lower volume market segment, or lower the price to reflect the current battery costs and then have it be too close to the Model 3.
What they really need to do is continue to move down, i.e. release a subcompact with less range than the Model 3 but on the cheap.
Or build a truck people actually want.
I guess me, though I’d probably opt for the Y instead. I have a friend who drives a Taycan, one of the sportier variants with 4 wheel steering and blistering acceleration, and it’s nice, but it’s clear that they’re still crap at computers and interfaces, and I just really don’t want to go back to traditional car industry software interfaces and feature sets after our Tesla. I doubly don’t want to deal with a dealership ever again. Also, love their mobile service which comes to our garage and fixed a flat on two different occasions while I was working at home, super convenient. Roadside assistance was great when we got a flat in the middle of nowhere with no shops open anywhere nearby, they coordinated getting a tow truck out to us to tow it to a Costco like 40 miles away, gratis. Also, it’s just been a great car for us, extremely practical, great for long road trips, fun to drive, the autopilot works well and makes long drives much more pleasant, especially traffic. I don’t know why people confidently declare them to be bad cars - our experience hasn’t been flawless, but as a total package, it’s been the best car ownership experience I’ve had, including Acura, Toyota, Subaru, BMW, Nissans. I guess some combination of not liking Elon, and the issues from the scale-up period when they were making model 3s in tents, though those are long gone.
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You are not actually in the market for the class of vehicle the Model S or X competed with in the first place.
I'm not actually saying they are bad cars. What I am saying is that they now lack a buyer persona, which is why they're being discontinued.
When the S and X first came out, $90,000 was the price of entry for any electric car of that caliber. Anyone who wanted an electric car with that kind of range and charging network had just those two options.
But the reality is, the vast majority of people who want Teslas will choose the 3 or Y because, duh, obviously! You have to squint real hard at the door handles to even visibly tell the difference between the X and Y.
What I'm really getting at here is that the majority of buyers in the luxury segment, the kind of people blowing $90,000 plus on a vehicle, those are the people for which the S and X are not competitive. They don't give a shit about how good the software is on the iPad that was slapped on the Tesla dashboard. They probably just want CarPlay and Android Auto anyway. They are looking for hand stitched everything, paint to sample and semi-custom interior colors, and either overstated or understated luxury: they want to look like they belong at the country club (Range Rover, Volvo) or they want to look like they belong at the club (BMW, Porsche, Mercedes, Audi, etc).
For the Model S, it existed in a struggling segment of full-size sedans where you either have to be sporty as in driving enthusiast sporty or luxurious as in massaging seats. The Model S was a Toyota Crown with the leather package that went fast in a straight line.
The Model X is even more lost on demographics. It's an SUV with a bad 3rd row and wonky doors. More critically, it fails to hit any of the demographics you might want to hit: families don't want it because it doesn't have the minivan-like utility of vehicles like the Lucid Gravity, Kia EV9, or any of the gas competitors like the Telluride - or minivans themselves! For people who want a luxury SUV, it doesn't satisfy either type of club folk. You'll get a more refined build and luxurious experience in something like a Volvo EX-90. You'll stand out more in a BMW iX. And finally, the most successful segment of luxury SUV right now is the performance offroader: The Model X can't scratch the itch that the Rivian R1S, Sequoia TRD Pro, Ford Bronco Raptor, Lexus GX, Mercedes G Wagon, and a laundry list of other options I can't even think of right now because there are so many.
As a sidenote, when you describe mobile service to fix a flat tire and roadside assistance, you are literally describing AAA. This is not something Tesla invented. Roadside assistance is included with my car insurance. People who buy Porsches definitely get themselves a similarly good experience. These are not dealerships that are generally unpleasant, they aren't exactly your local Hyundai franchise.
> As a sidenote, when you describe mobile service to fix a flat tire and roadside assistance, you are literally describing AAA.
Haha do they come to your garage for routine maintenance? If so, I need to have another look at them. My point was that it’s a packaged experience that adds up to be pretty delightful, with a minimum of work on my part.
> These are not dealerships that are generally unpleasant, they aren't exactly your local Hyundai franchise.
Last dealerships I have experience with are Mercedes and BMW, same shit, different veneer, arguably douchier salespeople.
> Who in the buyer demographic for the Model X won’t take a Kia EV9, Lucid Gravity, or Volvo EX-90?
The S and X are plenty competitive here for many buyers. Did any of those cars outsell the S in 2025 in the US? I would not trust a Kia or Volvo EV.
The X is not competitive with proper 3-row SUVs as the 3rd row is not usable enough, and it was cannibalized by the Y which is not an upmarket luxury SUV as luxurious as EV SUVs that are in the Model X's price range.
Similar story goes for the Model S: they're discontinuing their upper luxury full-size sedan and no longer compete in that market at all.
Since Tesla doesn't split the numbers out it's hard to say but I would say anecdotally, seeing a Model S on the road is most common with older model years as most of those buyers clearly switched over to the Model 3 or Y instead.
The type of buyer who is actually looking for a $90,000 luxury vehicle, that's the type of person I am saying the X and S are not competitive with, which is why they're being discontinued.
Someone spending that much in 2016 on an S or X was getting a vehicle that was bleeding edge technology you couldn't get anywhere else.
Someone spending that much in 2026 will choose the extra luxury features, build quality, and brand prestige of something like a Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or Lucid.
Sources:
https://insideevs.com/news/746147/kia-ev-sales-record-2024-u...
https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-fourth-quarter-2024...
Cars in the US. As in the Taycan, A6 e-tron, and Air. Maybe the Air had more sales in '25.
> The type of buyer who is actually looking for a $90,000 luxury vehicle, that's the type of person I am saying the X and S are not competitive with
> Someone spending that much in 2026 will choose the extra luxury features, build quality, and brand prestige of something like a Porsche, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, or Lucid.
This is a silly internet trope that doesn't align with reality. Many factors go into a car purchase. ADAS, appearances, software, reliability, performance, efficiency, charging network, trends, etc. The affordability of a car doesn't inform the preferences of the buyer.
But yes in 2026 they don't really have a choice unless they buy used.
> Which is why they're being discontinued.
Or they're being discontinued because they no longer serve a purpose for Tesla.
Doesn't seem true?
Although I'm wrong about it being closely enough related to the Model Y's platform to really say "it's a Model Y," many of those stainless steel panels are absolutely secured with fasteners and glue.
“The question for your portfolio: who becomes the Corning, the Qualcomm, the TI of this stack?”
and it feels like a reading comprehension exercise, as the answer is right there in their article, even if they miss what the hard part about humanoid robotics is - hint, it’s not the actuators.
The answer is Nvidia. They’ve got the full stack, ready to license to everyone and anyone who wants to jump into autonomous vehicles or robotics - and as the article points out, they already are.
But I do also get the feeling that maybe Musk is just off his rocker and everyone else is copying what he does just in case he actually a genius
Checkout youtube on some chinese factories building like rice cooker and co. They have like 10-50 stops were one person only does like 1-5 things. Putting tape on, screwing something together etc.
I can see it as the last niche were the real big specialised and for purpose build robots are just not economicly
To condense that, i might use a phrase like "blind-buying future option space"
Whether Musk deserves that credit is a moot point. I haven't trusted a thing he's said for years, and studying him for revealed intent can't get past "clown on drugs" without violating occam's razor.
A robot like Optimus will not be a household robot for years to come. Why? If it falls, it will crash into some kind of glas from doors to windows etc. If it falls it might crash a human or animal underneath it. It might trip on a toy or stairs and crash into a wall.
I would love to have one robot but 50k? Who buys something for 50k? A normal person has to save up for a car and they need a car, for a household robot you need a lot of income to justify 50k. You will buy a car, flat, kitchen, etc. before you will buy a 50k robot.
10k perhaps is more realistic but than it has to be good. Like if you are alone, I don't think you will recognize normal housework as such a bad thing that you will buy a robot for a small flat.
For families, the robot has to be very good and really save.
If you have a partner not working, you might not be able to afford a robot and that perosn has time anyway to do all of that.
I can imagine having a robot for elder people and some remote service using these robots to do stuff for them but 50k is costly.
I'm not bullish on household robots for the next 10 years at all. Now you have another problem though, if they become really good in an industry setting, guess who will lose their jobs? yeah exactly the people whou should be able to buy these.
Strong disagree here we have plenty of machinery that we use that could be very dangerous if it fails, but they just slap a disclaimer on it and that’s usually enough the same is going to be done here.
Give me a similar device that I own and control, one without access to the internet, and I'll be happy to let a robot do my dishes, but otherwise such robots are strictly for fools (and sadly there are plenty of those).
An autonomous robot that I program, I update (or don't) as and when I see fit, and does not need to connect to the internet or to anything, for $20k that does dishes, or helps me lift things at the shop, and returning data to it's maker IF AND ONLY IF, AND WHEN, I CHOOSE (or dont)? Great - take my money!
An ambulatory machine with eyes, ears, touch sensors, continually watching, listening, observing, mapping, recording everything it encounters in my home and/or shop and sending all that data back to it's manufacturer "for improved user experience"? HELL, NO!
The latter, supplied by Musk, even if he's paying me $1 million per year to 'host' it? I'll buy the equipment to destroy it as soon as it comes onto my property.
I don't think there is any supplier I could even begin to trust when they require a connection. Can anyone here think of one?
https://www.focus2move.com/world-car-market/, https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-...
This is the second paragraph of the article:
> Model S and Model X production is over. Roughly 600 vehicles remain in inventory worldwide. The Fremont factory lines that built those cars
That's the 'other models' section on your second link:
https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/tesla-first-quarter-2026-...
My point stands.
50.000
My guess, they made them for pushing the Space X IPO. The same why he did this weird Keynote last week with this megafantasic dyson sphere and whatnot vision.
And I find it very weird tbh that it still even sells. Whenever you see a Tesla, its always the same car.
I don't know the figures for Earth's resources and their sustainability, so this may be a naive take, but I'm always left with the impression that these organisations want to speedrun the depletion of the planet.
Humans are sapient; industrialists and politicians have intent. But the incentive structure is an evolved system, and that's what selects these people. The result is that humanity, collectively, is amoebic. We are probably doomed to expand until we have a population crash or until another species arises to keep us in check.
Did the the 3 and the Y completely cannibalise sales of S and X, or what's going on here?
Anyone knows?
