Robotaxi: Mostly Autonomous

[00:00:02] Sprechen wir doch mal über deinen Traumtyp. Oh, schwierig. Schieß los! Okay, er muss für jedes Abenteuer zu haben sein und natürlich toll aussehen. Und er darf mich nie lang warten lassen. Klingt verdächtig nach dem neuen Ford Puma Gen E. Der lädt schneller als dein Smartphone von 10 auf 80 Prozent in nur 23 Minuten. Dann muss ich wohl mal... Probefahren! Der neue Ford Puma Gen E. Jetzt Probefahrt buchen auf ford.de.

[00:00:29] Hallo und willkommen to Kilowatt, a Podcast about Electric Vehicles, Renewable Energy, Autonomous Driving and much, much more.

[00:01:00] My name is Bodhi and I am your host and on today's episode we are going to talk about full self-driving or more specifically Tesla's RoboTaxi. But we have other things because I realized that maybe there's some people out there who aren't so interested in hearing about RoboTaxi. So we have some things in here for you as well. However, I do think the RoboTaxi stuff is fascinating. And, you know, this is going to be a long show.

[00:01:30] Um, this show actually took quite a bit of time to put together because of the RoboTaxi thing. There were lots of articles, some of them saying the same thing. Some of them saying things that were salacious, but when you get into it, it's not really that big of a deal. There was lots of videos to watch. So, yeah, with a with an article, you can kind of skim through it and get the gist, you know, and.

[00:01:57] Pick it, take take the parts that you need right with a video. You just got to sit there and watch a 20 minute video of somebody being hauled around from one place to another. So, uh, it took a little bit more time to get this episode done. And it's actually technically not completely, uh, written, uh, in terms of the RoboTaxi story. I had to be like, after seven pages of notes, I was like, you know what?

[00:02:22] We're going to have to talk about, you know, people's thoughts, like how they liked the service at some other point in time, uh, next episode. And, uh, how RoboTaxi is doing in terms of its performance on the road. So lots of stuff to talk about, but let's start off by thanking the folks who support this show and sponsored this episode.

[00:02:46] We're going to start off with the Gene R, Chris B, Jamie H, Don M, and Christopher R. I really appreciate the support from not only these folks, the Gene, Chris, Jamie, Don, and Christopher, but for everybody who supports the show in whatever way you support it.

[00:03:08] But if you want to support it financially, you can go to supportkilowatt.com and you can see the two choices that we have, which are, uh, Patreon and Supercast. All right, let's go ahead and start the show. There's still quite a bit of chatter when it comes to hydrogen vehicles. Um, I'm not exactly sure why.

[00:03:31] I think for the most part, electric vehicles have shown themselves to be a viable option while hydrogen vehicles, it's a little bit more difficult. Um, you got to have a lot more infrastructure in place for hydrogen vehicles to work, but hydrogen isn't only for EVs.

[00:03:52] And I found this story and I don't think what the, the researchers in this story are doing is specifically for, um, hydrogen vehicles, but I thought it was interesting. So the issue we have today with hydrogen is most of the hydrogen we get is split from fossil fuels, primarily natural gas, and that generates carbon emissions. That's kind of defeats the purpose.

[00:04:17] So then we get into this thing called, you know, green hydrogen, which is splitting it from water through electrolysis. And the downside of that is that it's just more expensive. So researchers from the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation and the University of Adelaide,

[00:04:42] I think they have a solution to splitting hydrogen from water that will cost roughly the same amount as splitting it from fossil fuels. The researchers have developed two urea based electrolysis systems and urea based electrolysis systems as a rule isn't new, but how they are sourcing the urea is new.

[00:05:05] So, um, take a second, if you will, uh, can you think of something in your life, in your everyday life, not even in your every now and again life in your life that has urea and don't rule anything out. This, this could even be considered a waste product. So I'm going to give you a second. All right. You have your answer. Well, if your answer was urine, give yourself a pat on the back.

[00:05:33] Researchers are extracting urea from urine and using that to power the electrolysis systems. Now, uh, urine is like 96% water, 2% urea. And if you eat a lot of meat, that, that percentage can go up a little bit, but that's not a lot of urea. You're going to need a lot of urine to get your urea that you're, that you're looking for to power the system.

[00:06:02] But the by-product of this, instead of being carbon emissions, you're going to get nitrogen gas, which is largely harmless. Both systems will use 20 to 27% less electricity than other water splitting, hydrogen splitting water systems. Um, the urine will be sourced from sewage and wastewater treatment plants that are high in nitrogenous gases. So there you go, folks.

[00:06:31] I thought, I thought this was an interesting story. Uh, it's not without its issues. Uh, there's some still, you know, a lot of things to be overcome, but, uh, there you go. All right. So there's, there's a, before we do our next story, there's a couple of different changes. One, I'm on a different mic right now. And two, um, I started recording this very early in the morning and then I had some things to do. And now I'm recording it later at night.

[00:07:00] It is Thursday at nearly seven o'clock. So my voice is a little less rough, a little more smooth. So let's go to our next story. Our next story is Tim Stevens writing for the Verge. Tim wrote up some frequently asked questions about the new slate pickup truck that's due out. I believe it's next year. So the first frequently asked question is how does the slate compare to the Ford Maverick?

[00:07:27] So the Maverick comes in a lot of different configurations. So I'm just going to give you what Tim used as the default. And he calls this out as well, that there's different configurations for the truck. So anything I say, if you're like, well, that's not necessarily true because of this configuration, just know we're talking in generalities here. For, oh, they also, he also compared it, uh, the slate pickup truck to the F-150. I don't think that's a fair comparison.

[00:07:56] So I left the F-150 out of the mix, although I do understand why people would want to, to know that information. I'm just, we're just not going to address that here. All right. So let's start with horsepower. The slate is going to have 201 horsepower, which is about 10 horsepower, which is, yeah, about 10 horsepower more than what the Maverick has.

[00:08:20] Um, in terms of weight, it is going to be 72 pounds lighter than the Maverick. The Maverick is 3,602 pounds. Payload, the Maverick beats it a little bit on the payload. The payload for the slate is 1,433 pounds. The Maverick rounds out at 1,500 pounds of payload.

[00:08:45] And the Maverick does, um, a better job at towing. The Maverick can tow at 2,000 pounds, whereas the slate can tow at 1,000 pounds. The slate does win in bed length though. I didn't know this. I thought the Maverick bed length was five feet, but it's only four and a half feet. Whereas the slate is five feet. The, uh, seats that come standard with the vehicle, five seats for the Maverick and two for the slate.

[00:09:15] Um, next frequently asked question is where will the slate be manufactured? It will be manufactured in Warsaw, Indiana at a former catalog printing facility. It'll create 2,000 jobs. They're expected to produce 150,000 vehicles at that plant. And as of right now, it qualifies for the $7,500 federal tax credit, but it is unlikely by the time the slate comes out that that tax credit will be in place.

[00:09:44] Um, next frequently asked question, does it have cell connection? And the answer to that is no. Any over the air update is done via smartphone and you have to download the update to the phone and then push the update to your truck via a USB cable. I mean, I understand why maybe they're like, well, you know, putting a cell connection in is expensive.

[00:10:10] I understand that, but why not put like a, a, a wifi connection there in so that when you're at home, you can connect your truck to the wifi through your phone and then you could easily update it that way. That seems like a, a miss on the slate truck. The next question is, is the slate going to hoover up all of my driving data and sell it to third parties?

[00:10:35] The answer to that is no on collecting data and selling the driving data to third parties, but, um, you can upload your vehicle health data to slate and Jeff Jablonski. And I didn't write down Jeff's title, but he works for slate. Jeff said that one of the ways that they will use data, like I said, was for vehicle health. But one of the ways they're going to do that is if a check engine light comes on, um, and

[00:11:05] the driver has their phone plugged in and has opted in to data movement from the truck to slate, the company will send a notification to the slate app and we'll make the owner or the driver of that vehicle aware that service needs to be done. So that that's how they're going to be doing that. Next question. Uh, can I remotely control climate settings? So the, again, the truck doesn't have a cell connection.

[00:11:34] So this would be difficult. Um, but Jeff Jablonski, again, one employee at slate, I don't remember what his title is. He did say not at this time, but they're looking at a way to do that via the app. I have, I have no idea how they're going to do that without a wifi connection or Bluetooth or some sort of cell connection. Our next question is why didn't slate use the standard DIN or DIN slots to make installing

[00:12:04] an in dash audio receiver easier? So, um, if you don't know, this truck does not have a radio, you know, you can use a tablet or your phone and a Bluetooth speaker, or there's some other, you know, DIY solutions that you can come up with, but they didn't, they're not selling this truck with a, with a radio and slates answer as to why they didn't use the DIN slots or, you know, DIN. I'm not sure. I'm not a radio guy.

[00:12:34] Um, their answer to this is they didn't want to lock anyone into anything. So customers can install whatever audio system they want. Uh, they just, like I said, they're just going to have to do DIY stuff. It's going to be more complicated or like I said, you can just use your phone and a Bluetooth speaker you buy from like Best Buy or whatever. I, I, I do think this is a little bit of a miss, um, for slate just because I have seen

[00:13:03] some audio installs that are absolutely horrendous. And most of those were done by my friends and I may or may not have been a part of helping install those radios. Um, yeah, it, it seems like they could have done something to be a little bit more customer friendly while still keeping costs down. But again, I'm not a car audio guy, so I don't know everything about that world. Next question is slate working on advanced active driver assistance technology. The answer to that is nope.

[00:13:33] Um, let's see. Next question. Why did slate choose a truck to start with instead of a sedan or compact SUV? I think this is a good question. And according to slate, it all comes down to cost and simplicity. That's hard to say simplicity. That is a complicated word. Simplicity, uh, by producing a two door pickup truck, there's less material, less complexity and less cost.

[00:14:01] So that is why they chose a pickup truck. Will you need any special tools, uh, for the DIY upgrades or add-ons that slate's going to sell and eventually other third parties will sell. And the answer to that is no. So that's great. Um, and the final question in the frequently asked questions was, will it really sell for $20,000? So this truck costs, it has an MSRP of $27,500.

[00:14:31] And here in the United States, if you add in that federal tax credit, that goes down to $20,000. The problem is, is that federal tax credit, again, it doesn't look like it's going to be around for very long. So I would not expect to get this truck for $20,000. I would expect to pay the full fare, which is $27,500. I could be wrong though. You know, weirder things have happened.

[00:14:59] You know, while I still love the idea of what slate is doing, I think, I think it's brilliant. I wonder if they're not painting themselves into a corner with how resistant they are to add in anything that isn't absolutely necessary. You know, you look at the, the radio, the way that you have to do updates, um, you know, being able to turn on the air conditioning or heater in your vehicle remotely, or even having a radio.

[00:15:28] I'm wondering, like I said, if they're painting themselves into a corner and this fantastic idea that they had to build this truck ends up being a little bit of a bust because it is inconvenient. At $27,500, you know, you can, you're pretty close to Chevy Equinox. Um, you'll probably be somewhat close to the new Chevy Bolt.

[00:15:56] And if you're dead set on a pickup truck, the Ford Maverick hybrid MSRP is at $28,145. I think at $20,000, this truck is really attractive and you're willing to deal with some of the, the headaches that come with having or owning a $20,000 EV, right?

[00:16:19] We'll say inconveniences instead of headaches, but at $27,000 and there's so many other options at that, that price point. I think that's going to be a harder sell unless the person buying it is really into customizing their vehicle. And, uh, then, then, you know, it's probably a no brainer. Sprechen wir doch mal über deinen Traumtipp. Oh, schwierig. Schieß los.

[00:16:48] Okay, er muss für jedes Abenteuer zu haben sein und natürlich toll aussehen. Und er darf mich nie lang warten lassen. Klingt verdächtig nach dem neuen Ford Puma Gen E. Der lädt schneller als dein Smartphone von 10 auf 80 Prozent in nur 23 Minuten. Hm, dann muss ich wohl mal... Probefahren! Der neue Ford Puma Gen E. Jetzt Probefahrt buchen auf ford.de. Egal, ob Sie gerade erst beginnen oder Ihr Sicherheitsprogramm erweitern.

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[00:18:10] Now, I do want to let you know that I am aware that I am very late for this show, but I also want to let you know that I only did two stories so far, and we're 16 and a half minutes into this show. You know, I did a lot of research for this show.

[00:18:30] It took me a long time to get this show out, simply because I wanted to make sure to give you the best and most fair analysis of Robotaxi.

[00:18:43] So having said that, in our Tesla segment, we have Robotaxi news, and then we have some kind of adjacent news to start off with that isn't specifically Robotaxi related, but it is full self-driving and autonomous taxi related. So we're going to start off with this story.

[00:19:06] The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is overhauling the approval process for vehicles designed without human controls. By human controls, we mean steering wheel, brake, and accelerator. Under the existing rules, vehicles without human controls require a special exemption, and trying to obtain this exemption is time-consuming.

[00:19:32] The article described the process as a black box where you would not hear if you were approved or denied for years, which is insane. The new guidelines will take a faster approach. So by faster, I'm not talking about instant approval or even approvals in a few days or a few weeks.

[00:19:57] We're talking months instead of years, which I think is probably appropriate at this point. This obviously helps companies like Tesla with their cyber cab, but it also helps other companies like Zoox and Waymo and, you know, Motional and all those other companies out there that are trying to solve this problem.

[00:20:17] And honestly, when I actually read the headline to this article, my initial, where my head went initially is, this is a terrible idea.

[00:20:29] But after learning that it takes years to obtain this special exemption, and it's, you know, largely a black box, not very transparent process, I'm kind of down for making the process more transparent and faster while still maintaining high safety standards. All right, moving on to our next story. Bloomberg released a report showing autonomous driving technology from Tesla and Waymo.

[00:20:58] And I should say it was comparing autonomous driving technology from Tesla and Waymo. And Electric kind of tore into Bloomberg's reporting. So and mostly they blew, they tore into it because they not everything is apples to apples in comparison.

[00:21:19] And normally I would not talk about something like this simply because, you know, some of these little slap fights in the media can be petty. But I do think Electric makes a good point. In the Bloomberg report, when they looked at crash rates, and these are self-reported by the automaker, right?

[00:21:43] When they looked at crash rates per million miles driven, Tesla with full self-driving or autonomous driving or autopilot, excuse me, turned on. And we don't know what the numbers are separated because Tesla only, I should say, Electric is reporting that Tesla combines the autopilot and full self-driving crash data. They don't separate that out.

[00:22:08] So if you're looking at crashes per million miles driven, Tesla is 0.15, which is pretty good. Waymo is 1.16 crashes per million miles driven. And the average US driver is 3.9 crashes for every million miles driven. So on the surface, it looks like Tesla is doing really well.

[00:22:37] But Tesla only counts events as accidents if an airbag goes off. So if the airbag is deployed or the seatbelt pretensioner is activated. So minor accidents or accidents where, you know, those two things don't happen. They're not reported as an accident.

[00:22:59] Now, I can tell you that I have been on accidents where people have been injured and the airbags didn't go off. I don't always look for the seatbelt pretensioner. Typically, right, if we are, if we roll up to an accident scene and someone says, we say, were you wearing your seatbelt?

[00:23:24] And someone says, yes, we'll go and check the car because the seatbelt pretensioner will lock itself in place. So if it is locked in the, you know, stowed position before you get in your car, you know how it just kind of retracts back. If it's locked in that position, they're lying. If it is, you know, all extended and floppy, then they're telling the truth.

[00:23:49] So that's one way that we can tell if if somebody is telling the truth about whether they were in their seatbelt or not. Because for whatever reason, people think that firefighters are going to we're just going to tell the cops that they weren't wearing their seatbelt. And there's also, you know, injuries consistent with not wearing your seatbelt. So we have to do a little bit more investigating.

[00:24:11] But I will say not every time do we get an accident where the airbags don't go off, but somebody is injured. Do we go and check the seatbelt pretensioner whether it was activated or not? So I can't tell you with any degree of confidence that the accidents that I've been on where someone was injured. If the seatbelt pretensioner was activated every time, I'm going to have to look at this.

[00:24:38] But what I'm saying is, is you can the point is, is you can still be injured without the these two things going off. So I think that's an important distinction. Another thing that's kind of important to mention is, you know, Tesla does have this data because of the cellular connection that your car has, right?

[00:25:00] If some for some reason during the accident, the cell antenna is damaged or if you have an accident where the car doesn't have cell coverage. And I haven't driven anywhere that my Tesla doesn't have cell coverage, but, you know, it could happen. And then, you know, or you have some unforeseen power disruption. That data doesn't go back to test.

[00:25:25] Now, let's move on to Waymo, who has 1.16 accidents. I think I might have said 1.15 earlier, but 1.16 accidents every million miles. Well, the way that Waymo determines, you know, what's a reportable accident and what isn't is was a police report generated.

[00:25:47] Which I'm going to say, if you are involved in an accident with a car that does not have a driver, every accident, even if it's minor, is going to have a police report generated. Simply because if it's not your fault, you certainly want to have a record of that and you want Waymo to be paying you to get your car fixed or paying for your car to be fixed.

[00:26:13] But it is interesting that that is the distinction. Now, in terms of the average U.S. citizen that's driving, like I said, it's 3.9 accidents per every million miles driven. They're pulling this data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. And that data includes all sorts of collisions and minor accidents. That data comes in from a lot of different sources.

[00:26:42] So, it's not to say that Tesla is lying or Waymo is lying. It's just to say that we're not comparing the same thing. And this is kind of where it goes back to, you know, I would like more transparency and clear defined rules on what is and isn't an accident.

[00:27:03] Because if the automakers or autonomous vehicle operators are able to kind of make this stuff up as they go, you know, they're obviously going to tilt that data in a way that makes them look good as compared to what really might be happening. And again, I don't think that the autonomous vehicles that we have out there now are just running into things willy-nilly and it's being hidden and covered up.

[00:27:31] It's just, it just makes it harder to extract what's really going on. Another issue that Electrek had with the Bloomberg report was data collected since launch. So, how much driving data, how many miles, I should say, of driving data has each company collected? And Waymo, according to the report, has 22 million miles.

[00:27:59] So, it's driven 22 million miles and collected data on 22 million miles. Tesla has driven over 3 billion miles. And there's a little bit of an issue with those numbers. So, the 22 million miles for Waymo, that only represents miles that were driven in San Francisco and doesn't include any of the markets that Waymo is operating in.

[00:28:25] For Tesla, the 3 billion miles, Electric points out that these miles are supervised full self-driving, whereas Waymo's miles were autonomous driving without somebody in the seat. Now, I don't bring that up to be nitpicky.

[00:28:47] I'm only addressing this or highlighting it because the, I guess what I'm trying to say is not everything looks as it seems. You know, we have to dig a little bit deeper to really get the real data. Now, having said that, I'm trusting Fred Lambert and Electrek that I'm trusting that they're giving us the right data.

[00:29:10] And from the things that I looked up, Fred Lambert is correct in this story or largely correct. And he typically is largely correct. I think Fred Lambert is a good journalist. However, I will say that Fred Lambert does seem to have a chip on his shoulder when it comes to Elon Musk and Tesla. And he definitely has a point of view.

[00:29:37] And I take that into consideration when I'm evaluating stories for the show. And sometimes I will not choose to use Fred Lambert's story. I will go and try to find somebody else's because I do think that his bias shows through a little bit sometimes. But that doesn't mean, like, again, I think Fred's a bad journalist. I think he's an excellent journalist.

[00:30:03] But I thought this was a good example of looking past the article to see what's really going on. Like, I would encourage everybody, if you love EVs and EV news, I mean, obviously don't unsubscribe from this show. But go subscribe to other EV shows. You know, Batteries Included, Ryan McCaffrey's podcast that I'm blanking on, Ride the Lightning is really good.

[00:30:32] Like, there's lots of good EV podcasts out there. You know, again, don't unsubscribe to me. But go and listen to their points of view because they're almost certainly going to be different from mine. Sprechen wir doch mal über deinen Traumtyp. Oh, schwierig. Schieß los. Okay, er muss für jedes Abenteuer zu haben sein und natürlich toll aussehen. Und er darf mich nie lang warten lassen.

[00:31:00] Klingt verdächtig nach dem neuen Ford Puma Gen E. Der lädt schneller als dein Smartphone von 10 auf 80 Prozent in nur 23 Minuten. Hmm. Dann muss ich wohl mal... Probefahren! Der neue Ford Puma Gen E. Jetzt Probefahrt buchen auf ford.de. All right. That leads us to our final segment and it's going to be all about Robotaxi. So there's lots of stuff coming out about Robotaxi.

[00:31:29] Um, I, I want to try and again present this in as fair a way as possible. And there's, it's kind of hard because there's a lot of overly positive articles, um, and social media posts from people who were there, uh, using the service. And there's a lot of super negative stuff from other people.

[00:31:54] So I'm trying to sort through what's what, what, what is the, the real, um, what's really going on. So for this particular segment, we're going to just kind of talk about the Robotaxi basics. We're, we're not going to go deep into, um, the experiences. We'll do that on our next episode of the, uh, folks who got an early invite.

[00:32:23] We're not going to talk about a lot about the Robotaxi fails. And I've already got a lot of those in my queue that I got to go through still, but we're just going to, we're going to give you the details on Robotaxi. And then next episode, and maybe even the next episode after that, we'll just kind of dive a little bit deeper into the experience and, you know, what's really happening with Robotaxi in terms of how it's performing.

[00:32:53] So we're going to start with a few days before Robotaxi's launch, Texas lawmakers, and I believe they were democratic lawmakers, but I can't tell you that. I know at least one person was a democratic lawmaker. I don't know if all Texas lawmakers wanted this, but Tesla's lawmakers were asking Tesla to delay the rollout of Robotaxi until September 1st, 2025.

[00:33:17] And the reason why is because right now Texas already has an autonomous vehicle operations framework in place, but there's an approved revision that doesn't take place until then. And it has updated safety guardrails.

[00:33:34] And these lawmakers would like Tesla to pause their rollout until this new law or this update to the law takes place or update to the revision to the law. I don't know. I'm not a legislator. But anyway, on September 1st, according to the new framework, autonomous vehicles should be capable of operating in compliance with state and state traffic laws.

[00:34:04] That makes sense. They need to be equipped with the recording device. They need to be compliant with federal law, including federal motor vehicle safety standards. They need to be capable of achieving a minimal risk condition if the automated driving system is rendered inoperable. And they need to be registered, titled, and insured under Texas law.

[00:34:27] And lawmakers are saying, well, Tesla, if you, the lawmakers that are calling for this, they're saying if Tesla isn't going to comply, by the way, they didn't comply. They would like Tesla to respond with a letter on detailed information on how they are being compliant with this law or how they'll be compliant with this law in the future. Or the update to the law.

[00:34:53] Based on the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things that they have listed here, I think Tesla's probably compliant. These things are, they're not that out of the norm. I don't think Tesla's going to have a problem complying with this. They probably comply right now. So just, I mentioned that because it's out there and it's regarding RoboTaxi.

[00:35:20] Now, when we look at the rollout, 20 social media folks or 20 influencers or 20 Tesla fans, however you want to look at that, you know, people who are going to say nice things about Tesla, they got early invites. For everybody else, we're going to have to wait a little bit longer. But for the chosen few, they got access to RoboTaxi last Sunday. And I can't remember what Sunday.

[00:35:50] Let me look at my calendar here. Sunday was that the 22nd. And I don't think a lot of these folks lived in Austin. I think a lot of them flew in maybe at their own expanse. I didn't hear anybody say that Tesla paid for their trip, but they went to Texas to experience it. And I would like to say that I follow a lot of these people on social media. I like a lot of these people.

[00:36:18] I'm not bagging on them, even though it might sound like I am. So through some additional information that was released and the folks that were able to take rides, we have some information about the service as a whole. So right now, RoboTaxi is geofenced in Austin and they can drive around, you know, the geofence is around 30 square miles.

[00:36:43] The hours of operation for GeoTaxi for RoboTaxi are between 6 a.m. and 12 a.m. seven days a week. So that's a good long time. The only difference is the service will either be limited or discontinued during inclement weather. I think they had I think I saw that they had like two cars that they were shuttling folks through on Tuesday on Sunday.

[00:37:10] But initially, 10 to 20 cars is what Tesla is looking for. And we talked about this. Tesla did confirm that they are going to have human safety monitors in the vehicle. So it's not somebody who's sitting in the driver's seat who can take control. It's somebody who's sitting in the passenger seat.

[00:37:30] And when the car doesn't do something, they can easily hit a button and the car will pull over or the car will remain in its current lane. So I'm guessing that there's a Texas law that says somebody from the company needs to be monitoring the car from the front seat, but does not stipulate which seat that person sits in. And Tesla was like, well, if it doesn't stipulate, we're going to put the human monitor in the passenger seat.

[00:38:03] The way a lot of the videos were filmed, it was filmed from the rear passenger seat and filmed toward the driver's seat. So you only saw somebody's shoulder. You didn't see the person sitting in the passenger seat. This could be because Tesla asked them not to do it. And I don't think they would probably do that.

[00:38:29] But what would be kind of more where my brain goes is maybe those people that are sitting in that seat don't want to be filmed. And it was just kind of a more respectful thing. And then you get to see how the car is turning the steering wheel and all that other stuff. But Elon did say at one point that they didn't need to have a safety monitor. And it turns out, yeah, you do because the government requires it.

[00:38:59] I would imagine they fought real hard on that as much as Elon was saying that Tesla didn't need that because they were already that good. There is a RoboTaxi app. It's an invite only at the moment. It goes through Apple's test flight. If you're not familiar, don't worry. It's just a way for developers to get their app out to people who are testing it.

[00:39:26] So what I'm saying is you just can't go to the App Store and download the RoboTaxi app. You got to wait for a little bit. But the app does give a map of the geofenced area that you are allowed to travel in. It gives some preset options for like cafes, parks, food, whether that's fast or dining, fun stuff, shopping. There's all sorts of little preset stuff in there, which I thought was kind of cool and forward thinking a little bit.

[00:39:54] But I don't think I've seen that in Uber or Lyft's apps. And maybe I have. Maybe I just didn't pay attention. You can also add a manual address. And if you choose an area that is outside the geofenced area, RoboTaxi will get you as close as possible and then drop you off. And you can either walk the rest of the way, take a bus, take a flight, you know, take a take an Uber, take a Lyft, whatever.

[00:40:24] But yeah, it'll get you close. It won't deny you. It'll just say, OK, well, we'll have to drop you off at this point, which I think is fair. Um, when you request a ride, you can see where your RoboTaxi is. This is similar to Lyft and Uber. When your vehicle arrives, you'll see the color of the vehicle, the license plate number so that you know that's your car. And Uber and Lyft do this as well.

[00:40:52] You can also make the car honk. You can flash the car headlights and unlock or open the trunk, unlock the car and open the trunk. And this is similar to hailing a Waymo. So that's not way outside of the norm. If you have the, I'm forgetting what it's called, the strip on the phone, what is it called? Activity center?

[00:41:19] Anyway, if you have an iPhone and you have live activities, you can get updated information on whatever that strip is called across the top of your phone on the iPhone, a new iPhone. Riders are encouraged to give a star rating feedback and feedback. So, um, so Tesla can improve on that.

[00:41:40] You can only book a ride if you're 18 years or older right now through the invite, you can only bring one guest and that guest has to also be over 18. You cannot book a ride for another person. So the account holder must be present. So you can't, um, call a, you know, if your mom's at the, you know, grocery store or whatever, you can't call her at robo taxi and expect her to be picked up. It's, you have to be there.

[00:42:09] Um, Tesla has some rules, you know, smoking, no vaping, no consuming drugs or alcohol. Um, I did not see anything about fornicating in these vehicles. And I would imagine that there's, there's gotta be a rule there somewhere. Um, there's also no taking pictures or filming for the purposes of reverse engineering the technology.

[00:42:35] If you need a service animal, you are allowed to bring your service animal. Otherwise there are no pets. And from what I understand, you're not allowed to ask, uh, if that's a service animal. Uh, maybe each state has some different rules, but I'm not sure how they're enforcing this other than people being honest. Right now, each ride costs $4 and 20 cents. No word if each influencer had to pay money out of their own pocket.

[00:43:05] Um, I'm sure Tesla just let them ride free or gave them a pile of credits and exchange for the free advertising that they did on mostly on X. And that, uh, that concludes our news for today. I hope everybody found this stuff interesting.

[00:43:22] Um, I know a lot of the things that we're talking about with RoboTaxi, we've talked about before, but I'm trying to establish a base so that when we get into the more nitty gritty details and when regular people can start riding in the RoboTaxis, um, we'll, we'll kind of have that base to, to draw from and reflect on. So that, that's kind of my goal there.

[00:43:46] Now, in terms of that second episode that I need to replace, um, because I didn't do one on Tuesday, I will either Saturday or Sunday come out with the second episode. I'm honestly trying to get back on track. Um, I've scooped a lot of things off or pushed a lot of things off my plate recently, but I am just having a hard time catching up.

[00:44:06] But, uh, on the other side, I really feel like because I've been able to push some of this stuff off and, um, that's given me more time to do some deeper dives and I'm really enjoying this and hopefully you're enjoying it too. All right, everybody, that is it for me today. Um, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you in approximately two to three days. Ruh.

[00:44:53] Sprechen wir doch mal über deinen Traumtyp. Oh, schwierig. Schieß los. Okay, er muss für jedes Abenteuer zu haben sein und natürlich toll aussehen. Und er darf mich nie lang warten lassen. Klingt verdächtig nach dem neuen Ford Puma Gen E. Der lädt schneller als dein Smartphone von 10 auf 80 Prozent in nur 23 Minuten. Hm, dann muss ich wohl mal. Probe fahren! Der neue Ford Puma Gen E. Jetzt Probefahrt buchen auf fort.de.