Is the Cyber Truck a Flop?

[WoodChuckDad]

There is a lot more to Tesla Corporation than cars and trucks. Cybertruck serves multiple purposes for the company. They are making a profit on cybertruck and it is a giant self funded experiment. Allowing them tonpush the design envelope and create things that no other company has done.
They make money in solar and energy storage both residential and industrial/municipal.

When the robo taxi is released later this year the true potential of the company will be revealed, good or bad. I suspect it will be a huge success.
If they can bring Optimus into production in the next few years, it will change the way future generations live. It will be as revolutionary as the automobile. Maybe not as significant as the lightbulb. But certainly as much as air conditioning.
I expect it will take a decade or two to scale, but it will be a force multiplier that absolutely changes our economy.
There are a handful of companies building autonomous bots but none of them have a fully functioning global production system like Tesla.

 

[jmc]

"If they can bring Optimus into production in the next few years, it will change the way future generations live. It will be as revolutionary as the automobile."

I had to look it up. It's a $30k robot.

Optimus (robot) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[WinterDeere]

I had to look it up. It's a $30k robot.

A heck of a lot cheaper than hiring employees. They also don't require vacation time, can work more than 6-8 hours per day, don't require social security, pension, or health insurance. Perhaps most importantly, they can't legally unionize!

 

[tacticalturnip]

A heck of a lot cheaper than hiring employees. They also don't require vacation time, can work more than 6-8 hours per day, don't require social security, pension, or health insurance. Perhaps most importantly, they can't legally unionize!

Mass unemployment!

 

[ultrarunner]

This has been the promise of automation…

Mass unemployment!

 

[tacticalturnip]

This has been the promise of automation…

People lose purpose; I see it daily, and I know you do too. It's played hell on society, and it's nothing like it will be with the combination of modern robotics and AI.

 

[dfkrug]

Some will have to design, build, sell, and service those robots. Maybe they will be offered in cool matte stainless steel CyberTruck finish.

 

[ultrarunner]

Saw one today in Leprechaun green with fender flairs and after market wheels… someone obviously having fun customizing.

No time to take a picture.

 

[WinterDeere]

Mass unemployment!

Conspiracy theorists and fear mongerers have been crying this claim for at least 50 years now. Fortunately for us, it has never panned out.

Job replacement technologies have historically always increased demand by increasing output and lowering prices, such that net workforce always increases, despite all fears that automation might somehow decrease the need for human workers. It's not as if the introduction of new technology suddenly coincides with the death or rampant desire or consumerism, rather it just enables our consumption to leap to a new level.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

Every time technology or automation make it easier to do a task, people say it will eliminate jobs. Sometimes specific jobs or sectors are affected but jobs overall increase. We will have to change the things we train people to do and there are always people who work very hard at being worthless. But new jobs that we never imagined will come up.
Labor makes up 1/3 of our GDP. It is limited by the ability of people to do that labor. As the affordability and and capability increase, jobs that destroy our bodies will begin to be eliminated. It will be a force multiplier. If you want to work, you will be able to.
If you had a home business and you had a bot , you could teach it how to stock or sort or pre load items for the next business day. Take a delivery late in the day and the bot works thru the night doing work that would have taken you an entire day to do. I expect they will be available on subscription basis. Expensive at first but as they scale, they become m ore affordable.
In 1986, when I was in college, I went to one of the only two computer stores in downtown richmond. The entry level ibm clone was $3200 for a desktop. I couldn’t afford that. Most people couldnt. Now you can get a great computer for $800-$1200.
I’m sure I wont like some of the changes. But those changes are definitely coming, even if it takes a couple decades. My grandchildren will grow up in a vastly different world than I did.