Originally published at: Musk promised a taxi, delivered laughs - Boing Boing
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A detail that he apparently failed to communicate to the people putting together his presentation as there were several visuals that still referred to it as the “Robotaxi.”
This guy sucks at branding almost as badly as he sucks at engineering.
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Shades of Space 1999 and other 1970s-era TV SciFi. Leon seems to really want to live in the Demoliton Man universe.
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Cross-posting…
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There’s a dude who doesn’t understand the three seashells.
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I’m fine with the Cybercab or Robotaxi or Xbox or whatever it’s called being “under development” for eternity, because there’s a 0% chance it will actually be safe or reliable once they do release it, at least as long as Musk is still in charge. I do very much wish we had self-driving cars, but I think they’d have to come from somewhere else besides Tesla, if any companies remain that would actually put in the hard work rather than rolling out buggy, dangerous experiments and pretending they invented a thing which still doesn’t actually exist.
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So, I can expect it to mow over my kids while it watches them get the groceries. Got it.
No thanks.
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Musk says that his favourite film is Blade Runner, which probably means that he sees Eldon Tyrell as a role model and we can add it to the list of SF classics that he completely misunderstands, like Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels.
The billionaire, who has spent the past couple of years funneling millions of dollars to far-right causes, told the attendees that he didn’t want a dark future like his favorite film Blade Runner—“except maybe that cool duster,” he said, referring to the jacket of his favorite character.
Then there’s this.
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And more importantly, be your friend!
I’m assuming that the marketing for these will call them “Your plastic pal who’s fun to be with!”
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taXi?
CabX?
Actually, Xcab works for me, pronounced “scab.”
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Capacitance gel, stun batons powered by some kind of absolute zero energy ball, and gourmet Taco Bell…yes please. I’ll even partake in a rat burger.
Although I’m still going to be wearing shorts and sandals.
Or are we talking about the pre-collapse hell scape before the rise of Dr. Cocteau? Things aren’t quite at blowing up large office buildings, but we already passed the Bell Riots. So any day now?
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Totally unrelated, I’m sure! Just a weird coincidence…
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One of the many things that apparently disappointed Wall Street investors at this event was a total lack of any mention of progress towards receiving the regulatory approvals that would be required to start doing the autonomous vehicle testing on public roads that Waymo and Cruise received years ago. It seems like the folks who just departed the company would have been some of the people most involved in trying to get those approvals.
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looks like elno didnt got what he was hoping for with his “vision”;
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“he also showed a larger vehicle that he said could carry up to 20 passengers or goods, which he called a “Robovan,””
Why do Silicon Valley assholes keep inventing the city bus? Unless it can also autonomously fistfight and eject a dude who’s waving his junk around, it’s not an improvement over what we already have.
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Disney certainly isn’t above tricking people with tele-operated robots (they have some remote-control robots driving and walking around their parks today) but that’s not how Mr Lincoln or the animatronic pirates ever worked. They just played back a preprogrammed show.
But the article’s mention of Soviet trickery reminds me of the silly rumors that the Lunokhod moon rovers were actually being controlled by little people who were sent there on a one-way trip:
Even the Soviets would probably not go that far to deceive people but if Musk ever annouces that SpaceX is sending a robot to Mars we’d better take a really close look at it before launch.
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