AUTONOMOUS DRIVING IN TESLA FACTORIES

Members/Patrons only

Tesla AI just posted the following video on X.
"Teslas now drive themselves from
their birthplace at the factory to their
designated loading dock lanes without
human intervention
One step closer to large-scale
unsupervised FSD"

https://x.com/Tesla_AI/status/1884457749226090590?t=WzvZGo_u72e-ZPz8JdwTFw&s=19


I mused about this years ago and SOOOOO waited for this to happen - but what Tesla showed is only Stage 1. Stay tuned - there is more to Come!

Doing factory routes is much easier than full autonomous driving on public roads. The environment is static, all routes are almost the same (so there is over fitting of training data), speed is limited and regulations on private property are more lenient

So deleting the need for a driver to take the car from factory to loading dock / parking lot is relatively easy, and saves costs on each car

These costs are driving time + return time in driver-return shuttle + some waiting for shuttle + percent of shuttle operation costs. Overall something like 15-20 minutes of driver employment cost

But that's just part of the story. The next stages are:
🔸 Automating first drive test - test drivers take cars on a short test route, to feel ride quality, suspension, steering feel, rattles+other NVH, etc. This can easily be done by utilizing the cars' existing sensors (microphone, accelerometers etc) while autonomously driving the test route.

What's more, results would be better and more consistent than with a human driver, and TBH I wouldn't be surprised if they're already doing that, or at least testing

🔸Automated loading from dock to Ro-Ro ship. Latest car-park navigation capabilities should make this doable. Will probably happen in a few months. Possibly a year bc I imagine that Ro-Ro operators would be conservative, but technically this too is definitely doable, and should save even more costs per car

🔸Automated loading and unloading on trucks. While this isn't part of regular training, Tesla can build a special training set with millions of such cases per year - passing the cars to a special loading mode (there's precedent in current factory mode), which should enable saving loading-driver costs as well as faster loading on trucks - which clears parking lots faster and enables larger factory throughput when lots are a limiting factor

Tesla's technologies keep on converging. We all know about their manufacturing lead, and people are starting to realize that besides being a product, Optimus will also reduce labor costs on making cars, trucks and energy packs. Now autonomous driving in factories will start to reduce costs as well💪


Can't help recalling this lyric... The future's so bright we gotta wear shades😎