Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Tensor Beat Tesla to the First Personal Robocar

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Tensor Beat Tesla to the First Personal Robocar · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:01
  Silicon Valley startup Tensor just unveiled a $200,000 luxury
• 0:08
  electric SUV designed from the ground up to drive itself
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  without anyone behind the wheel. This isn't a Tesla.
• 0:15
  This is better, actually. The company plans to deliver the
• 0:19
  first consumer owned Level 4 autonomous vehicle by late 2026,
• 0:25
  meaning the car handles all the driving in approved zones
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  without human supervision. And Tensor packed this thing
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  with over 100 sensors, 8 NVIDIA processors, and a folding
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  steering wheel that disappears into the dashboard when you're
• 0:39
  not using it. This thing is like a
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  transformer. But will people be willing to
• 0:44
  actually trust a machine enough to hand over the keys to a
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  $200,000 investment now? Lyft just reserved hundreds of
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  these robocars for its own fleet, and that deal includes
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  something I haven't seen before. And we're going to cover the
• 1:00
  hardware that separates this vehicle from anything that Tesla
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  or Waymo offers. Now there's a regulatory maze
• 1:06
  that Tensor still needs to navigate and why Lyft's purchase
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  could change how we think about owning a car.
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  And we'll get right into that right after this very short
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  break. Now, Tensor's robocar enters a
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  market where no company has sold a Level 4 autonomous vehicle to
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  individual buyers. The startup spent nearly a
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  decade in stealth mode, building proprietary technology after
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  walking away from robotaxi operations in China.
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  Now this thing is a sleek crossover SUV, and it is covered
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  in lidar sensors and cameras. No drivers needed.
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  That's the product that Tensor wants to put in your driveway.
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  Production will be handled by Vietnamese automaker Vinfast at
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  its factory in Haipong, which will deliver them starting in
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  the United Arab Emirates before reaching American customers.
• 2:03
  Now let's start with the hardware, though.
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  Tensor fitted the Ribbocar with 37 cameras, 5 custom lidar
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  units, 11 radars, 22 microphones, 10 ultrasonic
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  sensors, and 16 collision detectors.
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  That sensor count puts pressure on every competitor, and lighter
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  is the spinning laser system that creates a 3D map of
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  everything around the car. The rooftop unit scans 360° and
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  detects objects nearly 1000 feet away.
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  Cameras mounted underneath the chassis address a blind spot
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  that has caused problems for other autonomous systems, and
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  that is something that I haven't really seen too much of.
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  The primary lighter unit, called Tensor Halo, emits 25.6 million
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  beams per second. That creates what the company
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  describes as a 360 degree safety shield around the vehicle.
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  Four additional blind spot lidars cover areas the main unit
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  cannot reach. 6 Hyper radars detect both stationary and
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  moving objects across all distances using 4D tech imaging
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  for external microphone overlays.
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  Locate emergency vehicle sirens before they become visible so
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  the car can pull over safely without visual confirmation.
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  Most autonomous vehicle developers retrofit existing car
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  platforms with sensors bolted on afterwards, and Tensor designed
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  every surface to optimize sensor placement from the first sketch.
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  Now 8 NVIDIA Dr. EGX 4 chips sit inside what Tensor calls an
• 3:37
  onboard supercomputer. The system processes over 53
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  gigabits of sensor data per second.
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  For context, that's roughly 1000 times faster than typical home
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  Internet speeds. The AI runs on transformer based
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  models trained on data from expert human drivers.
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  A separate visual language model handles edge cases and
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  unexpected scenarios. And edge cases are the weird
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  situations that normal driving patterns don't prepare you for.
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  If there's construction on the road, maybe there's a cone in
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  the middle of the road and they have to go around it, that's one
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  of those weird situations and maybe the cone is tipped over or
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  maybe there's like some bigger rocks in the road or something,
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  some random stuff in the road. Tensor engineer this
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  supercomputer for 10 years or 180,000 miles of operation.
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  That's really good. Advanced liquid cooling
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  maintains peak performance across extreme temperatures.
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  There is a dual power architecture that's provides
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  full redundancies with multiple power sources ensuring
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  continuous operation, and every computation happens locally on
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  the vehicle. There's no cloud, and Tensor
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  designed the system to work without cloud connectivity,
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  storing all travel data exclusively on the car itself.
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  Now you can upgrade over the cloud, of course, over the air
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  upgrading, that's a thing, and that's going to be happening
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  with the Tensor vehicles. But all the data for your own
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  vehicle never gets shared in the cloud, and owners can disable
• 5:12
  remote access entirely and control data through an
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  encrypted smartphone app. Physical cameras can be covered
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  and microphones can be switched off, and that can all be done
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  with the app too. Now, I've been digging through
• 5:27
  the analytics of this show and noticed that 37% of you are
• 5:31
  following this channel. For you, I am forever grateful
• 5:33
  you've remembered to hit the subscribe button.
• 5:35
  Now, there's 63% of you that probably listen to an episode or
• 5:39
  two or just finding the show. If you listened to this before,
• 5:42
  thank you so much. And you probably just forgot to
• 5:44
  hit the follower subscribe button, and that's OK.
• 5:48
  But I just ask you if you could do that real quick.
• 5:50
  I've been doing this as an independent journalist covering
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  Elon Musk, SpaceX, Space Flight and tech for the last six or
• 5:57
  seven years. I'm going to continue for the
• 5:59
  next 10 years, and I need your help.
• 6:01
  And all I ask from you is one second of your time.
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  I'm going to give you 10 more years of mine.
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  All you got to do is hit the follower subscribe button on the
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  platform you're watching on right now, and I'd be extremely
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  grateful and blessed to have you here if you do that.
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  So thank you. Tents are built a $200,000 SUV
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  with over 100 sensors, massive onboard computing, and a privacy
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  first architecture that keeps your data away from big tech.
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  Now let's talk about what this thing actually looks like.
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  Inside there's a folding steering wheel.
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  The dash opens up and the steering wheel retracts into the
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  dash. If you don't want to drive, this
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  thing can drive you anywhere you want.
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  You can ask it to drive you to the store.
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  So if you want to spend a bunch of time shopping, like 2 hours
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  shopping and you live 10 minutes from the store, but you don't
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  want to walk because you have a bunch of bags and you know
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  you're going to be there for a few hours.
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  You don't need your car to sit there for two hours, right?
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  So you send it home, you can say drop me off at the store, I'm
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  going to be there for two hours, pick me up two hours later, go
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  home for now and the car will do it.
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  It's just crazy, right? There's no pedals because they
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  disappear into the foot bed. The center display slides over
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  to face the former driver's seat, which becomes a reclining
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  lounge chair with massage, heating and cooling.
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  If you just want this thing to drive you around and it's going
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  to be luxury all the time, a massage chair in your car and
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  you're just sitting there hanging out.
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  Tensor claims 29 storage compartments fold flat seats for
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  items up to 10 feet long in a dedicated pet mode that lets
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  your vehicles transport animals without you even being there,
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  that's pretty wild. The vehicle targets a luxury
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  crossover segment, though with dimensions matching a full size
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  SUV. A112 kWh battery provides an
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  estimated 250 miles of range. The 845 Volt architecture
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  enables charging from 20 to 80% in roughly 10 minutes at peak
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  power, around 400 kilowatts. That opens up long distance
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  travel in ways current E VS struggle with.
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  Tensor developed compatibility with robotic charging systems
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  from Roxys and Bros, allowing the car to plug itself in
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  without human intervention. Run flat tires.
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  Let the vehicle continue driving up to 45 mph for an hour after a
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  puncture. That gives the autonomous system
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  time to reach a safe location and pull off RGB mini LED
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  display panels on the exterior communicate the vehicle's
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  intentions to pedestrians and cyclists.
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  Coach style doors feature radar based obstacle detection too.
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  You have soft closed motors and they can de ice themselves too.
• 9:01
  Now we have to talk about Lyft too because remember when I said
• 9:03
  that in the beginning of this show, Lyft is going to be a
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  partner for this crew here. Lyft's partnership adds a
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  economic base for Tensor. Tensor will ship from Vietnamese
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  manufacturer Vinfast with Lyft's platform pre installed.
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  That changes everything completely.
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  You can deploy your personal vehicle on Lyft's rideshare
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  networks in markets where Level 4 autonomy is permitted.
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  The car earns money while parked in your driveway.
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  You can let it go wild. Say if you're going to the
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  store, you know you're going to be there for two hours.
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  Tell it, hey, shift into lift mode, go get some, go make some
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  money. So whenever you're just doing
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  those two hours of drives, it makes the money back for the
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  things that you buy. So it's a way for you to make
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  residual income. Maybe you'd let your car do the
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  work for you. Remember when Elon Musk said
• 10:01
  this a while ago, years and years ago, Probably 10 years
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  ago, he would say you could just leave your car in the parking
• 10:09
  lot all day, right? But with a Tesla, you could let
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  it do a robo taxi for you and Uber people around for you and
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  make money for you while you're at work.
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  You're working for 8 hours. What's your car doing?
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  It's just sitting there in the parking lot doing nothing, not
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  earning you money. So this is that, but before
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  Tesla, right? So Lyft and Tensor together,
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  Lyft just leapfrog Tesla and Tensor, if they actually do
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  this. By the end of 2026, if they ship
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  this and it actually works, Tesla has some major
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  competition. Even though it's a $200,000 car,
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  it is something that Tesla hasn't been able to do yet.
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  Now the car earns money whenever you want it to.
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  You're at work 8 hours? OK, cool, have the car pick you
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  up when you're done at work, drop you off at home, and then
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  go out and earn you more money. That would be amazing.
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  Lyft's fleet management subsidy, Flexdrive, will handle cleaning,
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  charging, and maintenance for owners who participate.
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  So not only do you get this vehicle that's going to make you
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  money, maybe it'll make your money back.
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  Maybe you'll make $200,000 in the first year that you do it
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  because this thing can run 24/7. Who knows how much money you can
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  make. But then Flexdrive, they'll
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  clean it, charge it, and maintain it for you so you don't
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  have to do any of that stuff. A $200,000 car normally
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  depreciates the moment it leaves a lot and sits idle 95% of its
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  life. It doesn't.
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  You don't really do anything with your car.
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  Like right now, my car's in my driveway.
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  It's not doing anything. A robocar generating rideshare
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  income could theoretically offset that decline through
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  productive use. The company reserved hundreds of
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  rebel cars for its fleet. Lyft did through its affiliates,
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  pending regulatory approval. Of course.
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  The marks a big shift for Lyft. Lyft previously focused on
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  facilitating rides through its app or providing fleet
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  management services. It never owned those vehicles.
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  Uber has signed more than a dozen agreements globally with
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  autonomous developers and pledged to deploy at least
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  20,000 Lucid and Neuro Robotaxi starting next year.
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  The Tensor deal gives a lift a vehicle specifically engineered
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  for rideshare duty with sensors designed for a decade of
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  commercial use. So even when you're done with
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  this car, say, if you upgrade to something else and you're just
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  like, you know what, I want to keep this car going so it can do
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  lift for me and I keep earning money with it.
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  Maybe you do that. There's so many options for you
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  now that you can actually do this.
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  Tesla hasn't done this yet. So everybody with a Tesla, and
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  if you aren't able to do this by the end of 2026, Tensor is ahead
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  of Tesla if that's the case. So what do we know about this
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  regulatory path I was talking about earlier?
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  Tensor holds a California DV permit for driverless testing,
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  but has not secured CPUC authorization to deploy vehicles
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  to the public without safety drivers.
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  CPUC is the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency
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  that grants commercial permits for robo taxis.
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  Only Waymo has obtained that permit that limits where Tensor
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  can launch. Initial deliveries will go to
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  the United Arab Emirates in late 2026 or regulatory frameworks
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  differ from the US American deliveries will follow in early
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  2027, pending approvals, and the company operates in geofence
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  zones for a fully automated vehicles, allowing manual
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  driving outside of approved areas.
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  So what's next for Tensor? It's a crazy ride already,
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  right? Tensor evolved from Auto XA
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  former MITPHTM Princeton assistant professor, known
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  professionally as Professor X Auto X operated over 1000
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  robotaxis across 5 Chinese cities during the pandemic.
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  That was one of the largest fully driverless fleets globally
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  at that time. The company established
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  manufacturing facilities near Shanghai and maintained
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  operation centers across 65 square miles of Shengzhen.
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  Now, Auto X began testing on public roads in California back
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  in 2017 and secured California's second ever driverless testing
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  permit in 2020. That gives Tensor years of real
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  world data that most competitors lack.
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  Now Auto X fully divested all China operations and
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  discontinued the brand to focus on American, European and Middle
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  Eastern markets. Tensor maintains headquarters in
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  San Jose with satellite offices in Spain, the UAE and Singapore.
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  The company claims ownership and controlled by US employees, with
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  majority investment for the UK, Japan, Korea and the United
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  States. Recent reports indicate Tensor
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  may raise 300 to $400 million in pre IPO funding while working
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  with Royal Bank of Canada, potentially listing on US
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  exchanges by late 2026 or early 2027.
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  Now that funding timeline aligns with vehicle deliveries, giving
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  investors a chance to bet on consumer adoption.
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  Personal autonomous vehicles before Tensor prove that the
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  market actually exists.