Elon Musk: Walk on the thinnest and most perilous tightrope

Elon Musk has recently accomplished a significant feat by removing all safety drivers from Tesla's Robotaxis. There are no self - deceiving remote safety drivers or cloud - assisted driving systems; the steering wheel is truly handed over to the machine. This means that Robotaxis are one big step closer to true commercialization.

As a "lone warrior" advocating the pure vision approach, Musk has faced a lot of criticism over the years. Many industry leaders believe that Musk's pursuit of pure vision technology disregards user safety and is unable to handle complex weather conditions and road situations. However, adhering to the principle of "first - principles thinking", he firmly believes that true autonomous driving should operate in the same way as the human brain and eyes work together, rather than relying on sensors like lidar to "walk with a crutch". Of course, Tesla has paid a price for his persistence - a car accident caused by the system misidentifying a white cargo truck as the sky. Although this issue has been fixed through multiple iterations, the risk of algorithm recognition in extreme conditions such as low - contrast scenarios still looms large. Moreover, the cost of the pure vision solution is extremely low. Compared with lidar, which used to cost thousands of dollars, a small camera module is almost free. Analysis shows that the cost of Tesla's single - vehicle autonomous driving system is less than a quarter of Waymo's. For Chinese autonomous driving players, once the pure vision solution proves successful, Tesla will inevitably dominate the industry, and the slow cost - reduction model of lidar will be severely challenged.

The huge profit potential is often the root cause of problems. Once risks emerge again, the brand will be devoured by the "blood - sucking" public opinion at any time. This is not Musk's first high - wire act. From revolutionizing the aerospace industry with reusable rockets to cracking open the new - energy vehicle market through large - scale production and price wars, every one of his adventures is spearheaded by "ultra - low cost". However, this time, when he promotes the operation of pure - vision autonomous Robotaxis without safety drivers, he is challenging the sharp contradiction between "extreme cost compression" and "the public's zero - tolerance for travel risks". This high - wire is thinner and more dangerous than ever. Further analysis reveals that the ultimate challenge for Tesla and the entire Robotaxi industry is this: if the future of Robotaxis is to supplement the existing transportation capacity system, such as providing services for late - night rides, in low - traffic areas, or in specific regions, it will be trapped in a closed - loop with limited growth and high costs. On the contrary, if a large number of Robotaxis are deployed on a large scale, it will put them in opposition to millions of ride - hailing drivers worldwide and may even trigger a chain reaction in the job market. This is something Tesla cannot afford. The public is happy to see technological progress, but no one wants to be the "sacrifice" in the wave of technology, right?

This article is reprinted from the WeChat official account "Mingxi Yewang" with permission from 36Kr.