The Robotaxi Verdict Is In

Are you looking for a new podcast about stuff related to money? Well today's your lucky day. I'm Matt Levine. And I'm Katie Greifold. And we're the hosts of Money Stuff, the podcast. Every Friday we dive into the top stories about Wall Street, finance and other stuff. We have fun, we get weird, and we want you to join us. You can listen to Money Stuff, the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. We do expect to actually start fully autonomous, unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year. And that's obviously, that's with the Model 3 and Model Y. And then we expect to be in production with the CyberCab, which is really highly optimized for autonomous transport. In probably, well I tend to be a little optimistic with timeframes. But in 2026. So, yeah. Before 2027, let me put it that way. But Elon Musk is now the richest person on the planet. More than half the satellites in space are owned and controlled by one man. Well he's a legitimate super genius, legitimate. He says he's always voted for Democrats, but this year it will be different. He'll vote Republican. There is a reason US government is so reliant on him.

你在寻找一个和金钱相关的新播客吗？那么今天就是你的幸运日。我是马特·莱文，我是凯蒂·格雷福利德，我们是《金钱事务》播客的主持人。每周五，我们会深入探讨关于华尔街、金融和其他相关的热点话题。我们的节目充满乐趣，有些古怪，我们希望你能加入我们的讨论。你可以在Apple Podcasts、Spotify或任何你惯用的播客平台上收听《金钱事务》。这是由彭博音频工作室制作的。我们制作播客、广播和新闻节目。 我们计划明年在德克萨斯州和加利福尼亚州全面启动无人监督的全自动驾驶系统（FSD），而这显然适用于Model 3和Model Y车型。然后，我们预计可能会在2026年投产非常适合自主运输的CyberCab。我对时间表有点乐观，但总之在2027年之前做好准备吧。 埃隆·马斯克现在是世界上最富有的人，超过一半的太空卫星都由一个人拥有和控制。他确实是一位名副其实的超级天才，他曾说他总是投票给民主党，但今年将有所不同，他会投票给共和党。这是美国政府如此依赖他的原因。

Elon Musk is a scam artist and he's done nothing. Anything he does is fascinating people. Welcome to Elon Inc. Bloomberg's weekly podcast about Elon Musk. It's Friday October 11th. I'm your host David Papadopoulos. We are here with a special episode because as you just heard, Elon unveiled last night the CyberCab. I am joined by Craig Trudell, our global autos czar in London. Craig, welcome. Thanks for having me. Now Craig, I slept through this thing. You got up stupid early on that. I mean the Bloomberg system tells me that you badged in at 2.22am. God bless you. How many cups of coffee are you on at this point and have there been any drugs involved to keep you going? No ketamine for me. Just a couple of Americanos will do. I'm hanging in. Okay. Excellent.

埃隆·马斯克是个骗子，他什么也没做。他做的任何事情都会吸引人们的注意。欢迎收听《Elon Inc.》，这是一档每周讨论埃隆·马斯克的播客节目。今天是10月11日星期五。我是主持人大卫·帕帕多普洛斯。今天我们有一集特别节目，因为正如你刚刚听到的，埃隆昨晚公布了CyberCab。我请来了我们的全球汽车专家克雷格·特鲁德尔，他在伦敦。克雷格，欢迎你的到来。谢谢你邀请我。克雷格，我昨晚睡着了，而你为了这个活动起得很早。我看到彭博系统显示你凌晨2:22就刷卡进入了公司，真是辛苦你了。你现在喝了多少杯咖啡？有没有用药来保持清醒？我没用氯胺酮，只喝了几杯美式咖啡。我挺得住的。好的，非常好。

In addition to getting the breakdown from Craig, we're also going to hear from our old pals, Max and Dana, who have sent us audio clips with their impressions of how this went last night. But Craig, let's start with just give us a sense of, for all the folks like me out there who slept through this thing, what are the top lines here? Well, I think that clip that we just played off the top was instructive in that the folks in the room definitely, there was a lot of ooing and out, eyeing and cheering at what Elon had to say. I give him credit. The CyberCab that he showed, it's a slick looking, two-seater. They showed a Robovan or Robovan, depending on how Elon was deciding to pronounce it. That also looked cool. But in terms of when these are actually going to be ready, how many they're going to make, any sort of technical indications of real progress here and sort of hard and fast details, there was nothing. We got through his presentation and honestly my reaction to it was, was that it? That's all we got?

除了从克雷格那里获取详细信息，我们还将听到我们的老朋友马克斯和戴娜的声音，他们给我们发送了他们对昨晚情况的音频回顾。克雷格，首先为像我这样昨晚错过的人简要概述一下情况好吗？我认为我们刚刚播放的片段说明了，当时房间里确实有很多人对埃隆的话感到惊讶和欢呼。我必须赞扬他，他展示的CyberCab看起来很时尚，是一款两座车。他们还展示了一辆名叫Robovan或Robovan的车，这取决于埃隆当时怎么发音，这辆车看起来也很酷。不过，关于这些车什么时候能准备好、生产多少、技术进展的实际情况和具体细节，还没有任何信息。听完他的发布会，我的反应是，就这样？这就是我们得到的所有信息吗？

Craig, how long did the presentation go on for? From beginning to end, it was roughly 40 minutes, but that included a little intro by the head of design for Tesla. It wasn't entirely Elon. There were some interruptions of people getting excited about what he had to say. This also included sort of demos of the car and the van driving around the Warner Brothers which, as Max said earlier this week, we've seen demos now year after year after year. I feel like we've seen fewer of them more recently because the rest of the world has sort of woken up to just how difficult it's going to be to put these things on the road. But Elon is really sticking to it and not only that, sort of betting the company on it. He said, I believe, that he's aspiration, and this wouldn't be now for the Robotaxi itself. This would be for their other, for the current fleet and with its autonomous capabilities. He's hoping to have them greenlit to operate autonomously, I believe, in cities in California and Texas. Is that right?

克雷格，演示总共持续了多长时间？从头到尾大约40分钟，其中还包括特斯拉设计负责人做的一个简短介绍，不完全是埃隆一个人。演示过程中有人因为兴奋而打断。期间还有一些汽车和面包车环绕华纳兄弟公司演示驾驶，就像这周早些时候马克斯提到的，我们年复一年地观看这样的演示。我感觉最近这样的演示越来越少，因为全世界都意识到，要让这些车辆真正上路有多困难。但埃隆仍然坚持这一点，甚至孤注一掷地把公司的前途押在上面。我相信他说过，他的愿望并不仅仅是针对无人出租车，而是针对他们当前的车队及其自动驾驶功能。他希望能在加利福尼亚和德克萨斯州的城市中获得自动驾驶的批准，是这样吗？

Yeah, and we heard that in the clip off the top. I mean, I think for him to refer to, I guess, I also just want to kind of parse what he's saying there. He's saying, unsupervised, full self-driving. I would think that full self-driving would indicate not needing to be supervised. But I guess that's where we're after Tesla having sold these features as fully self-driving when they are anything but for years now. So I think that just speaks to this idea of when he gives these timelines, you have to take them with a great big grain of salt. But the top lines are, apparently, perhaps under $30,000, this thing shall cost. In production by 2026, maybe, no steering wheel, no pedals on this thing. Let's listen for a second to Dana.

当然，这段话传达了以下意思： “是的，我们在开始的片段中听到了这点。我的意思是，我猜你也想分析一下他在说什么。他提到无人监管的全自动驾驶。我本来认为全自动驾驶意味着不需要监管。但我猜这就是问题所在：特斯拉多年来一直在出售这些所谓的全自动驾驶功能，但实际上并非如此。所以当他说出这些时间表的时候，我们必须以相当大的怀疑去看待。不过关于这个项目的要点是，据说它的价格可能会低于3万美元，并可能在2026年开始生产。这辆车可能没有方向盘，也没有踏板。让我们听听Dana怎么说。”

Dana Holes, take on this. When I heard the phrase individual mass transit, I kind of flipped out. The event was interesting. We saw the Robotaxi. We saw a Robovan. We saw optimist serving drinks. But as an event, I don't know. I was underwhelmed. I think the expectations for this were really high. I'm sure it was a super fun party for people that were there. But it just didn't do it for me. There was light on the details, light on the business model. Time frame is still a ways off. Optimists are serving drinks, Craig. That seems kind of cool. All right.

Dana Holes，谈谈你的看法。当我听到“个人化公共交通”这个词时，我有点惊讶。这个活动很有趣。我们看到了机器人出租车，看到了机器人面包车，还看到乐观者在提供饮料。但是，作为一个活动，我不知道。我感觉有些失望。我认为大家对这个活动的期待很高。我相信对于在场的人来说，这绝对是一次非常有趣的聚会。但对我来说，它并没有达到预期。细节方面有些缺乏，商业模式也不太清晰。时间表还要等上一段时间。乐观者在提供饮料，Craig，这看起来还挺酷的。好吧。

So, Dana says light on details. Wall Street very much agrees with that. At one bank, the analysts, I think it was Jeffries, they said, Musk's Robotaxi was, quote, toothless. I'm not exactly sure we wanted this thing to have teeth. But I get the point, Craig, Dana is correct. Expectations were high and there was a lot riding on this because the stock had soared in the run up to this event. More than 50% I believe. Yeah, almost 70%. 70%. It's down a good chunk. We are recording to be clear before the market opens on Wall Street. But in pre-market trading, it's down a good amount, is it not? Yeah. It was down as much as almost 7% before the market opened. So, I think you referred to the Jeffries report. Those particular analysts cover Uber and Lyft. I thought it was very interesting that you saw analysts come out of the woodwork who cover those companies and say, all right, guys, sort of all clear here. It speaks to the idea that not only are folks who cover Tesla for a living walking away from this event without much in the way of high hopes, but analysts who cover the ride-hailing companies also were really closely watching this because they were concerned that, you know, after Musk talking about this year after year after year, maybe now is finally going to be the time that he's ready to launch a service that would compete with the Uber and Lyft of the world. And, you know, I don't think that anybody sort of, you know, had a take away from last night that, you know, what those companies need to worry about this. Are you looking for a new podcast about stuff related to money? Well, today's your lucky day. I'm Matt Levine. And I'm Katie Greifold. And we are the hosts of Money Stuff, the podcast. Every Friday we dive into the top stories about Wall Street, finance, and other stuff. We have fun, we get weird, and we want you to join us. You can listen to Money Stuff, the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

好的，达纳说内容细节不多，华尔街非常认同这一点。在一家银行，我想是杰富瑞，那里的分析师称马斯克的无人出租车“毫无锐气”。我不确定我们是不是希望这个东西有“牙齿”，但我明白克雷格的意思，达纳是对的。期待值很高，因为这个事件导致股票在之前上涨了很多，大约超过了50%。事实上，几乎上涨了70%。股市开盘之前，它已经大幅下跌。对吧？是的，开盘前交易中，跌幅几乎达到7%。我想你提到了杰富瑞的报告，这些分析师覆盖Uber和Lyft。我觉得有趣的是，当这些公司分析师们站出来说“一切正常”时，不仅是那些专注研究特斯拉的人对这次事件不抱太高期望，连那些研究网约车公司的分析师也高度关注此事，因为他们担心，在马斯克年复一年地谈论此事后，可能现在终于是他准备推出与Uber和Lyft竞争的服务的时候了。然而，昨晚之后似乎没有人认为这些公司需要对此感到担忧。 你在找关于钱相关的新播客吗？那么今天是你的幸运日。我是马特·莱文。我是凯蒂·格雷福德。我们是Money Stuff播客的主持人。每周五，我们深入探讨华尔街、金融及其他相关的热门话题。我们有趣又有点怪，希望你能加入我们。你可以在Apple Podcasts、Spotify或其他任意播客平台收听Money Stuff播客。

I guess the glass half full take on this would be, well, this is the initial market reaction. They're not in love with it and with all the details and what they saw. But heck, after a 70% pop in the stock, if you give back 7%, that ain't too bad. We shall see how it trades the rest of the day and in coming days and see if these concerns that we're seeing this morning keep building or if they're just a temporary blip. Let's also listen to our man, Max Chafkin, and get his take. I just watched the cyber cap unveiling. Now, I got a caveat this. I was in the back of a taxi watching it on a small screen coming home from a vent. I'd had maybe a glass and half of wine. So, you know, caveats there. But I have to say it was not, I don't think it was the best case scenario for Elon. We talked about it being on a sound stage. It looked like a sound stage. There were like what looked like sort of plywood cutouts of vehicles to make it look like a real street. It looked like a staged thing. And the entire event was sort of about looking forward and, you know, sketching out this glorious future that Elon has talked about many times and how much cheaper it's going to be when you have robots and how many more parking spaces there'll be and how much more green space they'll be. And it really was the kind of standard futurist stuff that we have been hearing from autonomous vehicle pioneers for 15 years. And there was very little in specifics. Now, I will say the cyber cab itself is pretty striking. They had, I think, 20 of them there. So, it's definitely a long way from mass market. And, you know, it looks cool. It looks futuristic. I just am not sure it's a future that is anywhere near for us. And, you know, I almost, almost him tempted to say not in our lifetimes.

我想对此持乐观态度的话，可以说这只是市场的初步反应。他们不是特别满意看到的细节和内容。但是，股票暴涨70%后回落7%也不是太糟糕。接下来我们可以看看今天剩下的时间和接下来的几天内股市的走势，看看今天早上我们看到的这些担忧是否会继续增加，还是只是一时的波动。我们也来听听Max Chafkin的观点。我刚刚观看了网络出租车的发布会。但需要说明的是，我是在出租车后座的一个小屏幕上看的，那时我刚刚参加完一个活动，喝了大概一杯半的酒，所以这只是我的个人观察。不过，我必须说，我不认为这是Elon的最佳方案。我们谈到了它是在一个音响舞台上，看起来确实像那样。场景中似乎有一些用胶合板做的车辆模型，让它看起来像一条真的街道。整个活动都是关于展望未来，描绘Elon多次提到的辉煌未来，比如有了机器人后会便宜多少，有多少停车位和绿色空间等等。这种未来主义的内容我们从自动驾驶先锋那里已经听了15年了，但缺少具体细节。至于网络出租车本身，确实很吸引眼球，我想他们大概展示了20辆，所以距离大规模市场化还有很长的路。它看起来很酷，很未来感，但是我不确定这种未来离我们有多近，我几乎想说可能在我们有生之年都见不到。

I have to say I do agree with Max and with you, Craig, that this thing looks pretty badass, right? For a guy who's got a current fleet that looks a little stale and stayed an old, this thing pops visually. I think it does. And I just would, again, you know, not to be this sort of Debbie Downer here. You know, Elon is fond of saying prototypes are easy. Production is hard. And I think that that's a really apt thing here that like, you know, he built a very neat prototype here. I think the RoboVan prototype is cool. It reminds me a lot of the cruise origin, which was a bit smaller of a sort of bread loaf shaped vehicle that debuted years ago. But again, just to sort of go back to sort of throwing a bit of cold water on things here, GM a few months back decided to scrap plans to, you know, make that cruise origin because of federal motor safety standards that, you know, they had petitioned for exemptions to those rules. And for years that petition went, you know, unacted upon. And so I just have a strong suspicion that, you know, we're going to end up talking maybe a year or two from now about Elon taking, you know, either one of these vehicles to NHTSA and not being happy about them, just sort of giving their instant blessing for these being actually ready for the road.

我不得不说，我确实同意马克斯和你，克雷格的看法，这东西看起来真的很酷，对吧？对于一个目前的车队有点过时和陈旧的人来说，这个东西在视觉上确实很吸引人。我认为确实如此。不过，我也必须提醒一下，不想扫大家的兴。你知道，埃隆常说，做原型很容易，量产却很难。而我觉得这句话在这里特别贴切，你看，他确实造了一个非常棒的原型。我认为这个RoboVan原型很酷，它让我想起了之前亮相的游轮起源车，只是那个车更小，像一个面包形状的车辆。但是，再说回一点现实问题，几个月前，通用决定放弃生产那个游轮起源车的计划，因为他们曾寻求豁免联邦机动车安全标准，而多年来他们的请求一直没有得到回应。所以我有强烈的感觉，可能在一两年后，我们还会谈论到埃隆带着其中一个车辆去国家公路交通安全管理局（NHTSA），而对方不太可能迅速批准它们上路。

Craig, any final thoughts from you, sir, before we let you go and crash to sleep? Yeah, I think this event sort of, you know, sums up exactly why Elon is such a polarizing character because on one hand, you can see in this, this is the visionary who dares to think it's, you know, possibly feasible to, you know, shoot off rockets and land them back on bar ships in the ocean. He's going to, you know, do it all again and completely revolutionize, you know, road transport. I think what we've just learned over the last decade or so, and this gets back to, you know, what Max was saying is it may be more difficult to put a safe, self-driving car on the road than to land rocket ships back here on Earth after shooting them off into space. And it just speaks to this sort of, you know, level of technical challenge and capability that is going to be required for these autonomous vehicles to be acceptable to society. A very good point. And it reminds me of something somewhat related, which is watching him on stage there after having just seen him on stage with Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. I will say this. He was much more in his element here, right? Yeah. You know, you had to like the slick leather jacket go and he was kind of right. He just seemed cool and confident and, and, and, and, and like I said, in his element, whereas I don't think he knew what the hell to do when he was on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. Uh, Craig, thanks for joining us. Go get some sleep. We'll have you back on again soon. Thanks guys.

克雷格，在我们让你去休息之前，你还有什么最后的想法想分享吗？是的，我觉得这次活动很好地总结了为什么埃隆是一个充满争议的人物。一方面，你可以看到他是个大胆的梦想家，认为发射火箭并让它们在海上的驳船上降落是可行的。他还计划彻底改变公路运输领域。而我们在过去十年中了解到的，正如马克斯所说的，可能在道路上推出安全的自动驾驶汽车比在太空中发射并让火箭返回地球更为困难。这反映出社会接受这些自动驾驶车辆所需的技术挑战和能力水平。说得很好。这让我想起了一些相关的事情，就是在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒与特朗普同台后再看到他在舞台上的表现。我不得不说，他在这里显得更加得心应手。是的，你可能会注意到他的酷炫皮夹克，他显得自信而不失冷静，仿佛如鱼得水。而在宾夕法尼亚州巴特勒，他似乎不太知道该怎么做。克雷格，谢谢你加入我们，去休息吧。我们会很快再次邀请你。谢谢大家。

This episode was produced by Stacey Wong, Naomi Shaven and Ray Hanharmansi are our senior editors. The idea for this very show also came from Ray Hanh. Mike Maples handles engineering and Dave Purcell fact checks. Our supervising producer is Magnus Henriksen. The Elan Inc. theme is written and performed by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura. Brendan Francis Nuneum is our executive producer and Sage Vileman is the head of Bloomberg podcasts. A big thanks, as always, to our supporter Joel Weber.

这一集是由Stacey Wong制作的，Naomi Shaven和Ray Hanharmansi是我们的资深编辑。这个节目的创意也来自Ray Hanh。Mike Maples负责工程工作，Dave Purcell负责事实核查。我们的监制是Magnus Henriksen。Elan Inc.的主题曲由Taka Yasuzawa和Alex Sugiura创作和演唱。Brendan Francis Nuneum是我们的执行制片人，Sage Vileman是彭博播客的负责人。像往常一样，我们要特别感谢我们的支持者Joel Weber。

I'm David Papadopoulos. If you have a minute, rate and review our show. It'll help other listeners find us. See you next week. Thanks for watching.

我是大卫·帕帕多普洛斯。如果您有空，请为我们的节目评分和写评价。这将帮助更多听众找到我们。下周见。感谢您的观看。