California impounding Tesla Robotaxi's!

So Tesla this weekend got notification

that they are eligible for launching a

taxi service in San Francisco. This is

widely being seen as a way to start

deploying robo taxi vehicles in San

Francisco to which apparently you've got

insider memos at Tesla saying we're not

launching a test taxi service, we are

launching a robo taxi service, which is

starting to really piss off some

politicians in California. Ed Lello

yesterday said, "Is Tesla launching

Uber?" and Brett Winton from ARC wrote,

"You misspelled killing." Uh, all of

this relates to the CPU approval for

Tesla to launch a chauffeur service in

San Francisco this weekend. Uh, however,

internal memos at Tesla suggest that

Tesla has other plans. Tesla told staff

on Thursday it plans to launch its robo

taxi service in San Francisco this

weekend according to an internal memo

viewed by Business Insider. In other

words, even though Tesla got approved

for a taxi permit in California because

they have not applied for a robo taxi or

autonomous uh taxi service in California

and they only have approval to operate

as a chauffeur service. Tesla's telling

its staff, "Don't worry about it. We are

going to be launching our robo taxi

service this weekend in California."

This has led some politicians to freak

out uh suggesting that they will

threaten to impound uh California uh

robo taxis from Tesla if they don't

follow the rules. Here's some more notes

on it from Business Insider. The company

said that the timeline for the launch

has been moved up and the service could

launch as soon as Friday. It's going to

be this weekend. The geoenced area is

actually going to be really big. It's

going to incorporate uh mo much of

Martin County. You've got uh East Bay,

San Francisco, south to San Jose. So,

all all over the Bay Area really here.

You've got uh the program will launch

with safety drivers uh in the driver's

seat who will be able to control the car

using the steering wheel and brakes. So,

something to know about this is uh right

now in Texas, in Austin, Texas, we

actually have a safety driver sitting in

the right side. Uh, and they can really

only override the vehicle to the tune of

pressing that door release button to end

the robo taxi service. Uh, and then they

can get out of the vehicle and walk

around to the other side to get in the

driver's seat. They can also stay in

that passenger seat and they can sort of

teleoperate by communicating back to the

Tesla tea operations support and have

the tele operations support take over.

It appears to me that you're not

actually going to have a tea operations

support in San Francisco. Instead, what

you're going to have are basically

people driving hopefully these upgraded

Model Y because in Austin, Texas, we

have upgraded Model Y's with extra

cameras, extra sensors. We think they're

just camera sensors and uh antenna so

that they can communicate with the tele

operation service like radio antenna or

whatever. The the what's interesting

about this is it's unclear if you'd

actually need those upgraded versions

because technically if you've got a

driver just essentially chauffeuring

people around on FSD, Ed Bloodlaw is not

really wrong. It's not really different

from a Tesla driver today driving Uber

and operating FSD. That said, what I'd

like to know is are these the upgraded

uh robo taxi vehicles that just have a

driver in the driver's seat? That would

be best case scenario in my opinion

because it would give you more

opportunity to expand those greater

sensor vehicles in a greater area. Uh

that said, the company has yet to apply

for a permit for driverless testing or

deployment in California. So California

is making it a little harder. Not a

surprise. That's usually how it works in

California. Uh and Tesla currently has a

permit for testing its self-driving

software in California with a driver

behind the wheel, which is fine. I mean,

you could have that a driver behind the

wheel. I mean, that's basically what you

have with FSD. Now, somebody here in the

chat says Tesla factories are the

product. Whimo can't scale. You know, it

is interesting when uh Tesla was uh uh

really gaining popularity before COVID

and then through co that was exactly

what Elon Musk's pitch was is that the

product is not actually the vehicle,

it's the factory. And that to me

actually really got me so excited

originally about Tesla because I always

thought, wow, here is true American

ingenuity again, but it's coming in the

form of manufacturing. something where

America has just really lost a lot of

its clout over decades, especially to

countries like China. And so I was

really excited to see, hey, here's a

product that's great that we could

actually expand using, frankly, American

manufacturing.

Unfortunately, lately, it seems like the

the goal is let's come up with a new

master plan. Uh let's come up with a

different strategy for Tesla. We're

going to go all in on autonomy. And

don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to

autonomy. I guess I'm just disappointed

because I think of the core business as

being such a great manufacturer and why

not print money there while you can see

like I I always like to make a reference

to sort of like our our goals because I

think it makes more sense when you put

money where your mouth is and then you

you share that perspective. So I

personally think uh that in uh in house

hack for example, we're hoping to launch

our AI SAS business, you know, portion

of the business later this year. Uh and

who knows, it could be a game changer

for the valuation of the company, but

we're not going to destroy the core by

doing that. It's not like we're going to

buy fewer homes. It's not like we're

going to be less aggressive in

developing ADUs or developing land. We

want to we want to take like you know

maybe 5% of our capital a small little

like side buffer you know your rainy day

fund basically or a portion of that

rainy day fund and go hey let's actually

put some money into this because this

could be a really good uh a good thing

here because we've already got our AI

product now it's just a matter of

turning it into a licensable product.

Uh, and so we're really excited about

that, but we're not like eating up the

whole business doing that because if

that doesn't work, the rest of the

business is still on strong strong

foundations. And I think that somewhat

is what frustrates people uh with Tesla

a little bit because we look at Tesla

and we say, "Hey, you know, Tesla as a

company that's such a great

manufacturer. We could be printing so

much money with newer models of vehicles

now, but we're not because of this sort

of rejiggering of essentially the entire

business towards autonomy. So, here's

Senator Scott Weiner who says Tesla

doesn't have permits to deploy

autonomous vehicles in California and

hasn't even applied for permits. If

Tesla actually deploys autonomous

vehicles without permits, these vehicles

should be seized and impounded. We have

a permitting and safety rules process

for a reason, Elon isn't exempt. This is

uh one of your more vocal AOC type state

senators inside of California. The C

puke, I'm purposefully pronouncing it

that way, granted Tesla a transportation

charter permit in March that allows the

company to provide transportation

services for employees. It's important

to remember that a lot of people got

really excited about hearing about this

permit. People called it a robo taxi

permit in California, which is exactly

not what it was. It was actually

literally just a permit to taxi

employees. That's all it was. So they're

really, in fairness, within the letter

of law, they are operating a taxi

service. So yes, when Ed Lllo questions,

wait, is Tesla doing an Uber service?

Yes, technically permit-wise, they are.

And this is where I hope that we're

using those upgraded Model Y's to

actually just test the AV side so Tesla

can go back and get more permitting uh

for that. Now, in my opinion, what would

be really lame is if Tesla is not

actually uh testing their robo taxi

service uh and what they're just doing

is they're just chauffeuring people

around on FSD because I think at that

point it would be misleading to to

really investors because the point is,

hey, we want to see the expansion of

robo taxi, not FSD. And like I said,

anybody can just hop in an FSD car today

and get chauffeurred around. So, that'll

be really critical when this launches

this weekend to see what these vehicles

actually are. I doubt I'll get an invite

because that's exactly what I'll be

looking for. Uh, so we'll have to rely

on other people to make that

determination. Uh, Car Maker currently

has safety monitors that sit in the

passenger seat in Austin. Tesla built a

modified Y in Austin that are fitted

with extra cameras and the teleoperating

equipment. Earlier this month, Tesla

shared uh a video of a fully autonomous

uh delivery that had its own software on

it as well. Uh so that had to be

disabled upon arrival to the customer.

And you haven't actually seen much more

of that. It's kind of like they did one

and then they then they were done, which

then uh you know, it's unclear if that

actually had any tea operating support.

So usually you need to add the uh

additional camera or sorry uh antenna

equipment in which I don't think that

vehicle had. So, still kind of

impressive. You got Yeah, you got to

give it to Tesla. Uh, it probably is

just very like unfortunately Elon to

say, "All right, we got our taxi permit.

Let's launch robo taxi." To some extent,

like I said, I hope that they do use the

robo taxi product and then you just have

a safety driver in the driver's seat. If

anything, it could actually be good for

Tesla because if you think about it, if

Tesla has a driver in the driver's seat,

like what's the difference? the driver

in the passenger seat versus in the

driver's seat. If it means Tesla can

expand to 20 times as many cities or

even states, go for it. Let it happen.

And at some point, the goal is to remove

that person in the front of the vehicle

entirely. Uh and if that could happen

faster, hey, great. That's awesome. So,

uh we'll see what happens. We'll see

where it goes. But that's some of the

latest drama on Tesla.

Lax Sky36 says, "Tesla and Nvidia are my

AI plays." Let's go. Uh, somebody else

says there was so much Elon hate this

week. Way ramped up from norm. Oh,

where'd you see that? I feel like it's

been a little quieter since he's escaped

politics, though. Maybe I'm not looking

in the right place. Uh, let's see here.

What? Somebody else says, "Lidar is

already down to $1,000 per vehicle or

less, projected to be just 500 soon."

Yeah, you know, Elon's very, very

stubborn. Going to stay away from that.

I always maintain that all you really

need is forward- facing LAR. Like, you

don't really need the spinning all

around the vehicle in my opinion. The

camera should be fine for this, but just

have that just eliminate the chance of

crashing into something right in front

of you. Uh, and you know, if adding a

little, you know, micro vision style LAR

could do that, heck, that's great cuz it

just it just removes like that that one

bad news story of that robo taxi

crashing into something in front of it,

right? Uh, anyway, so uh, some things to

think about.

>> Why not advertise these things that you

told us here? I feel like nobody else

knows about this.

>> We'll we'll try a little advertising and

see how it goes.

>> Congratulations, man. You have done so

much. People love you. People look up to

you. Kevin Pafra there, financial

analyst and YouTuber. Meet Kevin. Always

great to get your take.