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Telsas in a parking lot in Brooklyn
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Machine Learnings

Musk says every Tesla is “capable of being a robotaxi.” But a report says the robotaxis are getting special parts.

Robotaxi hardware upgrades pour some water on Musk’s assertion that every Tesla could be a robotaxi.

Rani Molla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly painted a future where all Teslas would be autonomous and revolutionize the economics of car ownership.

“In the future, most people are not going to buy cars,” he said on the company’s last earnings call. Instead, most people would utilize the Tesla Network, a ride-hailing service that would be made up of company-owned and personally owned vehicles. For those still bullish on buying, their Teslas would become income-generating assets that they lease out to the network when they’re not in use. That’s supposed to include current Tesla owners.

“The vast majority of the Tesla fleet that we’ve made is capable of being a robotaxi,” Musk said on the same call.

Ahead of the company’s tiny but mostly successful robotaxi launch over the weekend, Musk reiterated that the vehicles consumers are buying now, which make up the vast majority of its revenue, are the same ones that will be part of the autonomous ride-hailing future.

“These are unmodified Tesla cars coming straight from the factory, meaning that every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised self-driving!” The robotaxi software, he said, which allows for unsupervised driving, was a “branch” of existing consumer software that would be rolled out to everyone “soon.”

But yesterday, Business Insider reported that Tesla is working on hardware modifications to its Model Ys specifically for the robotaxi program. That includes adding self-cleaning and more durable cameras, as well as a second telecommunications unit to “provide GPS coordinates for the vehicle and allow it to connect with remote operators,” among other changes.

The move suggests the obvious: the needs of a commercial vehicle are more demanding than that of consumer products. They’re also likely more expensive.

Musk has repeatedly knocked Google’s Waymo, which has a much bigger market so far than Tesla’s robotaxi, as costing too much. Indeed, the promise that every Tesla could be a robotaxi is central to the company’s promise to scale the service rapidly.

Presumably the company’s forthcoming Cybercabs — which are supposedly going into “volume production” next year — could bridge the gap between what is acceptable for individuals versus individuals hoping to lease their cars to the Tesla Network, but the BI report pours water on the idea that any car can be a robotaxi.

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Figure robot sorting packages GIF

Figure’s robots just sorted packages for 200 hours straight

What started as a 10-hour human-versus-robot challenge turned into a continuous marathon shift spanning nine days of continuous work.

Jon Keegan5/22/26
tech
Rani Molla

Report: Uber considers full Delivery Hero takeover to take on DoorDash outside the US

Uber appears to be considering upping its competition with DoorDash outside the US, exploring a potential full takeover of Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero, Bloomberg reports. Earlier this week the US-based ride-hailing service disclosed a 19.5% stake in the food delivery company, but now that could go higher.

The $11.8 billion German company could be particularly vulnerable to a takeover right now, with its CEO having recently stepped down following pressure from activist investors to sell off assets. A full acquisition would give Uber a massive foothold in over 60 countries to combat DoorDash’s European-focused Wolt unit.

Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally.

Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%.

The $11.8 billion German company could be particularly vulnerable to a takeover right now, with its CEO having recently stepped down following pressure from activist investors to sell off assets. A full acquisition would give Uber a massive foothold in over 60 countries to combat DoorDash’s European-focused Wolt unit.

Uber has been involved in a lot of deal-making of late, mostly in the autonomous vehicle space, where it now has more than 30 partnerships globally.

Uber extended its losses on the news and is currently down around 1.7%.

tech
Rani Molla

Meta released a Reddit dupe. Reddit investors don’t like it.

Fresh on the heels of releasing a Snapchat dupe, which sent Snap down earlier this month, Meta seems to be meddling with Reddit, quietly releasing a Reddit-like Facebook app called Forum yesterday. After news of the “dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and the communities you care about,” Reddit’s stock is down 4.5% today.

Last month, Reddit’s earnings report handily beat analysts’ expectations, but it continues to struggle with the perception that bigger tech companies — including Meta — investing heavily in AI will eat its lunch. The stock is down nearly 40% year-to-date.

tech
Jon Keegan

Report: OpenAI’s Q1 revenue was $5.7 billion, beating Anthropic

The neck-and-neck race between OpenAI and Anthropic as the AI companies barrel toward their expected IPOs this year is shaking out some internal numbers for would-be investors to ponder.

The Information is reporting that OpenAI’s first-quarter revenue was ~$5.7 billion, about $1 billion ahead of Anthropic’s revenue for the same period.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Anthropic is on course to more than double its first-quarter revenue of $4.8 billion to $10.9 billion in the second quarter. It is not known what OpenAI is projecting for Q2.

Recently, The New York Times reported that Anthropic’s current fundraising round seeking to raise between $30 billion and $50 billion comes with a valuation of up to $950 billion, putting it ahead of OpenAI’s latest reported valuation of $850 billion.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Anthropic is on course to more than double its first-quarter revenue of $4.8 billion to $10.9 billion in the second quarter. It is not known what OpenAI is projecting for Q2.

Recently, The New York Times reported that Anthropic’s current fundraising round seeking to raise between $30 billion and $50 billion comes with a valuation of up to $950 billion, putting it ahead of OpenAI’s latest reported valuation of $850 billion.

tech
Rani Molla

Alphabet’s Waymos are still getting caught in floods after recall

Waymo, the self-driving subsidiary of Alphabet, has paused operations in Atlanta after a new report of a vehicle driving into a flooded roadway and getting stuck, TechCrunch reports. The news comes just weeks after the company recalled its fleet of nearly 4,000 driverless cars to deal with a previous flood incident in San Antonio, where the service is also paused.

After that incident, Waymo instituted an “interim remedy” to make the vehicles “exclude additional operating conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higherspeed roadway,” but added that it was still “developing the final remedy for this recall.”

As we’ve noted, Waymo has mostly kept its rollout — now public in 11 cities — to more temperate climates, as severe weather poses more challenges to autonomous vehicles.

After that incident, Waymo instituted an “interim remedy” to make the vehicles “exclude additional operating conditions that present an elevated risk of encountering a flooded, higherspeed roadway,” but added that it was still “developing the final remedy for this recall.”

As we’ve noted, Waymo has mostly kept its rollout — now public in 11 cities — to more temperate climates, as severe weather poses more challenges to autonomous vehicles.

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