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KARDASHEV 2 IS THE REAL ENDGAME Most people still think the goal is just getting to Mars. That’s only the first step. Elon has been clear: the bigger picture is climbing the Kardashev scale. “Kardashev Scale 1: You’ve harnessed most of the energy of the planet. Kardashev Scale 2: You’ve harnessed most of the energy of your sun. Kardashev Scale 3: You’ve harnessed most of the energy of your galaxy.” Right now, humanity is barely on the board. “We’re only about 1% or a few percent of Kardashev Scale 1 right now, optimistically… The sun produces about a billion times more energy than everything on Earth combined.” That’s why Starship matters. You cannot become a Type 2 civilization with expendable rockets. You need cheap, fully reusable lift, orbital solar, compute in space, and the ability to move mass around the solar system at scale. Mars is the insurance policy. Starship is the vehicle. Kardashev 2 is the destination.

Next week will mark the first time that a purpose built Robotaxi (Cybercab) with no steering wheel or pedals that can be mass produced will offer rides to members of the general public in North America, and 99% of the population has zero clue this is about to happen.

To make this actually testable in the future, here’s my bar for affordable Level 5: • ≤$30k to buy (cheap new car), or <$0.65/occupied mile as a robotaxi • No geofence, remote operator, or special infrastructure • No dependence on GPS or centimeter-accurate HD maps — a normal map + onboard perception should be enough • Drives anywhere on Earth that a competent human can reasonably drive • Handles weather, poor markings, construction, closures, crowded streets, events, pedestrians, cyclists, hand signals, police directing traffic, and informal negotiation with humans • Handles novel situations and bad/outdated maps • Completes the whole trip: pickup/dropoff, rerouting, pulling over, parking, and recovering when things go wrong • Never needs a human to take over That’s the bar I think is still 5-10 years away.

To make this actually testable in the future, here’s my bar for affordable Level 5: • ≤$30k to buy (cheap new car), or <$0.65/occupied mile as a robotaxi • No geofence, remote operator, or special infrastructure • No dependence on GPS or centimeter-accurate HD maps — a normal map + onboard perception should be enough • Drives anywhere on Earth that a competent human can reasonably drive • Handles weather, poor markings, construction, closures, crowded streets, events, pedestrians, cyclists, hand signals, police directing traffic, and informal negotiation with humans • Handles novel situations and bad/outdated maps • Completes the whole trip: pickup/dropoff, rerouting, pulling over, parking, and recovering when things go wrong • Never needs a human to take over That’s the bar I think is still 5-10 years away.