@herbertong posted his interview with Lars, Tesla head of engineering. Here are the key take aways that I heard, please let me know what I might have missed. “Cybercab is going to be scaled to levels that people haven’t realized yet.” They are currently doing infant mortality testing and validation on the Cybercab since it has such new components and manufacturing processes. Cybercab manufacturing line is 90% automated, factoring in everything. He expects Tesla to build more Cybercabs than any other vehicle they’ve built. Lars shoots down advertising yet again, he says Tesla products will speak for themselves. Advertising won’t change opinions, specifically talking about Robotaxi. Wouldn’t get roped into a discussion of selling the Cybercab this year (as opposed to using them in house for Robotaxi). Tesla is using AI a lot. They’ve made an internally trained agent on all the years of engineering knowledge about what works, what doesn’t, what went wrong, how do certain things etc. Basically an internal engineering chatbot with all of Tesla’s documented engineering knowledge. Also a similar one for their supply chain teams and one for their service centers to collect all the knowledge individual mechanics discover as they service the cars. They also use AI for anomaly detection in their manufacturing QA. AI detects subtle trends or confluence of events. They’ve even trained or are training an AI to listen for all the squeaks and rattles in the car as it comes off the assembly line. The car diagnoses itself (since it has internal microphones) as it heads to the final processing center. He called this “Full self hearing”. This allows Tesla to fix minor issues before customers get them. Optimus. The automated manufacturing lines had/have been constructed in Germany and the first line has landed and is/will be installed. Field acceptance testing of other lines is still happening in Germany. In theory they can get a line going in a week’s time from delivery from Germany. There are about 40 sub lines for Optimus. IMHO, this lines up with an August start of Optimus production. Fascinating tidbit from Lars. He said BOM cost for a car is higher than a robot. Now, I don’t know if he was talking in theory, in the future, or current BOM cost? If current BOM is less than a car already, that’s huge considering how capable Optimus is (it’s much more physically capable than a cheap Unitree for instance). Lars pushed back on bots being manufactured like a consumer device like a phone. He said it is a true 3d device, has safety risks, and is built much more like a car. He stated that Starlink is an obvious choice for Cybercab in the future for rural areas, but it would be a future enhancement. Finally, mark your calendar for Tuesday July 7 when Tesla will make some sort of announcement about future product/production scaling.