Tesla will hold its second AI Day on August 19, CEO Elon Musk said today.
The event will follow a full 12 months on from Tesla’s first AI Day held in 2021, at which Musk and the Telsa AI team explained a great deal of the work done towards self-driving.
“Tesla AI Day #2 on Aug 19. So many cool updates!” said Musk on Twitter today.
Tesla AI Day #2 on Aug 19. So many cool updates!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 17, 2022
As with the first AI Day, the 2022 Tesla AI Day is essentially a recruitment drive.
Musk said: “the purpose of AI Day is to convince great AI/software/chip talent to join Tesla.”
However, while Tesla hopes to attract more talent to help with its mission to achieve fully autonomous driving, the day is also a marketing opportunity for the company.
Having no press or public relations department, Tesla regularly holds special days that are open to both the media and general public.
Battery Day in 2020 was another such event, at which Musk and team explained Tesla’s plan to incrementally reduce the cost of making batteries.
Additionally, Musk announced Tesla aims to produce an EV that costs $US25,000. Musk may have intended a passenger vehicle at the time, but developments since then suggest this may have changed.
At the time, the announcement sparked a great deal of speculation regarding the possibility of a “Model 2” electric hatch to be designed at Tesla’s Shanghai Design Centre. Rumors emerged that a small electric car prototype may have been completed in late 2021.
The latest understanding is that Tesla will make a fully driverless car. A 2021 report via Electrek said that at an internal meeting with staff, Musk flagged making the EV with no steering wheel or pedals.
More recently, Musk firmed these reports up. At the EV maker’s Q1 2022 earnings report meeting, Musk confirmed Tesla is aiming to make a driverless Robotaxi in volume by 2024.
Tesla is planning to hold a Robotaxi Day in 2023, but in the meantime it has to solve full self-driving. Tesla is currently collecting data from a fleet of 100,000 drivers using the FSD beta program.
This week, Musk said Tesla plans a “wide release” to as many as one million drivers that have bought the FSD package by the end of 2022.
Tesla differs from other self-driving companies such as Cruise. While Cruise operates in pre-mapped areas only, Tesla wants its autonomous cars to be able to operate in areas it has never been before.
This means it has to be able to pre-empt and react to moving obstacles and pedestrians, even when they are not visible to the car’s cameras.
Tesla’s full self-driving plans have been a long time coming. While Musk originally thought it could be achieved by the end of 2020.
But AI Day is not all about cars. Tesla is instead planning a “Teslabot” (known as the Optimus program internally).
In April, Musk said: “Well, with respect to full self-driving of any technology development I’ve ever been involved, I’ve never really seen more kind of false dawns, or where it seems like we’re going to break through but we don’t as I’ve seen in full self-driving.
“And ultimately what it comes down to is that to solve full self-driving, you actually have to solve real world artificial intelligence.
“Which nobody has solved. The whole road system is made for biological neural nets and eyes.
“And so actually, when you think about it, in order to solve full self-driving, we have to solve neural nets and cameras to a degree of a capability that is on par with, and will really exceeds humans,” he said.
By developing an autonomous robot, Tesla hopes to solve AI and self-driving problems (by using something that is slower and lighter than a moving vehicle!).
Musk, however, believes that the Teslabot will ultimately be worth more than FSD and Robotaxis.
“The importance of Optimus will become apparent in the coming years,” he said in April.
“Those who are insightful or listen carefully will understand that Optimus ultimately will be worth more than the car business. Worth more than FSD. That’s my firm belief.”
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.