This will be a glorious failure.
this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
277 points (97.9% liked)
Technology
80503 readers
4853 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Even if his robots were ready for primetime (they're not), I don't see how he's going to be able to price them affordably, given the RAM shortages.
Tesla plan to build a "tera-plant" to make RAM.
They don't need to be affordable, they will be subscribed to. What, poor, you don't have the iRobot subscription?
load more comments
(1 replies)
So basically the cars are not selling, but he doesn't want to be seen to be closing the factories.
This. They'll shut down for retooling, open up to churn out a small number of robots that do nothing, and claim success while firing most of the staff.
Well the contract he signed for ~$1 trillion by 2035 specifies he has to deploy 1 million robots and 1 million robo-taxis. Which I can see happening.
The issue I see with it is he has to get Tesla car deliveries up to 20 million a year. To put that into perspective, new car sales in the U.S. has never hit 20 million vehicles that I know of. Globally I just saw their sales were at less than 2 million.
So chopping the $80,000+ models and keeping the ~$40,000 models that make up 97% of their sales makes sense. He needs something that will gather a lot of new sales, and there aren't mass amounts of people with $100k to buy a new car.
My bet is on him selling cars to himself somehow
Nah, he'll have the government buy them as fleet cars.
SpaceX are 'buying' all the Cyber Trucks no-one wants.
Weren't local police departments looking at the cyber truck, ran trials, and said lol, no thanks
load more comments
(6 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
It's total bullshit. They don't need to do anything to the factory. They haven't made X and Y in Fremont for 2 years. There isn't anything to retool or any space to reuse.
The factory already frequently takes manufacturing breaks for days at a time. If he had a robot to build, they have capacity, but let's not fool ourselves. There is nothing to manufacture or deliver.
You're dead on, this is just him hoping he can fool people into thinking they still even need his factories at full capacity. Pretty sure they don't.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The S and X haven't really sold well since the model 3/y were ramped up. Those ate most of their sales. Even before the nazi shit they were low, and he's hinted a couple times before that as well that their days were numbered.
They did want a car to put fancy tech in like the plaid version, but that'll just be the roadster now instead.
They are leaving a big gap in the lineup though without a bigger SUV, so it'll be interesting to see if they bring the extended Y from China to other markets now.
Edit: actually it was just after the salute before it's impact would have been apparent in Feb. They mentioned there was some nostalgia around them even though they weren't selling a lot, but at the same time said they weren't going to cancel them... so that didn't age well.
load more comments
(15 replies)
Nazis deserve a punch in the face, not money.
Boycott Tesla and Nazi led companies. Do not buy their products, do not buy their stock. Ensure any investment funds you have are free of Nazis.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Or I'm a fucking Nazi and no one will by my shit anymore.
There's going to be plenty of idiots that will see the never proven mostly unusable robot as a good thing for the company. Another trillion dollar bonus package approved!
Sadly, lots of fucking morons are still buying their shit.
Fewer, but lots.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Sales are tanking, profits are tanking, and he's being forced to abandon his precious "SEXY" branding, by ditching the S and the X. Now it's just "EY."
Tesla has crashed, and is NEVER coming back. Sales/profits will continue to slip with each earnings report. The only thing keeping it afloat is because it is held in massive institutional investment accounts, but as it continues it's inexorable slide, those institutional accounts will start to sell down, accelerating the slide, until they all bail, and Tesla stock nosedives.
Tesla will be bankrupt in 2 years.
Elon Musk is a Nazi
He Should be stripped of his security clearance and incarcerated immediately.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I am personally rather skeptical about the commercial viability of humanoid robots in 2026, but I suppose that we shall see.
You should see just how far Boston Dynamics has progressed. They’ve been working on it for literally decades, and it shows. They may have humanoid AI robots working in automotive assembly lines within a year or two:
They may have humanoid AI robots working in automotive assembly lines within a year or two
Bullshit. Cute dance videos are not actual productivity, and the most recent video shows a B-D -Robot barely taking a large part of a large self and dropping it into a rack. Stuff one armed robots already do.
Watch the videos: they always distract with cute waves and dancing but no way will these toys replace skilled labor.
load more comments
(4 replies)
They are just the prototypes to the eventual Slaughterbots that will be deployed into the streets to kill us, and bring us under control.
load more comments
(1 replies)
He is shifting production to a robot he can't even show a working prototype for. The US taxpayer will be buying some expensive Roombas in 2026....
I just don't understand who the market is supposed to be for humanoid robots. Manufacturing? They've already built bespoke task-centric robots. Consumers and businesses? They can already hire a real person without spending money upfront to "purchase" said person. I just don't see the use case. It feels like another metaverse or smart glasses. Just another desperate grab at investor money and trying to claim the next "big thing".
I mean, human environments are intrinsically made for humanoids to navigate. Like, okay, we put stairs places, things like that. So in theory, yeah, a humanoid form makes sense if you want to stick robots in a human environment.
But in practice, I think that there are all kinds of problems to be solved with humans and robots interacting in the same space and getting robots to do human things. Even just basic safety stuff, much less being able to reasonably do general interactions in a human environment. Tesla spent a long time on FSD for its vehicles, and that's a much-more-limited-scope problem.
Like, humanoid robots have been a thing in sci-fi for a long time, but I'm not sold that they're a great near-term solution.
If you ever look at those Boston Dynamics demos, you'll note that they do them in a (rather-scuffed-up) lab with safety glass and barriers and all that.
I'm not saying that it's not possible to make a viable humanoid robot at some point. But I don't think that the kind of thing that Musk has claimed it'll be useful for:
“It’ll do anything you want,” Musk said. “It can be a teacher, babysit your kids; it can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries; just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do.”
...a sort of Rosie The Robot from The Jetsons, is likely going to be at all reasonable for quite some time.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
Damn. It's the end then. That can only mean the robots are ready for the streets. Literally, THE STREETS.
Think about it. He's in the government (non-elected) and they are deploying ICE agents everywhere.
The robots will 100% be seen standing at street corners "keeping the peace" within a year.
Omfg am I crazy, or is this realistic? Please just tell me I'm wrong and there's no chance.
You're not crazy, but it won't be Elon who does it. The Tesla robots are nowhere near ready for production. This is vaporware, just like the Roadster.
load more comments
(4 replies)
With all due respect, you're crazy. They can't even scoop popcorn.
https://electrek.co/2025/07/23/tesla-teleoperated-robot-fail-serving-popcorn-first-day-new-diner/
load more comments
(8 replies)
Ain't nobody gonna buy your stupid Nazibots either, di ckhead. You are universally despised.
Not universally unfortunately. Republicans/racists still think he's pretty great.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Lol
Optimus robots? Do they have a crossover truck model called Prime? Is it actually a decepticon?
load more comments
(2 replies)
Thinking about this further down the road: What happens when the company stops making cars altogether or drops support? Do these smart cars still function without having to call home, or do they effectively become bricks on wheels?
load more comments
(1 replies)
In keeping with Musk's Swasticar theme, the new Model S will be the called the SS.
load more comments
(1 replies)