夸海口or真实力:特斯拉明年推自动驾驶车
Tesla CEO Elon Musk expects to start converting the company's electric cars into fully self-driving vehicles next year as part of an audacious plan to create a network of robotic taxis to compete against Uber and other ride-hailing services.
特斯拉首席执行官埃隆·马斯克预计,明年将开始将该公司的电动汽车转变为全自动驾驶汽车,这是该公司一项大胆计划的一部分,该计划旨在创建一个机器人出租车网络,与优步和其他叫车服务竞争。
The vision sketched out Monday during an event at Tesla's Silicon Valley headquarters requires several leaps of faith — something that the zealous investors and consumers who view Musk as a technological genius often are willing to take.
周一在特斯拉硅谷总部举行的一场活动中勾勒出的愿景需要好几次信仰上质的飞跃——那些把马斯克视为技术天才的热心投资者和消费者往往愿意接受这一点。
But self-driving car experts fear Musk is shirking public safety in an effort to boost Tesla's stock and sell more of the company's electric cars.
但自动驾驶汽车专家担心,马斯克是在逃避公共安全,以提振特斯拉的股票,并销售更多该公司的电动汽车。
This amid lingering questions about whether the 15-year-old automaker can consistently make money.
与此同时,这家成立15年的汽车制造商能否持续盈利的问题仍悬而未决。
"It sounds like a pipe dream that he's selling people," said Raj Rajkumar, an electrical and computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
“这简直是白日梦,他不过是在收买人心,”卡内基梅隆大学电气和计算机工程学教授拉杰.拉杰库尔玛说道。
"I think it's basically overpromising, which is typical of Elon Musk."
“我认为这基本上是过于乐观了,这是埃隆·马斯克的典型做法。”
To prove his skeptics wrong, Musk will have to persuade regulators that Tesla's technology for transforming potentially hundreds of thousands of electric cars into self-driving vehicles will produce robots that are safer and more reliable than humans.
为了证明他的怀疑是错误的,马斯克将不得不说服监管机构,特斯拉拥有的将数十万辆电动汽车改造成自动驾驶汽车的技术,将生产出比人类更安全、更可靠的机器人。
And to do that, Musk will have to be correct in his bet that Tesla has come up with a better way to produce self-driving cars than virtually every other of the more than 60 companies in the U.S. working toward the same goal.
要做到这一点,马斯克必须正确押对宝,要让特斯拉已经提出了一种比美国60多家公司中几乎所有其他公司都更适合生产自动驾驶汽车的方法,这60多家公司都在朝着同样的目标努力。
Some of those companies are aiming to have their fully autonomous cars begin carrying passengers in small geographic areas as early as this year, but many experts don't believe they'll be in widespread use for a decade or more.
其中一些公司的目标是,他们的全自动汽车最早在今年开始在较小的地理区域搭载乘客,但许多专家认为,这种汽车在未来10年或更长时间内都不会得到广泛使用。
Unlike most of those other companies, Tesla's cars won't come with the light beam sensors called Lidar that many industry experts consider to be essential equipment for robotic vehicles to navigate the road.
与其他大多数公司不同的是,特斯拉的汽车不会配备被称为激光雷达的光束传感器,而许多行业专家认为,激光雷达是机器人汽车在道路上行驶时必不可少的设备。
Musk trashed Lidar as a "fool's errand" and "frigging stupid" in a putdown of companies such as Google spin-off Waymo and General Motors' Cruise Automation that are including the light beam sensors in their systems.
马斯克将激光雷达贬为“傻瓜的差事”和“该死的蠢货”,并对谷歌分拆出来的Waymo和通用汽车的巡航自动化等系统中包含了光束传感器的公司进行了打击。
"They are going to dump Lidar," Musk assured investors and analysts gathered at Tesla's Palo Alto, California, office for the 2 ½ hour presentation.
“他们将抛弃激光雷达。”马斯克向聚集在特斯拉加州帕洛阿尔托的一个两个半小时的发言上向投资者和分析师保证。
Musk, widely known for his swagger as much as his smarts, spent much of the time trying to persuade both the investors and consumers that he had figured out a better way to teach robots how to drive.
马斯克以狂妄自大和聪明才智而闻名,他花了大量时间试图说服投资者和消费者,他已经想出了一个更好的方法来教机器人驾驶。
"It is fundamentally insane to buy anything other than a Tesla," Musk said at one point, arguing that purchasing a vehicle from any other automaker would be like getting a horse.
马斯克一度表示:“除了特斯拉以外,买任何东西都是极其疯狂的。”他认为,从任何其他汽车制造商购买一辆汽车,就像买一匹马一样。
Musk's quasi-sales pitch came two days before Tesla is expected to report a disappointing performance for the first three months of the year.
就在马斯克做出类似推销的两天前,特斯拉预计将公布今年头三个月令人失望的业绩。
Analysts polled by FactSet predict a $305.5 million first quarter net loss based on disappointing car sales, a setback after Musk pledged heading into the second half of last year that Tesla would be profitable from that point onward.
接受FactSet调查的分析师预计,由于汽车销售令人失望,特斯拉第一季度净亏损3.055亿美元,而马斯克在去年下半年曾承诺,从那时起特斯拉将实现盈利。
Tesla's stock sank by nearly 4 percent to close Monday at $262.75.
特斯拉股价周一下跌近4%,收于262.75美元。
From Musk's vantage point, Tesla has a huge advantage over autonomous vehicle competitors because it gathers a massive amount of data in the real world.
从马斯克的角度来看,特斯拉相对于自动驾驶汽车竞争对手有着巨大的优势,因为它在现实世界中收集了大量数据。
This quarter, he said Tesla will have 500,000 vehicles on the road, each equipped with eight cameras, ultrasonic sensors and radar gathering data to help build the company's neural network, which will serve as the digital equivalent of the self-driving cars' consciousness.
他说,本季度特斯拉将有50万辆汽车上路,每辆车上都配备了8个摄像头、超声波传感器和雷达,用于收集数据,帮助构建公司的神经网络,该网络将相当于自动驾驶汽车的意识。
The network allows vehicles to recognize images, determine what objects are and figure out how to deal with them.
该网络允许车辆识别图像,确定是什么事物,并找出如何处理它们。
To become fully self-driving, the cars also need a special computer that fits behind the glove box and is powered by a special chip Musk boasted is better than any other processor in the world "by a huge margin."
要成为完全自动驾驶汽车,这些汽车还需要一种特殊的电脑,可以装在手套箱后面,由一种特殊的芯片驱动,马斯克夸口说,这种芯片“比世界上任何其他处理器都好得多”。
Currently the self-driving computer costs $5,000, but the price rises to $7,000 if it's installed after delivery.
目前,这款自动驾驶电脑的售价为5000美元,但如果在交付后安装,价格将升至7000美元。
Finally, Tesla will deliver software updates to those computers to make it possible for its electric cars to be driven by a robot, without a human in position to take over in case something goes awry.
最后,特斯拉将向这些电脑提供软件更新,使其电动汽车由机器人驾驶成为可能,在出现问题时无需人接手。
There will be a slight chance of some "fender benders," Musk acknowledged Monday, and indicated Tesla will be liable for accident caused by a vehicle under the control of its robot.
马斯克周一承认,发生“小车祸”的可能性很小,并表示,特斯拉将对由其机器人控制的车辆引发的事故负责。
"People will die," Rajkumar predicted.
“会有人死伤的,”拉杰库马尔预测道。
"I can tell you that right now. Because in the real world, crazy things happen."
“我现在就可以告诉你。因为在现实世界中,疯狂的事情总会发生。”
Musk predicted that the technology for fully self-driving Tesla will roll out at some point from April to June next year.
马斯克预测,全自动驾驶的特斯拉技术将在明年4月至6月的某个时候推出。
Then, Tesla will need to get regulatory approval for the fully autonomous cars to drive on roads, something Musk predicted would happen in a few states by the end of next year.
然后,特斯拉将需要获得监管部门的批准,才能让全自动汽车上路行驶。马斯克预计,到明年年底,这将在几个州实现。
He didn't specific where Tesla will try to gain approval first.
他没有具体说明特斯拉将首先在哪里获得批准。
California, Tesla's biggest U.S. market, requires proof that fully autonomous cars can drive safely on public roads, but most other states aren't as stringent.
作为特斯拉在美国最大的市场,加州要求提供完全自动驾驶汽车能够在公共道路上安全行驶的证明,但其他大多数州没有这么严格。
And experts say there's no federal law requiring preapproval for fully autonomous driving, as long as a vehicle meets federal safety standards, which Teslas already do.
专家表示,只要汽车达到特斯拉已经达到的联邦安全标准,就没有联邦法律要求完全自动驾驶必须经过事先批准。
Within three years, Tesla will be manufacturing self-driving cars that don't even have steering wheels or brake pedals in them, Musk said.
马斯克表示,三年内,特斯拉将生产出没有方向盘或刹车踏板的自动驾驶汽车。
If they're allowed on the roads, fully driverless cars would allow Musk to carry out his plan to expand into the ride-hailing market with a fleet of sleek Teslas.
如果它们被批准上路,完全无人驾驶的汽车将使马斯克能够实现他的计划,也就是以一支时髦的特斯拉车队扩张到叫车市场。
Owners of Teslas with the company's self-driving computer could plug into an app-based network to pick up fare-paying passengers when they didn't need to use their vehicle.
拥有特斯拉自动驾驶电脑的车主可以接入一个基于应用程序的网络,在不需要使用汽车的时候搭载付费乘客。
Musk theorizes that a ride-hailing service similar to Uber and Lyft will boost Tesla's revenue and make it easier for the company to sell its cars to consumers who could effectively lower the cost of ownership by making money on the side. Tesla would get 20% to 25% of each fare in the network.
马斯克的理论是,类似于优步和Lyft的叫车服务将提高特斯拉的收入,并使该公司更容易将其汽车销售给消费者,这些消费者可以通过兼职赚钱,有效降低拥有成本,特斯拉将抽取网络中每个票价的20%到25%。
Tesla also intends to convert all the electric cars under leasing contracts to be turned into robotaxis upon their return.
特斯拉还打算将所有租赁合同下的电动汽车在返回时改造成机器人自动驾驶出租车。
Uber and Lyft also consider driverless cars to be one of the keys to making money from their still unprofitable services, but haven't set a specific timetable for achieving that breakthrough while they continue to work on their own autonomous technology.
优步和Lyft也认为,无人驾驶汽车是它们从仍不盈利的服务中赚钱的关键之一,但在继续研发自主技术的同时,它们还没有为实现这一突破设定具体时间表。
Waymo rolled out a ride-hailing service using self-driving vehicles late last year in the Phoenix area, but it only available to a small pool of passengers who were previously enrolled in a test program.
Waymo去年年底在凤凰城推出了一项使用自动驾驶汽车的叫车服务,但它只对一小部分之前参加过测试项目的乘客开放。
And all the cars in Waymo's ride-hailing service still have a human behind the steering wheel ready to take control.
在Waymo的叫车服务中,所有汽车的方向盘后面都有一个人随时准备控制局面。
The Waymo cars also have Lidar, something experts remain convinced must be part of any fully self-driving car, despite Musk's colorful contentions otherwise.
Waymo汽车还配备了激光雷达,专家们仍然相信,这一定是任何全自动驾驶汽车必备的一部分,尽管马斯克对此提出了各种各样的异议。
"Vehicles that don't have Lidar, that don't have advanced radar, that haven't captured a 3-D map are not self-driving vehicles," Ken Washington, Ford's chief technical officer, said during a recent interview with Recode.
“没有激光雷达、没有先进雷达、没有捕捉到3d地图的汽车不是自动驾驶汽车,”福特首席技术官肯华盛顿最近在接受Recode采访时说。
"They are great consumer vehicles with really good driver-assist technology."
“它们只能算是很棒的载人汽车,拥有非常好的驾驶员辅助技术罢了。”
问题:
特斯拉的自动驾驶汽车与别家公司相比,在哪一个部件上有重大差别?
留言回复正确选项,前十名朋友可以获得红包奖励哦,赶快来试试吧!
感谢关注
跟amber一起看世界