Tesla Robotaxi Changed His Mind — Investor Emmet Pepper Rides in Austin
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All right, so this is day four.

since the Robotaxi launch and I'm headed over to South Congress Hotel here in Austin, Texas I'm going to be meeting Emmett Peppers For those who don't know he's been a frequent guest on my channel He's flown into town this morning to take some Robotaxi rides with me so we're going to have a fun time and hear his first experience and his reactions He's had a chance to watch a lot of the videos but this is going to be his first time in person so it should be fun

Alright, we're approaching our drop off spot. Hey man, I'm filming. Hey, how are you man? Good to see you. Excited about Robotaxi? Yeah, I'm very excited. Yeah. Awesome. I'm ready to test it out with you and see what happens. I didn't get the app approved in my phone but luckily I have you to help show me the way. I'll take you around. We'll go over it.

All right, so I just showed Emmett the app and we call the robotaxi. It's coming in about 10 minutes or so. So curious Emmett, what are you looking forward to? Like what do you want to test? I'm just looking forward to getting in the car and driving it and letting it drive us and just experiencing it because it seems so amazing on the videos I'm watching. You know, it reminds me of watching the first full self-driving early access users and I was just chomping at the bit to get it myself.

And it was just fun watching it. And now I'm like watching all these videos of other people riding these robo taxis. I'm like, oh, so cool. And I want to try it. So I'm down here in Austin. You're gracious enough to let me tag along with you on your app. I couldn't get the app approved on my account yet, but I'm happy to be riding around with you for the next.

day or two and test it out. Yeah, I mean, right before I hit the record button, Emmett was asking about expansion, how fast could Tesla expand. I was like telling Emmett, I think you should try it out first, you know, like a day or two and then...

you have better insight on the expansion because it's all about, I think, risks and benefits. Like Tesla's accidents, like there's going to be accidents. I think I was reading Waymo has had like over 500 accidents. I think it's almost 700. And they just don't get a lot of publicity. But every accident from a Tesla robot taxi is going to be plastered everywhere. And so Tesla has to think about like,

you know, as they expand, there's going to be accidents. You know, I think Waymo's had over 100 accidents already this year. Yeah. Even though most of it isn't even their fault. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm going to try to be skeptical because I'm going in with a bias of excitement, but I'm going to try to be as skeptical as I can and be like, try to, you know,

poo-poo my expectations and see what happens. Yeah, yeah. Alright, sounds good. Alright. Oh, we gotta find it though, like the Pokemon. You gotta find it until they figure out how to pick you up right where you are. But I'm excited. It's right there. It's not that far. It's only like 50 feet. You know, people make a big deal about it, but in this case, it's not a big deal at all. This is where an Uber or a taxi, you know, someone might pick you up if you're a friend picking you up too. Alright, here's Emmett's first robo-taxi ride. Okay, just go in here. Here we go. Hello. Okay.

Oh, we gotta press this button. Yeah, yeah, press the button. Barley bean coffee. Okay, here we go. Let's do it. Boom. Okay. Arrive in 11 minutes. We're off. Oh, these people. I seized the people. Cool. Here we go. Okay. It just feels backwards because it feels like there should be someone driving, but we're not in the UK or something. It's just the steering wheel's moving by itself. Pretty soon they'll have these without a steering wheel. That'll be really nuts. Cyber cab. Exactly.

Yeah, I was thinking, you know, there seems like they're testing production of like the cyber cab Castings but then in order to make it without a steering wheel. It's like they might need NHTSA approval or something

We should call this series Driving with Dave. Actually, I've been doing it in my videos. I just kind of like talk to myself. Well, you got to have someone like me in there. I answer like my own questions. Yeah, I've watched a couple. I like it. I like how you like navigate yourself through the thing down here. Like you're like, okay, this does that. Exactly. So you're basically thinking out loud, which is good. Yeah, yeah.

But with CyberCab, I was thinking they have a couple of choices. One is they get NHTSA approval.

And I think there's actually a approval. It's like a small production number approval for like kind of these more innovative vehicles. So I think they could produce a couple thousand under that exception. Okay. Once they show the data, I mean, we can probably do back of the napkin math with how many cars they have, how many miles they're getting a day right now, and how long that takes to get, you know, X thousand miles of data or X tens of thousands of miles of data. Because once they have enough data...

I think that should just be like the mathematical proof, you know, like, hey, it's safer. Make as many as we can. The more we make, the more lives we're saving. That's what it's all about, end of the day, right? That's what argument should win over anything else is how many lives you're saving. All right, Emmett, so what's your first initial impressions for just the first two, three minutes? I forgot we're in a robo-taxi, to be honest. I totally forgot.

I guess that's good. I'm trying to be skeptical. I'm trying to look for something that's going to freak me out. But so far it's kind of boring. We're just like, it's kind of exciting to know I'm finally in one. And I guess boring is good in this case. I mean, it's not like a roller coaster ride. It shouldn't be. It sounds like getting ready for something exciting to happen. Oh, let's see what happens here with this Jeep. I mean, I can't see how that was easy. That was easy sauce.

Yeah. Level one obstacle. I always make gamified things with my kids. I'm like, that's a level one, level three. And they're like, what does it go to? I'll make it a five is the hardest. And they're like, throw me a level five. And I have to make sure they can't catch the ball or whatever. Sorry, let's make these obstacles. We'll name them level one through five. That was level one. All right. Okay, I'm off lane.

When you look on that little map, by the way, that you showed me earlier, it looks like a tiny area. But in reality, it's actually pretty big. This is a big area we're driving through, several miles. Yeah, I thought it would be a smaller area and Tesla would have to map out, or not map out, but

test every intersection, you know, beforehand. But I don't think they did that. I think it's... That was like their factory testing, just going across the road in the factory. So it's very impressive that they opened up with this bigger area right off the bat. It seems small when you look at that picture, but it's actually pretty big. I mean, what do you think? That's like half the size of Manhattan? I have no idea. I'm trying to fit it into Manhattan. We'll have to measure it. But it's a pretty decent size. Now that we've been driving in it for a few miles.

Okay, we're coming up to our destination. Okay. I mean, it feels like someone is driving us around even though it's just the robot. It's kind of surreal when you think there doesn't need to be a monitor in here and this thing is just driving us from point A to point B. There it is, the coffee shop. Alright. Raleigh Bean. Alright, as if I don't have enough energy already, we're gonna get some coffee here. Cool. Let's see how it parks. This is the weird part. That's it, right? That's good. Cool.

Let's see this thing pull away. I want to see where it's going to go next. Or something like a diary. Yeah, there it goes. Decaf half caffeinated or not really? After your first ride, what are your thoughts so far? It doesn't feel like I took my first ride. I mean, I'm trying to think back and there was no one driving it. You know, it's so strange because it felt like someone was driving it. Especially with the monitor in the front, it feels like someone's driving it like subconsciously when you don't think about it. It feels like you're just like...

in another part of the world where they drive on the right side, you know? But then you think about it and actually they're not driving it. They're just sitting there and it's just kind of bizarre that like you don't even realize it. Like so quickly you forget like that there's no one driving. It just felt like kind of boring and uneventful. We were hoping to get some kind of crazy near accident or near miss. They'd be like, "Look! Oh, robotaxi almost hit that but it swerved out." That's what I was hoping for, some kind of superhuman safety maneuver, but...

there was nothing too strange. There's like a couple of low-level obstacles that easily navigate like a human would, but nothing serious. It was kind of a long ride, right? I mean, it was a 10-15 minute ride with lots of turns. I mean, it's kind of like

Hard to remember that you're in a robo taxi, right? Is that how you felt the first few times? I mean, right now it's probably so boring to you, right? The first day I was just excited. It was just a blur, you know? It was like, robo taxi, robo taxi. Yeah, that's how I feel going into it. And then when we got out, I like chased it and watched it leave. Like, bye-bye robo taxi, as it left me. Left us, you know, down the street. Just to see it drive off autonomously. But, uh...

You know, I guess it's just you get used to it quickly and it's just the norm, right? Yeah, I would say so. Alright guys, we have our second Robotaxi. Wow. Dave on it too. Let's see.

Beach buggy. Oh, they like vampire survivors. They like that game. Oh, they'll be psyched to be able to play these games in here. You know what they just need, though, is they need the wireless controllers right here that just work. You just pick it up and start playing. That'll make it way better once they have that, especially for kids. They're going to love this. Kids are going to love it when you can do that. It's like, oh, let's go to the robot arcade, mom. Have it pick us up so we can play games. Climate here. Oh, can you mess with the climate more from here?