Transcription
Tesla isn't testing robo taxi anymore. They're scaling it. And Optimus isn't a moonshot anymore either. Tesla is quietly staffing a full-scale robotics company. And the size of it may surprise you. How do we know? By looking at who they're hiring and why.
Tesla currently has 36 open job listings labeled robo taxi. And they just posted 172 Optimus related openings. Yes, 172. AI engineers, motor designers, actuator specialists, supply chain managers, and data collection operators across 10 cities.
The Robbo taxi job listing suggests Robo Taxi is moving from a technology project into an operating business. The most important signal isn't any single role. It's the pattern across the listings. They're hiring response specialists in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. Real estate experts for site selection and parking depots. A pricing engineer for surge and dynamic fairs. Basically, the Uber playbook. logistics analyst for city-by-city expansion across North America. Even a charging program manager because a car sitting at a charger isn't making money. One role literally lists miles per intervention as a key success metric. That's not a research lab. That's a commercial product preparing to scale. This is the moment Robbo taxi stops being a demo and starts becoming a business. Let's walk through every single clue.
We've got Cern Basher joining us today. He's a charter financial analyst running his own investment advisory firm called Brilliant Advice providing wealth management services. Welcome, sir.
>> Hi, Herbert. We've got some interesting breadcrumbs to look at today.
>> Yeah, I like that you did this. I like that you spent a lot of time looking through all the hiring. It typically tells you what they're working on, who how far forward they are behind. Uh so, let's go through this. There's a lot to cover today.
>> Yeah, it's interesting. So, let's focus on robo taxi first. Uh this was the one I initially spent some time on and then I was like, "Oh, by the way, let's see how Optimus is doing." And then I noticed there was something like 208 job listings, so we'll discuss that as well.
>> But I think the Robboaxi one is is really interesting. Um as you mentioned in the intro, there's a number of areas in which they're hiring and I think it's uh it'll be interesting to kind of go through each one of these and look at some of the details.
>> You say that there is uh 10 I think there's 10 specific categories. Let's go through them.
>> Yeah. So, one is 247 fleet operations, right? So, they've got listings for robo taxi fleet support specialist um supervisor, robo taxi fleet support, robo taxi operations manager, and associate robo taxi operations manager. So, you know, these are fairly obvious roles when you take a look at it. Um, they're focused on making sure the vehicle's clean, uh making sure it's charged, uh inspecting the vehicle. Uh so, for example, they're the first um the highlighted part. you know, we'll lead a team of robo taxi fleet support specialists to ensure our fleet of vehicles are properly maintained and charged while meeting the daily deadlines. Um, and this is a this is a supervisor role. This is night shift, so they've got this role day and night.
>> Uh, this this one's based out of PaloAlto, but I would imagine that they'll have many of these roles in different cities.
>> I mean, like you said, their supervisor leading a whole bunch of people. This is not just a one person or two person job. It's going to be a whole bunch of them. Yeah.
>> that's right. And so here's one for associate robo taxi operations manager. And one of the things here I highlighted is the uh you know track key performance indicators, KPIs such as vehicle downtime, charge efficiency. It's kind of interesting and service cycle times contribute insights to improve fleet performance.
>> M um, you know in the first bullet point there assist in managing vehicle readiness including cleaning, charging, maintenance, scheduling, service coordination to maintain high fleet availability and uptime. So the focus here is is on efficiency as you would expect from an operations manager.
>> Yeah, you're training everybody the team members you are tracking these KPIs vehicle downtime. So you're probably you get bonuses if you can get that ro that that cyber cab out of here in cleaned out you get a bonus. That's right.
>> Yeah,
>> I love it. Yeah, this is great. Operations manager. This is it. I mean, we're clearly in operations now.
>> Okay.
>> And also in that category, there's robo taxi fleet support specialist. Um, and there you're responsible for cleaning the vehicles
>> uh in compliance with standards, right? Um, and it says car wash and minor detailing. And then it says also coordinate with both internal and third party logistics providers. So it there may be some other parties involved here besides Tesla in sort of maintaining and cleaning these vehicles.
>> Interesting. Okay. So that's the first time we've heard that they may not do decide to do it themselves 100%. Maybe they'll hire a bunch of uh you know these these detailers out there and say look we'll send it to you. You clean. That tells you that maybe they overshoot in a in a city. They don't have the facilities yet. Let's go and hire a bunch of people. And this particular one that I'm reading from, Herbert, is for a job located in Tampa, Florida.
>> Uh it also says, "Manage vehicles and inventory across multiple locations, safely move and charge vehicles."
>> Yeah.
>> So it's not just necessarily one depot that Tesla's going to build and maintain. There'll be multiple in in a city and it might not just be their own facilities.
>> Yeah.
>> Yep. Yeah. And so so the next category is incident response and rider safety. So, as you can imagine, uh, these vehicles are going to have some issues every now and then, and so you have to have people at the ready to to deal with this. And so, in this particular case, uh, with this example on the screen, not sure if you have a a larger image of this one. Yeah, here it is. What you'll do as the robo taxi response specialist, afternoon shift, and of course, they have probably morning and night. So, first of all, rapidly respond to vehicle incidents in the field. Okay, so here's somebody that can potentially at least deal with or perhaps even go out to the to the site uh log all actions and observations using internet tools and platforms. Perform basic vehicle service, including swapping a ve a wheel.
>> They need to be able to be kind of Johnny on the spot and deal with stuff.
>> Uh ensure vehicles are returned to operational status efficiently and safely. Assist riders during active incidents in the field. So again, going out there and actually providing some assistance potentially. Communicate professionally with first responders as needed. document and report all cases to ensure system reliability and accountability. Now, th this might be a virtual role if it wasn't for the fact it says including swapping a wheel. It's not just somebody sitting behind a desk. You can't do that from a remote location. Um everything else perhaps you could, but that third point tells me that the they want these people out and about if necessary.
>> 247 incident response onroad incidents. Yeah, something happens. You got to get out there and make sure that the rider is safe. the first responders. Yeah. You're the team. It might happen. It like it will happen. It is. It's going to happen no matter what, right?
>> That's right. Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So, that's that's some uh some interesting information. And so, here's the third one. Uh this this is a kind of from a big picture. This idea of of Robotaxi becoming this global marketplace. So, they're looking for robotaxi business manager. Um so, in this particular role, this is interesting. So it says as lead architect of our commercial expansion strategy you will drive growth in market adoption fleet performance and integration with mobile ecosystems around the world.
>> What around the world Herbert not just across the United States. So they have global expansion desires for roboex obviously I mean we I think we knew that but here we are hiring somebody with this you know with this focus. Uh in the first bullet point, what you'll do, develop and execute a scalable, high-erforming network for autonomous vehicle fleets across target cities and regions, including market entry, pricing models, demand generation, and unit economic optimization.
>> What does that mean?
>> Well, it's it's figuring out uh where what markets to enter, how to price it. Demand generation is the the the approach in terms of going to market perhaps advertising strategy or partnership strategy. Um and just figuring out again the unit economics given the cost in a different market um all those things you know all the things that go into the models for example that I've built and others have built and making sure that this model the robotexi model works in different parts of the world. This is a big role. This is a big one.
>> Yeah, If I if I read this right I think it's lead architect. So first of all you're the person in charge.
>> Yeah. commercial expansion strategy. So let's say you go into a new city. How do I address this particular demand and supply and demand for here? How do I roll this out? Scalable high performing network of autonomous vehicle fleets across these target cities. What is the market entry? What is the pricing I'm going to do? How do I do the demand generation? I think there's another role that there is an app. There's a person with the technology in the app and the machine learning and AI to using AI to really map this out. But this is the probably the strategy. And then the interesting part was this mobile ecosystem integration mobile ecosystems around the world that sounds like to me like you know for example you have robo taxi app maybe integrate that into the x app. Okay, that's straightforward. We know that in China they have robo taxi plat uh ability to order robo taxi using the WhatsApp app.
>> It's built in there. So maybe it's partnering with WhatsApp in China and saying hey can we be in there as well? Maybe it's whatever app mobile. I know that's what I'm guessing what that means.
>> Could be. It's interesting.
>> Could mean integration with existing mobile. I don't know. Mobile as in ride hill services. I don't I don't think so.
>> Well, mobile ecosystem. So, in certain countries like WeChat, for example, in China, if you integrate with that, then that may be the best thing.
>> Mobile as in a phone as opposed to mobile as in cars.
>> Well, either one, I suppose. Yeah.
>> Interesting.
>> Okay.
>> Yep. So that that's a big role and it's a very expansive one and I think it's also sort of you know figuring out too you know in terms of expanding into like airports, corporate campuses, um you know hotels, events, logistics, all kinds of stuff is related I think to all this in terms of the business strategy around some of that stuff. Um, so it'll be interesting to see who who they hire for this role.
>> Yeah, look at this this one partner ROI. Yeah,
>> this is our I guess a second breadcrumb that we just found here that means that they truly are going to partner with as many people as possible.
>> Yeah.
>> And what is their ROI if we partner with them?
>> That is great. Okay, this is a a good find.
>> Yeah. Yeah, this is an interesting one. Um, and then the next one in this category is business analyst uh development robo taxi. This is in Palo Alto as well. And the primary responsibility here is identify, evaluate and prioritize potential strategic expansion across mobility, logistics, retail and technology sectors.
>> What?
>> Right. So robo taxi as a platform, Herbert, you're moving people, but you're also moving products, you know, goods.
>> Okay. Mobility is people, logistics is products. Okay.
>> Packages.
>> Yep.
>> Okay. What's retail?
>> Uh, you buy you buy a shirt and it gets delivered via Roboaxi.
>> It's Amazon. Yeah.
>> It's technology,
>> right?
>> Yeah.
>> Again, we've talked about this. Robo Taxi is a platform and here we go. They're hiring for people to
>> think very seriously about this and what the opportunities are.
>> Okay. I got to think this through. I mean, I get mobility, logistics and retail maybe, but uh the technology sector technology sector.
>> Yeah. No, it's uh it's not totally clear from this um you know, but look if you look at the next bullet points build comprehensive business cases including financial modeling, competitive analysis and risk assessment,
>> great pricing models, ROI analyses, sales collateral to support business development efforts.
>> Yeah.
>> Right. So it's going to potential partners and saying hey here's what we can offer you. Here's the numbers we've run. You know,
>> do you want to be a part of this?
>> Yeah.
>> Conduct market research to assess opportunities in autonomous vehicle market expansion.
>> Build expansion roadmaps including market sizing, regulatory considerations and operational requirements,
>> etc.
>> Like one example I can think of for technology sector would be let's say I'm going to partner with you Airbnb. I'll partner with you. Um retail would be Starbucks.
>> Mhm.
>> Okay. But let's say Airbnb says you're an app. You're you're Expedia. Now you've somebody went to your website, ordered a uh an airline a ticket through your site. Why don't you offer a robo taxi as automatically picking you up and driving you to the airport, you know? Or Uber, right? Same thing. Like you partner with these tech companies already that's out there and then be embedded in there.
>> Could they? Who knows? Yeah,
>> I know. I just told you.
>> Well,
>> come on. I mean, who knows in terms of the potential, right? All the different Yes.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is fun. Yeah. I'd like to do this job, actually. I'll do this job.
>> And you can report to me as the Robboexi business manager, Herbert.
>> Yeah, I'll report to you. No, dude.
>> All right.
>> All right. So, here's another one. So, obviously Robboexi is uh infrastructure is important. The physical infrastructure. So now they're hiring for a senior real estate manager, Robo Taxi. Um, and this one's kind of interesting, right? So
>> um, you know, looking at new location development, so lead site selection and lease negotiations for support, parking, and storage locations.
>> Mhm.
>> Analyze economic, demographic, and market data to identify and prioritize key locations. um manage broker, landlord relationships, negotiating letters of intent, leases, um and so on.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Important role as you're expanding to make sure you're in compliance with all the different local zoning requirements and all that kind of stuff. Um, and this is in Field, Pennsylvania. I haven't looked exactly where this is. I'm assuming it's probably close to Philadelphia.
>> I mean, you don't need I mean, I guess Tesla has many offices. You don't have to be in any one specific location, per se, unless they're saying, "I need somebody in real estate manager for Pennsylvania or that coast." Yep.
>> A region.
>> And I would imagine this is a regional role. I'd imagine there'll be a few of these.
>> I see. Okay. So, we want you up in the upper east coast, upper east coast. we want so many low rates goes but you know real estate manager because I guess you do kind of need to the more you understand that that those states and their rules and you're probably already got relationships maybe
>> yeah it says DMV licensing requirements by county and state so I mean it's very specific knowledge that you would need here
>> it's just curious because obviously you could have gotten away with just one or two people in a team in Giga Texas whose job is to find these because you know how many do you need we've But we now know there's maybe four in Texas, 31,000 square foot locations.
>> Mhm.
>> Maybe they're planning four in each city, in each state. That's a lot. Or maybe they're also planning even like tiny places. Maybe, hey, can we just park you you got a McDonald's and you got you you're a hotel and you got some extra parking. Can we, you know, sometimes keep our cars here? Maybe that's what that is, too. Yeah. it it I would be curious to know how many of these roles Tesla has for its service operations that they already have existing today all the Tesla maintenance centers service centers uh they would have had you know fairly large real estate group I think to put all that together over the years I
>> I think the charging uh superchargers because they those are the ones that they might go hey uh hotel you know why don't you put in a few of our superchargers and meanwhile can you allow us to bring our robo taxis charge here also
>> yeah there's all kinds of considerations and we'll get into the charging here in a second.
>> Mhm.
>> Um here's another one. Um senior architect and design manager Roboaxi. The design manager will manage the design and permitting phases of new sales, service, delivery, and collision facilities as well as autonomous taxi infrastructure facilities. They're calling that out as a separate thing as opposed to sales, service, and delivery centers. Well, the 51,000 foot one that we just found at Grand Prair Prairie, Texas this week, which is near Dallas for Worth. It was it is for sale, service, and delivery uh and collision, but then it it had a line there that says we could also use it for robo taxi cleaning, all that. So, they're planning to build more of these. Some of them are going to be a combined,
>> you know, if if the bumper was hit on a cyber cab, then they need to bring it in. Somebody needs to fix it. They're going to have a place like this.
>> That's right. Yeah. Oversee and own the execution of the design development process from test fit, concept design, management of the survey, due diligence, etc.
>> Yep.
>> Um Yep.
>> Yep.
>> So, now we get to charging efficiency. So, you know, you've got to think about how you're efficiently going to charge these all these vehicles. um you know the flow of the vehicles, the the throughput of the stalls, all all these different things, right? Maybe automation of the charging ultimately figure out then which locations to prioritize uh in terms of scaling up and so on. So there's a lot of considerations here. So they're hiring for a senior technical program manager, robo taxi charging, that's the role. Well, what does this person do? Well, this person um is responsible for adapting Tesla's charging processes and systems to achieve the goals of the robo taxi program. Great. What is that? Lead capacity tests at robo taxi charging locations. Observe arrivals of robo taxi vehicles. Analyze impacts on customer flow, stall throughput, system logging versus real world performance and bottlenecks for optimization. Okay, so this is an efficiency role. uh utilizing fleet and field data lead collaboration with charging team on priority locations for charging support robo taxi. So now you're working with the charging team and saying hey we've got some gaps here you need to install some more charges for us tomorrow. Um and then creating create execution roadmap in the field for utilization of charging automation based on location prioritization and value. Okay
>> wireless charging. Yeah
>> wireless charging. Yep.
>> This is very interesting. You can see the uh focus that Tesla has on efficiency and reducing cost. So they imagine they're going to have a million robo taxi, whatever the number is, thousands of robo taxis on a city and it matters to them that
>> the efficiency for them to get charging in and out, right? Get charged and then where location-wise because if there's a lot of, you know, uh, usage in my neighborhood instead of going all the way to the city to get charged if they can have one closer so they can get back into operation. I wonder if other robo taxi companies are doing this because it reduces co it reduces uh manage manages them much better. Yeah,
>> there's a bullet point there which I didn't highlight that says utilize field data to influence hardware design of current and future robo taxi product.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah, I mean, what makes it easier to plug something in? Maybe there's, you know, faster ways to plug plug it in and get charged.
>> Yeah. And that design you had in Southern California, you know what doesn't work in a snowfall in Buffalo when it's there's six feet of snow on the ground.
>> Wireless charging isn't gonna work so well or something and that you know. Yeah. Um
>> okay. So then we get to uh pricing and marketplace economics. Um, and this is you know, how do you deal with the real-time pricing? How do you price the service? um given what's going on with you know, traffic and tolls and surge pricing and all the different demand uh variations and so on what your competitors may or may not be doing and of course they also mentioned uh AI based workflows. So here's one for a senior fullstack software engineer in Fremontaxi pricing digital experience. Um, so what does this person do? Well, design, develop, and support applications and systems, including building pricing tools for robo taxi, ride service services, vehicles, mega pack, energy products, and service parts. So, it's actually a pretty broad role. Um, and then design and manage pricing models and algorithms to implement systems that support dynamic and surge pricing, incorporating variables such as base costs, taxes, government fees, tolls, market demand, regional variations, and location specific factors. again all the things that are in our model or some of the things that are in our model. Um, I don't know that I factored in government fees for example, but these things exist um and then develop workflows that leverage AI to improve decision-m automate planning and adapt to real-time operational constraints like market demand or traffic conditions. So that makes sense to use AI to to figure this stuff out in real time. Um, and then build data analytic pipelines to analyze ride sessions, costs, competitors, prices to design recommendation systems for optimized pricing strategies. So the long and short of it is if you think Tesla's going to stick with this fixed pricing mechanism that we see today, no, it's going to be market-based competitive with where the where supply and demand is in each market. Mhm.
>> It's going to be so um surge pricing as well for sure because that's where you make a lot of profit in search pricing and then um but competitors so I'm sure they they still will want to undercut the competitors.
>> Mhm. It'd be curious what they're how they prioritize this, whether or not they want to still go shoot for Elon's goal of, you know, the lowest possible prices possible, 50 cents, dollar, $2 per mile, he said at one point, or they didn't want to make profit.
>> Yeah.
>> We don't know. Yeah.
>> So, this is a pretty pretty important role. Um, and that's in Fremont.
>> Yep. Um, also in this category, Herbert, is senior software engineer, robo taxi and charging core services engineering. Um, so what what this person will do is build back-end systems to determine real-time pricing, search charges and any other fee related to the robo taxi rides and charging stations. uh build ride price estimation algorithms based on price, traffic, additional fee, tolls and other constraints and so on. So there's a lot of thought that's need that's going to need to go into pricing for robo taxi. This is also in free month. So, you will build apps that customers interact with for charging using the North America charger system, overtheair updates, referrals, robo taxi, and tesa diner.
>> Mhm.
>> Uh, so this is like Yeah. You're you're building the app and then you're just trying to make it a better experience.
>> Yeah. And related to that is this next category which is
>> just take a look at this one though. um assist the robot taxi program's global expansion by understanding airport experience to estimate additional fees and searches related to the rides.
>> Yeah, airports.
>> Okay,
>> so relating to that then is this consumer app and writer experience category and they're hiring for an iOS engineer robotaxi app.
>> Yeah.
>> So it's it's kind of related. Um, and this particular job description um says you own the core mobile experience that enables customers to summon, track and interact with a driverless vehicle from requesting a ride to enabling frictionless entry from trip planning to real-time vehicle status and media control.
>> Yep.
>> Doesn't say anything about talking to the vehicle yet, but that's coming. Um, yeah
>> I mean, they already do this so I wonder
>> I mean the mobile team within highly motive engine to help shape the future of autonomous exceptional mobile experiences. So more to come.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It's not like they don't have people that have worked on this already.
>> Yeah.
>> Expanding this role or something. Yep.
>> Yeah. Used by mill. You'll also contribute to broader mobile app experience used by millions. the ones we're already using. Now,
>> and then that third paragraph, you will take full ownership of features from architecture design to robust implementation, delivering delightful and polished experiences that make Robbo taxi not just functional but magical.
>> Yeah. Yep.
>> Well, good to hear.
>> A lot more to come. Good
>> magical experience. I'll sign up for that.
>> Um, so number eight, maps, navigation, and fleet data. This may be the most important one of them all.
>> Navigation. Yeah, we badly.
>> You will work on developing accurate maps of the world's road network. There we go. Used to power Tesla's navigation engine which is leveraged uh by all existing customer cars and future robo taxis. You'll experiment with algorithms, algorithmic approaches to build maps, improve their quality, and implement these changes in production systems. So, this is a big job. This is an important one. We've all have complaints about Tesla's maps and navigation.
>> So, right now, I know that Tesla's u partners probably with Google to use their mapping. Yep.
>> And it's it's for some reason it's it's atrocious. Lots of problems with the mapping navigation. My theory is that Tesla can build their own map, better map than Google does because all their cars, all of our cars are driving everywhere and we got eight cameras and seven cameras out there and they're tracking everything. We probably have a better map of the navigation than anybody else. And I think that that's been what they've been working on.
>> I hope so.
>> I hope so, too. Okay. And it says as a member of the vehicles vehicle controls and navigation algorithms team. So, there's a whole team here.
>> Yeah.
>> Um, so this is this is again an important role in PaloAlto. Okay.
>> Yeah. There you go. Large amounts of data from the Tesla fleet. This is it. This is a cornerstone in which navigator and autopilot, smart sum and robboex are implemented. So, it's not just the mapping of the streets. It's like you got to map the parking lots as well.
>> Yeah. And this is for the software engineer maps and navigation uh role. Robo taxi. Yep.
>> You know, parking garages. Uh
>> which you rarely have. Google doesn't necessarily have that data. Okay.
>> Rapidly prototype incar customer experiences.
>> Where is that? Oh, incar customer experiences. Yeah.
>> Okay. Uh number nine out of 10. Reliability, safety, and code hardening. So you want obviously a vehicle uh that's reliable. Uh this is a commercial fleet scale platform and you don't want any failures. So you you need to focus on that. So this is kind of neat when you look at the job description for the senior software engineer code hardening and framework resilience. What to expect? The goal of Phil selfoft driving isn't just to get it working. It's to make it more dependable than any human driver could ever be. That's a great line of this person's responsibility.
>> Um, what you'll do take ownership of tooling software to preemptively find issues and improve miles per intervention. It's all about that
>> edge cases. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Now, this is beyond me, but I'm sure uh the software engineers of the world out there know this. The second bullet point, integrate and maintain static analysis and other library hardening tools, sanitizers, clang, tidy, fuzzers. Sorry, I didn't get a chance to look up what all that was. Um, but there you go. That's that's their responsibility. Maybe I'll do a post on on sanitizers, clank tidy, and fuzzers at some point.
>> What is fuzzers?
>> Yeah,
>> we need Phil here to help us.
>> Yeah. Yeah, he would know. So, this is it. This is miles per intervention is the key metric,
>> right? Miles per intervention. And your goal is to increase miles per intervention.
>> Yeah. And it's very likely going to be the the final edge cases.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. This is it. I mean, that's the fun part, right? It's like it's already working.
>> Yes.
>> It's the goal is not just to get it working because it's already working.
>> The goal is to make it more dependable. Keep getting it more dependable. So, we're going to hire these people.
>> And the bigger the bigger the fleet becomes, the bigger the minor issues become more prevalent. So, you need to keep addressing that. And then the last one is moving the fleet into position. So, there's a senior analyst robot taxi logistics role and that's about getting the vehicles to the right place when they're needed.
>> Um, and that one's kind of interesting. Um, this person needs strong carrier and rail network management.
>> Um, the ideal candidate has logistics or supply chain experience with auto transport, rail or high value freight. So they want somebody that kind of knows this ind industry and basically they lead end toend final mile logistics for robo taxi deliveries across North America.
>> Yeah.
>> North America which by the way includes Canada and Mexico. Robo taxi in North America not just the United States.
>> Yes. That's interesting.
>> That's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's another nugget right there. Yep. So, you put all this together and it looks like they are building a robo taxi operating company.
>> Um, and of course, we're seeing evidence of that with the photos and so on that we're seeing from people, but behind the scenes, the the jobs uh that they're hiring for uh is pretty clear.
>> Yeah,
>> that's a good this is a good roundup. The fleet support and operation roles keep the vehicles running. The response specialist roles handle incidents and rider safety. The business manager role turns the technology into a scalable commercial model. The business analyst role identifies the best markets, partners, and use cases. The real estate and design roles secure the physical footprint. Charging role optimizes energy and utilization. The app role builds a customer interface. The maps and navigation roles improve routing and road intelligence. The pricing role builds marketplace economics. The code code hardening role improves safety and reliability. The logistics role gets the vehicles deployed across North America. This is all about scale. You don't need somebody to keep building these things if you don't expect to have millions of users, not just 50 here and a thousand here.
>> Now, if there was one thing in all this that I would point to and say, hm, I wish it was here.
>> Yeah.
>> I wish there was something that sort of talked about interfacing with customerowned vehicles in some way, some role that seems to point to that. And I didn't see any of that in these job listings.
>> Now, not a surprise. Again, if I was doing this, I would be building out the company owned fleet first, dealing with any issues internally. It's a lot easier to deal deal with the internal issues than it is to start selling these to customers and deal with issues that they have with charging and cleaning their cars in their own garage or wherever they are. But if I was to again say one thing that I would wish to have seen in this would be somebody focused on thinking about how to be working with customer-owned, you know, cyber cabs and so on. Are you do you still have high confidence that that is still part of the plan?
>> Yes. And I think it becomes critical actually at the point that you do scale into the millions 10 20 million ultimately is if you think about the physical footprint that Tesla's going to have to build to support that it's astronomical. It's huge. Uh it would just make sense again from that perspective as well as well as all the other reasons that we've talked about before. But from a physical footprint make use of people's charging infrastructure that they already have in their homes.
>> Yeah, My guess would be that it's still more than a year away. I know some people are thinking it was going to be the the final quarter of this year. Ain't going to happen.
>> They might selectively sell a few, but again, I think it would be very measured roll out if they did that.
>> Mhm. It's like I think that okay you live in Austin and Austin just expanded the unsupervised robo taxi uh geography right geofence to the entire Austin city and they're going to increase the number of unsupervised robo taxis if they feel confident that their cars can handle that at some point they might say CERN if you want you can take your car put it into the that specific awesome geography and let it run too because why not it's the And they might even tell you if you are driving in any part in that geography, you can sleep sir.
>> You can sleep.
>> You can you can
>> you know, there's it's totally unsupervised for you during that time. And then they will pay for the insurance for if any accident occurs because they feel confident that
>> I'm doing it for all my other cars. Why not yours?
>> That's right.
>> But you remember Ashok said that in order for them to do that they need to think things like well if your car's tires are bald they wouldn't want to do this. They need you need to have it checked first. You have to bring it into some service center. They have to do a once over before you can do this. So, I think that that's just a huge lift of service like you know like more people you need to hire or or those service people will do it but it's just a lot of work. Let's let's just roll out our first thousand per city before we even consider this. So, I think it's over next year.
>> Yeah. It's one of those things though like bold tires the car can probably sort of self-detect when the tire tread's running low.
>> Too risky. She verbally said it.
>> Yeah. Yeah, We'll see. We'll see how they end up doing that. Um, or at least you have the vehicle drive over some sensor somewhere that measures it. You have it automated in some way.
>> Yeah, true. I mean, he he also said when he said that that our cars are increasingly able to self diagnose themselves. I get that part, but I just think that, you know, they've got too much to worry about at this point. This is
>> right.
>> I I know you're saying that the uh the surge pricing is where most robo taxi services make most of their not robot taxi, but ride healing companies make their money. And then in order to do this, right, to do it profitably, you don't want to have, you know, 500 cars sitting there doing no work except for the couple hours where they need the surge. And then that's where they might convince you to bring in your car in so that they don't have to own that part. Yeah, that makes sense. But
>> it allows Tesla to operate a service that's reliable. Otherwise, during those surge periods, suddenly there's no vehicles available and people will just give up and say,
>> "What's the point? I'm I'm going to use some other service."
>> So, they they do have to think that through. Um, you know, while for all the reasons that we just talked about why it makes sense for the company to do it themselves from a control and and consistency standpoint and all that stuff, at the end of the day, they're offering a service to customers that needs to be appealing at all times whenever they want to use it.
>> So, if if I'm not in the Tesla ecosystem and I'm just a customer that wants ride share and I've got this app on my phone, I want the vehicle when I want the vehicle, I don't want to have to think about anything else. And so Tesla ultimately needs to recognize that and and what's the best structure for making sure that there's these extra vehicles when demand is high. Well, it's customer-owned vehicles.
>> On the other side, if if you are making cyber cabs and you're ahead, your production of cyber cabs is ahead of your desire or your risk to roll this out.
>> Mhm.
>> Then you've got more cyber cabs than you do have operation. So you'll you'll use those
>> sure
>> to meet the
>> that's a highly temporary situation though. I think that that is a very short-term one in my opinion.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> We shall see. This is interesting. I'm still Well, we don't have any hiring. So, let's give it a year. That's what I'm saying to you. If
>> you That could have been a very good signal. Not even a word or two. Maybe they want to keep it secret, but I again they're not keeping that secret. They've been communicating that that that's their goal. So, yeah,
>> we would have seen a word or two in one of these job descriptions. I think so. And I didn't see that.
>> Yep. Okay. Optimus.
>> Optimus. So, not to be left out. And actually, when you look at the number of uh jobs that uh they're hiring for Optimus, it's actually kind of staggering. I found 208 202 uh in North America and six in Greece. So, the top five locations are listed there. 111 in Palo Alto, 44 in Fremont, uh 17 in Austin, 10 in Langley, British Columbia, and six in Athens, Greece. Um the one in Langley, BC, there's a company uh I think it was Sumitomo or something that has a facility there and they've kind of looks like partnered with them. So they've got a team there
>> for actuators. Yeah.
>> Actuators. Yeah. Mhm.
>> Um
>> 111 of them, half of them in Palo Alto.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. 44 in Fremont. Okay. It makes sense.
>> Yeah. So, building
>> that's where they that's where they're going to start the um
>> the the Fremont line and then they're going to want to start testing them. We know that uh where do we heard some a bunch of these job listings were in like five or six five or eight different facilities and factories that Tesla owns all over California and Las Vegas because they want to test the first 5,000 in those areas in those cities and those factories and facilities that Tesla owns.
>> Makes sense.
>> Keep them keep them as local as possible for now. So this is breaking it out by functional category. If we look at manufacturing quality and industrialization jobs,
>> Mhm.
>> 65 of those. Uh, next biggest category is data collection and training operations, 21.
>> H thought this would be the bigger one.
>> Yeah. Again, just the number of job listings doesn't necessarily mean that they're hiring only 21 people. There could actually be hundreds of people behind these job listings.
>> Gotcha.
>> So, yeah, let's not confuse the fact that there's 28 listings. That doesn't necessarily mean 208 people. Could be a lot more.
>> Yeah.
>> Job roles. There's 21 job roles. doesn't mean that that's how many people they're hiring. Okay, gotcha.
>> That's right.
>> Y
>> uh internship uh 18. That's nice. Nice. They're trying to build a a long-term pipeline of of future employees doing internships, right? Taking the long-term view here. You need to bring along some talent. Uh AI, uh machine learning, and digital optimist roles. This one's really interesting, and we'll discuss this a bit more. 17. Um hardware, robotics, and systems design. 17. Validation, test, and reliability. 17. Actuators, motors, and drive chain. 17. Um other roles cross functional roles 14 software simulation embedded systems 13 program project and business operations six and supply chain and sourcing three roles.
>> Mhm.
>> So again kind of across the board um on on Optimus here and then this one is by location. Uh we talked about the top five already and we also have jobs in Reno, Leup, Houston, Dallas, Sparks, Nevada, uh Sunnyale, California, Littleton, Colorado, Draper, Utah.
>> Do you know what it is? Do you know what that one is?
>> I think it's data collection.
>> Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. So, every one of these is they're probably going to have a bot or two in an office and then they want to collect the data.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm just wondering if you can like maybe eote a partner, maybe eco out a you know,
>> maybe. Yeah.
>> Customer,
>> right? Yeah, good point. Okay, so this one is I think the most interesting one for me because we know so such little about digital optimus, right? This is something the company hasn't really talked about a whole lot yet. Ashoke had a presentation this week. He he it's on a slide. I I haven't seen the presentation yet. I'm not sure if it's available, but you know, this is something um and so particularly with digital Optimus, you know, the Tesla's developing a digital counterpart to Optimus that can um you know, reason, learn, and operate computers. Um, and possibly it's even could be used to to uh support or train the physical robot. And that's an interesting thing to think about. Um, so yeah, so here here are the 17 listings and 17 unique titles for the different jobs. Uh, we're not going to go into these in detail like we did for the robo taxi role because there's 28 of them. We'd be here all day going through each one.
>> Well, well, first of all, I am happy to see this many different job titles for the word for the business digital optimist. Well, there's six of them. There's six out of these 17 that have digital optimist in the title.
>> Okay. You know, some people wasn't it you that said this to me that actually, if you think about it, digital optimist is the one that's going to come sooner
>> than Optimus
>> because it's a software uh, you know, and Anthropic is doing it uh and OpenAI's already got their code and they're now doing a gentic AI. Digital Optimus is a new version of Aentic AI and it could come sooner than later. It could actually be started to be sold used this year. Optimists were waiting for the demo. We're waiting for the actual rollout. Hardware needs to be built to general intelligence needs to be trained. This one possibly could already get going. So, this is encouraging to see that there's at least six higher or six different titles for this. Look at the uh the splash that OpenClaw had on something that was actually pretty dangerous if you didn't know how to properly set it up. You wouldn't want to expose that to your own private email and files and so on, right? So, you have to be very careful. But think about what happens when you have a company that's trusted like a Tesla that provides a digital agent assistant that you can share your your files and your emails with and all that and actually becomes very useful to you. That is a very promising thing. uh Nvidia is focused on that. Uh Jensen Wong at his Computex speech spent a lot of time on talking about this.
>> Well, they partner with Hermes which is a competitor to uh OpenClaw and an OpenClaw is partnered and owned by OpenAI. Enthropic has their own claent theirs. they've got their version and then there's Tesla or AI XAI SpaceX AI Gro which is kind of like behind and then digital optimist which is a combined effort by digital by SpaceX and Tesla they've got to show up. So they're they're competing with these guys who's already moving further ahead.
>> This is going to be the major market opportunity I think for 2026 and 2027. Yeah, we're going to see massive growth in this area. So, it's encouraging to see some hiring here from Tesla.
>> Reinforcement learning engineer, digital optimist, AI engineer, generalizability digital optimist, and then machine learning engineer, digital optimist, and AI infrastructure engineer, digital optimist. Okay, so yeah, basic.
>> Again, the cool thing about digital optimist is you're not constrained by having to make a robot. It's it's just a softwarebased system. So, it's much more scalable. If if you have the compute, then you can offer this as a service. So, you can get really rapid growth from this.
>> Okay. And then this this section here I just want to just flash it so people can see here are all the different roles
>> for optimist and digital optimists.
>> Mhm.
>> So they will keep hiring for everybody.
>> Yeah. So the next major category is data collection and training operations. Uh, so you want to uh, you know, robots learn through data. You've got to you've got to find a way to to train them in real world situations. So they're hiring u operator and supervisor roles in Palo Alto, Houston, Dallas, Fremont, San Diego, Littleton, Colorado, Draper, Utah, Tempe, Arizona, and Henderson, Nevada. Um 21 listings, nine unique titles. And I found something interesting on one of these. Um this is a data
collection operator, Optimist Night Shift. This happens to be in Austin. Um, and among other things, the highlighted thing, what you'll bring, you must be able to walk seven plus hours while carrying up to 30 pounds of various types of equipment.
>> Yeah, >> that is not easy. >> Well, it's very like I I don't know if I like that actually because that sounds like you're a tele operator with the gear. You have to have the hat, you have to have the thing, you're walking around and you're whatever you're doing. Um, you got the, you know, that's what it sounds like to me. Well, it's motion, but the next line down it says RO requires the use of motion capture equipment. So, you're actually doing task and it's capturing your motion.
>> Yeah, it's not it's you are walking around with you're that's why you have to be between 5, seven, and six. >> Yeah. >> You're you're a teleoperator. You're not a teleoperator. I'm sorry. You are a you have the gear and you're walking around and then whatever the data you're collecting, the video and all that, you're going to train it. You're going to Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm not happy with that one. I mean, they need to do it, but they should. In China, you know what they're doing in China? They're hiring all sorts of humans to put on these gear and then they're capturing all that data.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Now, they're going to have to do lots of different ways. The encouraging thing here, too, was the fact this is a night shift. So, this is like 24/7 kind of effort here. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Okay. This one happens to be in Austin. I think there were other cities.
Okay. So, then you get into manufacturing, quality, and industrialization. So these are jobs that are tied to as as I say here manufacturing controls, production line maintenance, process engineering, equipment engineering, general assembly testing, precision machining, etc. Um the quality of the metals and the materials that they're using all has to be tested and analyzed all that stuff. Supplier quality. 65 listings, Robert. 65. So that's a lot of hiring for manufacturing roles. That's a good sign. There's a breadcrumb that they're moving into the manufacturing phase.
>> Yeah, you're not going to be hiring for the all for the breath of roles and then probably multiple people hired per role um if you're not truly in this uh manufacturing phase yet. >> Yeah. The other roles that we've discussed like particularly data collection, you could say, okay, it's still a retros project. You still have people collecting data. Fine. But now you're hiring 65 people in the manufacturing realm. You don't need to hire these people if you don't plan on making a lot of robots.
>> Yeah. >> So this is again another important breadcrumb. So again, this is the machine that makes the machine, right? The the people that build that machine. All these folks. >> Yeah. Molding. Mhm. >> A lot of jobs there. >> Power drain, power electronics. >> Yeah. It's going to take you a while to scroll through the list of 65 of them. >> So, that's again a good a good sign. >> Oops.
>> Then we get to uh hardware. >> Hold on. Trying to catch up here. Here we go. >> There we go. Hardware, robotics, and systems design. So, this is, you know, they're still refining the physical robot. So, it's not just the software side. It's not just collecting data and building the AI. It's also refining the physical part of the bot. So these jobs cover mechanical design, sensing, the power power electronics, charging, the structural design, the thermal systems, the audio integration, eatronics, distribution electronics and electrical systems roles in all these areas.
Um, you know, this this the 17 listings here, you know, Optimus is a machine that has to survive in the real world. So it has to you know it has to walk, it has to balance, it has to lift, it has to grip, it has to do all these things. So and it has to operate safely near people. Another important aspect. So you need a lot of people to think through all this stuff. And that's what this grouping of of hirings is for. >> Sensing the fingertips, hearing >> soft goods. Uh, I guess that would be like the the the clothing and maybe, you know, protection so hit somebody, doesn't hurt you. >> That's right. >> Yep. And then internship. We can skip over this other than the point to make here is it's a good sign that they're hiring or hiring interns. It shows that they're trying to develop talent over time. That's important. Okay. In a bunch of different categories.
Um, 18 listings. Uh, validation, test, and reliability. Um, so you know, reliability is everything for a humanoid, right? You need something that works in all environments. Um, you need to be able to test it and validate it. So they've got 17 listings here, 15 unique titles. >> Yep. >> Again, that's another positive step. You know, I recall, for example, when they when they started with the Cybertruck program, we started seeing Cybert trucks in Baja California. We started seeing Cybert trucks in in Alaska testing. You're going to see the same kind of thing, maybe not outdoors as much with Optimus, but they're going to be testing them in all kinds of real world environments. >> This would actually be a fun job. All right, actuators and and motors and drivetrain. Um, this is probably the most important system in the bot terms of physical system, but you can think of the actuators as kind of the muscles of the robot.
So they, you know, you want to make sure that these are uh safe and durable. Um, and you've got again a bunch of people on these roles uh to sort that out. If they're not durable, then the maintenance costs on the bot are going to are going to kill the company, right? You have to build durable systems. Okay. Uh software simulation and embedded systems. Um, you know, they're they're trying to also make sure the bot can be developed in sort of the virtual environment. Um, which is good. uh data collection in the real world's fantastic, but if you can figure out a way to do a lot of this stuff virtually, that's that's even better. And of course, the combination of the two will be important. So Tesla needs to figure out a way to run huge number of virtual experiments to to have the bots learn uh program project and business operations.
Um, so this is kind of interesting. They're hiring technical program managers for dexterity, hardware, uh, development, AI, data centers, and general Optimus work, along with project management and HR support. So, they're building out the team here in every way possible. They're hiring a senior HR partner, Optimus. As this team gets bigger and bigger, you need kind of other people that maybe aren't working on specific things, but are helping with this team, uh, putting the team together. Okay. Uh, supply chain. Uh this is also important. Now they're only hired. There's three listings here. Uh supply chain manager Optimus and supply chain manager Optimus Electronics, but you've got to be able to source uh the parts to the extent that they're not making them themselves or even source the materials. So that's important. And then other crossunctional roles um also important. The one interesting thing here that I pulled out, there's a role for engineering technician optimist hand repair.
>> Yeah. >> Okay. This role is focused on hands-on repair of the Optimus humanoid robot hand. >> Yep. >> Morning. Because that's the thing that breaks the most. >> That's what the robot's using most of the time. You need >> the most complicated. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Right. So, they moved beyond just developing the hand. They've got a hand. It's being used. Now, you need to figure out how to deal with the wear and tear and repairing it.
>> Yeah. >> So, that's great. Uh just go back one one slide real quick. Uh there's one role there. Senior materials engineer, metals and ceramics optimist. >> Yeah, >> there's some very specific things. R&D machinist, grinding specialist. I mean, it's just amazing all the different roles. >> Yeah. >> So, >> there you go. >> Yeah.
>> So, that's kind of the walkthrough, Herberta, of 208 different jobs, different roles for Optimus. Uh to me, that's a good sign. Uh again, this doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be selling Optimus this summer, but you've got to put this team in place and think about all these things if you're going to build robots at scale. >> I've uh I've been I've had a theory for such a long time. Everybody said you're dumb. That's not going to happen. Uh which is I think that Tesla's going to get into the um smart glasses field. They're going to sell some version of smart glasses. Going to be part of Digital Optimus. Now imagine if you if I wear this, okay, and I'm using my computer and I'm got my vision and it's seeing everything I'm doing. I'm teaching it how to do digital optimus. Now I walk around, I go get a glass from my I a drink from the fridge. I open my fridge, I open up, it's watching me. I washing dishes. It's watching me wash dishes. You see? Uh I think that they need to have as many people faster than all the other competitors in China. They're hiring people and they're paying you to wear these their own glasses so you can like put on goggles and actually do things and they'll pay you for that video because they need as much data as possible. FSD has us using our own cars and we sending the data up automatically. They don't have that data for human or robots. All sorts of data. Remember he kept saying, you know, when I pour water into a glass, you want to see that >> how that that mechanism works, what my hands are doing. And I think that that's what they're missing right now. So,
>> well, I don't see any evidence of that necessarily in these job descriptions. Although, again, I didn't go through each one with a fine tooth comb to see if there's any specific reference to what you said. >> Assimilation one, all that all that uh discussion there. I was going to point it out in that section where it was the digital optimus and the simulation area, the the the software part. So, the the creation of the glass is any, you know, some sort of video camera. That's what they're starting with now. You know, with 80 pounds, you have to be able to carry 30 pounds and you're walking around doing that kind of stuff. Now, they still they only are focusing on factories and that's what that is. A person in the factory or business uh office to be able to do this, but they need more than let's say they hire 100 people doing this. They need more than that. They need millions. So, this is what they're doing. Okay.
>> Yeah. I would >> I I don't disagree with you that they need to come up probably with multiple creative ways of collecting data, training and simulation and so on. Yeah. And it's going to be fun to kind of watch what Tesla and the other robot companies do in that regard to acquire all the data that they need because look at the effort again as you mentioned with FSD that Tesla's gone to >> years and years of collecting customer data from our cars. Even if you're not driving your car using FSD, just the fact you're driving a Tesla, it's collecting data that Tesla can use to train FSD. Uh what's the equivalent to that in the robot world? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> It's glasses. >> Yeah. >> Okay.
>> So, you're saying that Tesla should make an acquisition of, you know, Rayban or somebody? I think I think >> you know, you know, they don't do that, right? They don't they don't acquire. They'll they'll just announce their own version of some sort of glasses and brilliantly you will pay for it. And I think it's got something to do with digital optimists. Uh >> so uh >> these glasses, Herbert, have been watching you all along AI. >> You you Alexandra, Jeff, that's why you guys all wear these glasses and you keep flipping them out. Yeah, that's why they're huge. You've been tracking me. You're going to have a digital Herbert. Replace me. I don't need you anymore. I got a digital herp place. Yeah, that's what's happen. >> You're on to list. You figured out our our plan.
>> Thank you so much. As always, uh CERN, you do so much work here and um you you know put the M list out and there are some real nuggets here. It tells us the clearest path of where they're going, especially the robo taxi one. I thought that that was fun. >> Clearly, they're in operation mode. Clearly, they're going scale. And you can see that they're partnering. They're going to partner with partners uh everywhere part locations but also apps businesses that they're going to launch soon. Um exciting. Thank you sir. Follow him on his uh X account and then check out his website at brilliantadvice.net. Thanks everybody. >> Thanks Herbert. >> I've created a website that is the most comprehensive resource for the Tesla investor. Please check it out. Simply go to my website at herbert.com.