How It Is Going

How It Started on 2023-07-27

The Full Self Driving story started back in 2013, but I’m not going that far back in time, partly because my own recollection of events is fuzzy about what Elon claimed back then. I’m starting from this year, and Elon declared that with v12, Full Self Driving was going out of beta (therefore implying for the general public that it will indeed be true Full Self Driving). Source: Electrek

How I See It Going

Full Self Driving will not be out of beta in 2023.

How It Is Going as of 2023-09-28

As of 2023-09-28, your Tesla still can’t fetch your bread and newspaper for you.

In October 2016, Tesla released a promotional video entitled “Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Teslas.” It was later admitted by employees that the video had been very carefully prepared and edited. Source : Tesla’s Director of Autopilot software as reported by The Verge

How It Actually Went on 2024-01-01

I am shocked, Full Self Driving was not available in 2023. I mean, this despite the fact that it was never “Full Self Driving” in the first place. I am shocked. Shocked.

How It Started on 2023-10-20

During the Q3 2023 earnings call, Elon Musk announced that the first Cybertruck deliveries will take place during a special event on November 30, 2023. Source: Ars Technica

I got at least one thing right: Musk complained again that making Cybertrucks is hard (“we dug our own grave with the Cybertruck”.)

How I See It Going

A few Cybertrucks will be rolled out to a few handpicked customers. It will not be a true mass rollout, more like a beta rollout that should really be an alpha rollout.

How It Actually Went on 2023-12-01

YES! It went exactly as some predicted: a grand total of 10 Cybertrucks were delivered to handpicked customers.

Personal note: the Cybertruck should not be road legal. It’s a pedestrian killing machine. Hell, its design makes it a car killing machine.

How It Started on 2023-10-20

At the end of October 2023, Elon Musk said that it would blow his mind if they don’t have X’s payment system rolled out by the end of 2024. Not just a payment system, but your entire financial life. The nugget: he wants it to be a “high-yield money market account.” (which means the potential to be a high-loss account, you cannot have high-yield without high-risk) Source: Ars Technica

How I See It Going

Why would a smart person give his money to a company that doesn’t pay its bills? Because there are a lot of people who are not smart. And Musk wants it to be a high-yield account, which basically means that you will gamble on some shady market with all your money. Sure, go ahead, make my day. I think even if Musk manages to get something going, he will face hurdles from regulators, and I hope so before he loses all the money of a few not smart people. So my bet is he will fail to deliver and blame his failure on regulators, but in reality it will be because his system is a shoddy piece of shit.

How It Started on 2022-06

In June 2022, McKinsey claimed that the Metaverse had the potential to generate up to 5 trillion (US Dollars) in value by 2030. Source: McKinsey’s website and report

Note the typical use of words such as “potential” and “could”, which means that the big number is just a wild guess pulled out of their collective asses to generate buzz. This type of unsubstantiated claim is exactly what leads to bubbles.

How I See It Going

To the best of my knowledge, even Mark Zuckerberg, who renamed his Facebook empire “Meta” and said the Metaverse was the future, has already admitted defeat, or at least has considerably scaled down his ambitions. The Metaverse is not new, Second Life was its first incarnation in 2003. Even if “experts” decide to label every single online activity as the Metaverse (e-commerce, social media, online gaming, browsing, etc.) it will not be worth 5 trillion Dollars in 2030. But at least you’ll have this site to remember this wild prediction.

How It Is Going as of 2023-10-05

You not spending much time in the Metaverse? Me neither.

How It Started on 2023-04-19

During the Q1 2023 earnings call on April 19, 2023, Elon Musk announced that the first Cybertruck deliveries would take place in Q3 2023. Technically, that means September 30th latest. Source: Electrek

How I See It Going

Nope. Won’t happen.

How It Is Going as of 2023-09-27

Between Q1 and Q3 Elon complained that building Cybertrucks was hard. Source: Ars Technica

How It Actually Went on 2023-09-30

Here we are. To nobody’s surprise, Q3 went by and not a single Cybertruck was delivered to customers. My bet is that during the next earnings call, Elon will claim that the first Cybertrucks will be delivered sometime in 2024. At one point he will complain again that making Cybertrucks is hard.