It's that time of the year again:<p>> Last night, Elon Musk did what he does best: promise “millions” of autonomous Tesla vehicles would be on the road by the end of next year.<p>And this tiny little disclaimer:<p>> Last year, Musk said that Tesla would rollout “unsupervised” robotaxis in Austin, Texas starting in June 2025. And in the call last night, Musk stuck to that deadline, but added a little more color about what to expect. He said the paid ridehailing service would consist of 10-20 Model Y vehicles with remote operators in case any of the cars get stuck.<p>Ahh, unsupervised, if you ignore the supervisors! And wow, a whole 10-20 for the city!<p>> Musk has long promised Level 5 autonomy, which describes driverless vehicles that can travel anywhere, under any conditions, without limitations. But last night, he corrected himself: there will be some limitations.<p>Ahh, geofencing sucks unless Tesla does it, got it.<p>> One analyst asked about the reliability of Tesla’s cameras when confronting sun glare, fog, or dust. Musk claimed that the company’s vision system bypasses image processing and instead uses direct photon counting to account for “noise” like glare or dust.<p>I smell bullshit. Photon counting requires specialized cameras that are not present on Teslas. Not to mention lab conditions (so you can direct photons at your sensor, versus you know, scattering into the atmosphere...) And that don't do anywhere near as well at regular image processing, for that reason.