Starship has a large number of critical milestones coming: Can it land and quickly reuse the upper stage? If not, it can't make refueling flights without building a dozen or two starships. Can it carry the full specified payload? If not, it can't even try to refuel in orbit. If it can't refuel in orbit, it can't go beyond earth orbit. Etc.

Everything has to go right or it will be irrelevant before it works.

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TacticalCoder 7 hours ago | parent [-]

> Everything has to go right or it will be irrelevant before it works.

Starship is not all of SpaceX. Saying, maybe because one hates Musk, that SpaceX is going to become irrelevant is wishful thinking.

In 2025 SpaceX launched more rockets into space than the entire world ever sent in a year up to 2022, something crazy like that.

Then out of, what, 14 000 active satellites in space more than half have been launched by SpaceX.

SpaceX is, so far, the biggest space success story of the history of the human race (and GP is right in saying that SpaceX is now a national security matter for the US).

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Zigurd 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Model S was the most successful EV. If you think cybercab is the vehicle of the future, look at the timeline of the only robo taxi in commerce in the US.

Everything has to go right with that, or cybercab will be irrelevant before it works. Same deal. Same bullshitter.

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iknowstuff 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Model S was successful until Model 3/Y blew it out of the water. Waymo’s timeline is not relevant because they lose money on every car and every deployment. Tesla’s the only financially successful developer of self driving. They can scale it up much faster.In fact, instead of making $5k per car produced, cybercab will net them $50k per car per year.

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margalabargala an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> Tesla’s the only financially successful developer of self driving.

This is completely false. Audi and Chevrolet both have self driving as good as Tesla.

	▲	nunez 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They sure as hell do not. SuperCruise only worked in pre mapped areas and bails whenever there's construction or deviation to plan. It's analogous to Tesla AP2 at best. FSD works EVERYWHERE, almost any time.

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ben_w 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The world doesn't consist of just Waymo and Tesla, and even if it did there's no guarantee either succeeds.

> cybercab will net them $50k per car per year.

Assuming no mass boycotts, nor targeted vandalism. We've already seen both in the last 12 months.

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iknowstuff 6 hours ago | parent [-]

It’ll be fine. Especially when people compare the price of ownership/uber to robotaxis.

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ben_w 6 hours ago | parent [-]

When people actually compare prices, they note that Chinese cars also have autopilot and cost less than half of a Tesla, new.

What's keeping Chinese brands out of the USA, isn't keeping them out of Europe or much of anywhere else.

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iknowstuff 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tesla remains competitive in China, which can't be said of European EVs. Chinese ADAS are much better than European ones but still far behind FSD.

To bring the discussion back on topic: $50k/year or ~$250k over the course of the vehicle's lifetime, instead of $5k for a singular sale event, is why the path for the company is crystal clear. Cybercab is the same kind of step for Tesla as the Model 3 was back in 2017.

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seattle_spring 4 hours ago | parent [-]

More likely that it's going to be the same kind of step for Tesla as the Oculus was for Facebook.

	▲	iknowstuff 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I’ll grant you that it could be, and I’m betting it won’t while you are betting it will. The future is now obvious to fsd14 and robotaxi users. Failure is no longer likely.

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ta9000 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah and it’s going to bankrupt VW/Stellantis. Surprised Europeans just don’t seem to give a damn about that.

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LanceJones 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

BYD sales in January 2026 are down 30% YoY. Not looking great for them in 2026.

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aaaalone 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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terminalshort 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

97% of their sales are model 3 / Y

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7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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giancarlostoro 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> In 2025 SpaceX launched more rockets into space than the entire world ever sent in a year up to 2022, something crazy like that.

Not just that, the cost of each rocket launch is drastically cheaper than all of its competitors costs.