Cunard added a fourth ship, the 2,996-guest Queen Anne, to its historic fleet.
Cunard
Cunard welcomed its fourth ship and newest in 14 years, the 2,996-guest Queen Anne.
The 114,000-ton vessel has amenities like an Indian restaurant and pool under a retractable glass roof.
Queen Anne's 2024 itineraries, primarily in Europe, start at $300 per person for a two-night cruise.
Cunard has operated 249 ships throughout its 184 years in operation, including the famous Queen Mary and Queen Mary 2. But it's been 14 years since the cruise line has launched a new vessel — until now.
Luxury cruisers, meet Queen Anne. It's Cunard's latest 2,996-guest ship, replete with 4,300 art pieces, archery, and the company's signature high-end flair. Its arrival was so highly anticipated that every cabin on its May 3 maiden voyage was fully reserved in minutes, the BBC reported.
The Carnival Corp. brand may be storied, but that doesn’t mean it’s past its prime.
Construction on the ship began in early September 2022.
Cunard
Katie McAlister, president of Cunard, recently told the BBC that its bookings have grown 25% since the beginning of 2024 and are now the best they've been in a decade.
So it should come as no surprise that several of Queen Anne's 2024 itineraries are almost sold out.
Cunard isn’t in the business of building bigger.
The Chart Room is one of several bars and lounges on Queen Anne.
Cunard
Luxury cruise lines are beloved for their small-ship experience. Cunard is no different.
The new 114,000-ton cruise liner is the company's second-largest, although it can carry more guests than any of its other ships.
However, at a 2,996-guest and 1,225-crew capacity, Queen Anne is still tiny compared to the mass-market cruise industry's newest ships, the largest of which can carry 10,000 people.
Queen Anne's cabins are divided into four categories, listed from most to least luxurious: Queens Grill, Princess Grill, Britannia Club, and Britannia.
Queen Anne has 162 Britannia Club cabins, about 200% more than on Cunard's previous ships. All of these mid-tier cabins have a balcony and access to the Britannia Club restaurant, pictured.
Cunard
Despite being the cheapest option, the Britannia accommodations have high-end amenities like sparkling wine, Penhaligon toiletries, and tea and coffee machines.
That's nothing compared to the most luxurious Queens Grill suites, where guests get amenities like pillow menus, stocked mini-bars, a butler, fruit, and pre-dinner canapes.
Forget the sparkling wine — Queens Grill travelers get a bottle of Champagne.
Cabin categories are especially important for Cunard, not for reasons you might expect.
Princess and Queens Grill guests can use their room keys to access the exclusive Grills Terrace, shown in a render.
Cunard
Besides how luxurious your hotel room at sea is, your cabin influences where you have breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Guests in the Princess Grill suites dine at the Princess Grill restaurant, while Britannia Club guests stick to the Britannia Club restaurant, and so on.
Guests in the higher-end Princess and Queens cabins also get a pretty sweet bonus: an exclusive lounge with infinity hot tubs.
Regardless of your cabin, the 14-deck ship has plenty of areas for all guests to relax under the sun.
The glass dome retracts when the ship is in warm-weathered destinations.
Cunard
For example, the Pavilion. It's one of Queen Anne's go-to places for an afternoon swim, nighttime movie viewing, silent disco, and not-so-silent live music, all under a retractable glass roof.
The ship's pool club also has plenty of lounge seats for a more traditional pool deck experience. For something indoors, head to the drawing and game rooms instead.
Like every new cruise ship, Queen Anne has a pickleball court.
The sky bar and observation deck have outdoor activities like a putting green and pickleball.
Cunard
But unlike every new cruise ship, it also has archery — coaches, bows, and arrows included.
Travelers looking for a less intense afternoon can instead try their hand at the putting green, shuffleboard, or quoits.
Not confident in your athletic abilities? Don't worry — there's a bar nearby, too.
If you lose your pickleball match, you can retail therapy your pain away at Queen Anne’s high-end stores.
Queen Anne's stores, shown in a render, carry 115 brands, 27 of which are first for Cunard.
cunard
Travelers have been splurging big on their cruise vacations. On Queen Anne (and with help from one of the ship's personal shoppers), this could include a Bremont watch or Chanel makeup.
Or, do as cruisers do: Eat and drink the pain away.
The Indian restaurant Aranya, shown in a render, is a first for Cunard.
Cunard
The ship has 15 eateries. Unfortunately, you'll have to pay extra for the Mediterranean, Indian, Japanese, steakhouse grill, alfresco, and British restaurants.
Thankfully, the food hall-style buffet, room service, and cabin-assigned dining rooms are included in the fare.
Specialty Tramonto, shown in a render, serves Mediterranean food "with a sparkling of African and Arabic influences," according to Cunard.
Cunard
Feeling peckish in the afternoon? Afternoon tea is held in the Queens Room, the same venue that hosts events like ballroom dancing and Cunard's signature black-tie galas.
Of course, a cruise wouldn’t be complete without a casino, spa, and nighttime shows.
Entertainment is shown in the two-deck, 825-velvet-seat Royal Court Theatre, shown in a render.
Cunard
Queen Anne is showing two new productions, including an adaptation of the classic British film "Brief Encounter."
For more casual entertainment, the ship also has a "show bar" helmed by a variety of musicians and entertainers.
For a more relaxing afternoon, try the spa's cryotherapy, "experience showers," and salt saunas.
Cunard says Queen Anne has more wellness facilities than any of its previous ships. The "wellness studio" — a first for Cunard — hosts fitness classes like yoga, pilates, and meditation, as shown in a rendering.
Cunard
Afterwards, to keep the wellness trend going, grab a healthy bite at the veggie and "sustainably sourced protein"-forward Wellness Cafe. Its kombucha bellinis are technically good for you, right?
Cunard is beloved for its regular transatlantic cruises on its Queen Mary 2 ocean liner.
Cunard says Queen Anne is scheduled for more than 60 ports across 16 countries.
Cunard
In 2025, Queen Anne will embark on its first three-month around-the-world cruise. However, for the most part, it's not scheduled for repeat long-haul journeys.
Instead, in 2024, the ship will be homeported in Southampton, UK and travel on two- to 19-night itineraries across Europe.
The cheapest way to experience the new ship is a two-night summer cruise from Southampton to Hamburg, Germany, which currently starts at $300 per person.
The last time Cunard had four ships in service was 1999, according to its parent company, Carnival Corp.
Cunard
But if money is no problem, the 18-night roundtrip Hamburg cruise during Christmas and the New Year might pique your interest — and your wallet. The itinerary's luxurious Queens Grill suites start at $19,350 per person.
After two days of meetings with Johnson, the Georgia Republican, along with Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, told reporters outside the Capitol on Tuesday that the ball's now in the speaker's court to satisfy her demands. She did not specify a timeline for him to do so.
Those demands — which range from the obvious to the outlandish — include the following:
No more Ukraine aid for the rest of the year. It was already unlikely that Ukraine aid would come up again this year after Congress approved another $60 billion last month.
Don't hold votes on bills that most Republicans don't support. House Republicans already have a rule requiring this, though it's been violated a number of times, including on Ukraine aid.
Defund the Department of Justice's special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump. It goes without saying that this won't happen — President Joe Biden and the Democratic-controlled Senate won't accept it, and it's far from clear that every House Republican would either.
Pass a stop-gap government funding bill before the election that cuts spending by 1%. This one is feasible, though a relatively small demand over which to threaten a speaker's ouster.
Since Greene arrived in Congress in 2021, her power has come from her relationship with Trump, as well as the notion that — whatever her GOP colleagues might think of her — she has a closeness to the party's activist base that many of them do not.
That's why former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked hard to elevate her and bring her into the fold when Republicans retook the majority.
Yet in this latest crusade, which has seemingly consumed Greene for the last month and a half, she largely stands alone. Trump, according to several reports, opposes Greene's bid to hold her vote. And if her Republican colleagues are facing pressure at home to join her, they sure aren't acting like it: just two other House Republicans have sided with her effort to throw out Johnson.
The congresswoman's ouster effort was already doomed to fail, given House Democrats' move to protect him. Amid the ongoing delays with Greene, both Democrats and Republicans have largely made up their mind on where they stand on the issue, sapping her bid to put lawmakers on record of much revelatory power.
It's still unclear whether she will ultimately force the vote, but at this point, no one's all that worried. Republicans would likely put the matter to bed quickly, holding the vote immediately after she forces it and moving on to other matters.
And on Tuesday, when asked about Greene's demands, Johnson rolled his eyes.
"This is not a negotiation," he said. "I'm doing my job, and part of the job is taking suggestions and thoughtful ideas from members, and that's what we're doing here.
Q from @JakeSherman: MTG says she wants to hear an answer soon
A hydraulic press crushes a piano, guitar, paints, and other art supplies in a new ad for the Apple iPad Pro.
Apple
Apple's ad for the new iPad Pro shows various artistic tools being crushed. It feels off.
It hit a nerve: People are concerned with human creativity being replaced by tech, like the iPad.
It's a rare misstep for Apple advertising.
Apple's promotional video for the newly upgraded iPad Pro has struck a discordant tone. CEO Tim Cook, who tweeted it out, is being ratioed to the heavens on X over the ad.
The video shows a large pile of creative tools — cans of paint, a piano, a trumpet, a record player, books, a vintage arcade video game — and slowly crushes them all in a hydraulic press.
When the press reopens, it's all replaced by the ultra-thin iPad Pro.
Of course, it's meant to show off how an iPad is a great tool for creatives.
But it also struck a raw nerve. We're in a moment of heightened anxiety about the idea of AI replacing human creativity. Already, visual artists, photographers, musicians, and writers are seeing that their work can be mimicked by AI — and they see it as a very real threat to their livelihoods. And it's not just artists who are upset about this; the general public is also uneasy about the idea of soulless computer-generated music or visuals.
We're also seeing how AI is accelerating the "enshittification" of the internet — Facebook pages loaded with AI images of "shrimp Jesus" are just the tip of the iceberg.
The reactions online were probably not what Apple was expecting:
if you think this is bad, just know that in the advert for the M5 iPad Pro they lure 5 art school graduates into a pressurised chamber, then Tim Cook walks in with a hatchet and byford dolphins them. https://t.co/8PAjfWa2ZZ
Yes, the ad is a rare miss for Apple, which has some iconic advertising, like the "1984" hammer ad, the dancing silhouettes for iPod, Zooey Deschanel asking, "Siri, is that rain?"
I'll admit, the thinness of that new iPad Pro really is impressive. It's thinner than an iPhone! And it has the new M4 chip even before the MacBook Pro. And an OLED screen. All of that stuff is thanks to human ingenuity. It's a shame the iPad ad wants to crush it.
From the moment the ink was dry on the law banning TikTok in the US, barring a sale, a legal fight was sure to follow. Two weeks later, the popular app answered the bell.
The legal battle set to unfold is a fascinating who's who of major business topics. Government regulation of tech? Check. US-China tensions? Check. The future of the creator economy? Check.
But don't expect things to wrap up quickly. It'll take time for all of this to work its way through the courts. (As always, the real winners are the lawyers.)
TikTok, Tyler Le/BI
The TikTok-US government fight pits two pillars of American society against each other: free speech and national security.
The case for banning TikTok:The past decade taught us the incredible power of social media, from the data it collects on users to the information it pushes out to them. We also know foreign actors have leveraged social media to interfere with an election.
The case against banning TikTok: To borrow (and alter) a famous movie line, "Show me the evidence!"
We can talk until we're blue in the face about the Chinese Communist Party potentially forcing ByteDance to share TikTok's US user data or influence operations on its behalf. But the US government hasn't provided evidence that's happening. And TikTok maintains its data is safe and separate from outside influence.
The threat of foreign influence might make the TikTok ban easier to swallow. But what happens the next time the government wants to exert some control over social media?
Citi's Jane Fraser isn't sold on a soft landing. The bank's CEO remains hopeful the Fed can stick an economic soft landing, but acknowledged how hard it is. In the meantime, inflation is hitting lower-income Americans thef hardest, Fraser said.
The people making key hires at the biggest hedge funds. Business-development executives are tasked with recruiting and retaining the top investing talent for multimanager hedge funds. From Citadel to Millennium, these are the BDs courting top portfolio managers.
Is a recession coming? A lesser-known Piper Sandler indicator that's predicted the last 11 economic downturns just flashed red — but in better news, the firm's chief investment strategist, Michael Kantrowitz, still expects stocks to carry on racking up gains in the short run.
Mark Zuckerberg once considered acquiring the Associated Press. Between 2017 and 2018, with Facebook under scrutiny for its role in the misinformation surrounding the 2016 election, Zuckerberg considered acquiring or permanently funding the AP.
OpenAI destroyed a trove of books used to train its AI model. Newly unsealed documents in the class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild against the startup revealed it had deleted two huge datasets, named "books1" and "books2," that had been used to train its GPT-3 AI model. The documents also showed that the two researchers who created the datasets are no longer employed by OpenAI.
3 things in business
Deliormanli/Getty, Olivier Verriest/Getty, Andrei Akushevich/Getty, Tyler Le/BI
Good luck trying to sell your home this summer. The age of insane bidding wars and huge concessions is coming to an end. As buyers' options slowly increase, sellers may have to slash asking prices or wait longer for a viable offer to come along.
Bob Iger has a new plan for Marvel. In Disney's earnings call, Iger announced plans to limit the number of Marvel shows and movies released each year. The company also reported mostly strong earnings, but its stock fell as much as 11% after announcing lighter-than-expected subscriber numbers.
Many are now having to think hard about what they provide to their audiences and whether their followers will stick around.
The barrier to influencing is lower than ever, meaning viewers are more discerning. They are turning their backs on creators who seemingly just promote products and go on out-of-touch, lavish trips and leaning more toward those who offer them content with more meaning.
Nya Étienne, who is a journalist and TikTok content creator, refers to this concept as the rise of "the intellectual influencer."
"People are facing burnout on social media," she told Business Insider. "They want to see content with more substance, and they want to see influencers and creators as three-dimensional people, not just as people trying to sell them things."
People want 'edutainment'
This new breed of influencer could outlast all the rest and may soon be dominating social media feeds.
"People are now starting to shift their attention to what I like to call thought leaders," Katya Varbanova, a content creator and the CEO of Viral Marketing Stars, told BI. "An influencer is somebody that influences you because of their personality and personal taste and personal preferences, whereas a thought leader influences you because of their expertise."
Back when posting on social media was novel, the audience of an aspiring content creator would grow exponentially simply because they were entertaining to watch. Now, anyone can be an influencer — they just have to pick up their phone, shoot a video on TikTok, and edit it within the app with ease.
"The barrier to entry for creators is so low, and I think the standards of the general public are rising because of that," Varbanova said.
"They don't just want to be entertained or just want to be educated. They want to be edutained."
People want to hear from creators with knowledge, such as a psychologist with 20+ years of experience who can post deep dives into a topic as a side hustle to their day job. They don't want an inexperienced teenager's view on nutrition, they want a registered dietician to bust food myths and tell them what they should be eating.
Overall, respondents pointed to favoring authentic content over a follower count and the importance of experts. More than a quarter (26%) of respondents said they were influenced by experts on a particular topic when purchasing something, while 33% said they had bought a product based on a recommendation from a specialist.
A 2023 survey by Matter Communications, a brand elevation agency, also found that authenticity was paramount for viewers when choosing who to follow. Relatable personalities came out top, with 61% saying they found these more appealing, followed by expert personalities (43%) and just-for-fun personalities (32%).
"It just used to be so easy to get attention," Varbanova said. "Now, because it's harder, and because people have more choice, they're more selective."
Audiences will still watch quick dopamine-hit content that doesn't require too much brain power, as well as videos that make you think deeper about a topic. But the latter is in a much less crowded field.
When it comes to brand deals and promotions, someone trusted is also going to have a better chance of generating sales than someone who's not, Varbanova said.
Staying relevant
Koko Dubuisson, a fashion content creator from Boston, told BI TikTok was the platform where she has seen the most growth, and she believes that's down to how real it is.
For example, restaurant reviewers, such as Keith Lee, are becoming trusted replacements to Google reviews for young people. These kinds of creators can "really make a business boom," Dubuisson said, because they are expert voices.
Even ultra-specific niches of content, such as farmers cleaning horseshoes, can be addictive. Some people like ASMR, others like true crime. It's the content that makes you feel something that will persist, Dubuisson believes.
"I feel like even years down the line, content creating is still going to be relevant," she said.
It's more a matter of how influencers themselves will stay relevant as some platforms disappear and others surface.
The influencer industry is "growing up," Kaye Putnam, a psychology-based brand strategist and YouTube creator, told BI. And those who want to keep up need to move toward professionalization and specialization, she said. That's the type of content that will be dominating feeds.
The influencers who will succeed have to build a "true business around their influencing" and diversify by starting up email lists, such as Substack, or tending to their communities on platforms like Circle or Discord.
"With ChatGPT, we can Google or find the answer to anything," Putnam said. "So having a unique point of view is incredibly important."
That's not to say the days of a perfectly curated feed are dead. If that's something an influencer truly has a passion for, they should lean into that, Putnam said. Just proceed with caution and let followers know they still have something in common with you.
"We get kind of resentful when people flaunt what they have without also pairing that with some vulnerability or some humanness at the same time," she said.
"We create that parasocial relationship with them when they're not so perfect, and I think people are demanding that more than ever."
Realtor.com has identified 15 large cities where homebuyers can make less than $100,000 a year — about the typical income of a household with two or more married or related members — and still afford to purchase a median-priced property.
"As a result of inflation, a six-figure salary doesn't stretch as far as it used to, but it continues to be a significant milestone for many households," Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, told Business Insider.
While the overall income needed to comfortably buy a house in the US has increased by $5,900 since last year and median home prices have jumped significantly compared to a decade ago, prospective buyers in these cities won't spend more than 30% of their income on properties — a telltale sign of being cost-burdened.
Many of the cities that are more affordable for homebuyers are in the South, the Midwest, or the Mid-Atlantic states — which are known for their relatively cheaper costs of living. Not a single city from the West made the cut, underscoring the considerable cash needed to achieve homeownership in states like California relative to how much people make.
"In some areas, like the South, we're seeing an increase in smaller-footprint homes for sale, which helps dampen prices. Furthermore, in many of these regions, builders have done a better job of keeping up with housing demand," said Hale. "In part, the home prices in the West reflect the reality that the tech industry has played a significant part in boosting incomes in the region. However, we also see the impact of limited construction stifling supply and pushing up home prices."
Realtor.com determined where homeownership is most achievable based on income by choosing places where the typical person wouldn't spend more than 30% of their income to buy a home given a 205 down payment and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with current interest rates. Researchers also examined local taxes and home insurance costs.
Here are the 15 US cities where prospective buyers with relatively lower incomes can still purchase houses, according to Realtor.com.
15. San Antonio
San Antonio, Texas.
Sean Pavone/Getty Images
Median home list price: $345,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $100,000
14. Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio.
Jeremy Poland/Getty Images
Median home list price: $375,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $99,000
13. Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Gerson Repreza/Shutterstock
Median home list price: $330,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $98,000
12. Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee.
John Coletti/Getty Images
Median home list price: $339,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $91,000
11. Baltimore
Baltimore, Maryland.
Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
Median home list price: $352,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $91,000
10. New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana.
f11photo/Getty Images
Median home list price: $335,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $90,000
9. Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York.
Getty Images
Median home list price: $295,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $87,000
8. Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana.
Getty Images
Median home list price: $340,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $87,000
7. Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky.
Getty Images
Median home list price: $327,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $87,000
6. St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri.
Art Wager/Getty Images
Median home list price: $294,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $82,000
5. Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, NY city hall.
Jacek_Sopotnicki / Getty Images
Median home list price: $285,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $79,000
4. Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama.
Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
Median home list price: $297,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $75,000
3. Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio.
Yuanshuai Si/Getty Images
Median home list price: $255,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $71,000
2. Detroit
Downtown Detroit.
Kirby Lee/Getty Images
Median home list price: $250,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $69,000
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
Median home list price: $250,000
Median household income required to purchase a home: $67,000
Trump and his codefendants in the Georgia case had asked the appeals court to review a ruling made earlier this year by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee that permitted Willis to continue to oversee the case.
Attorneys for Trump and his codefendants had previously argued in a motion to disqualify Willis that Willis had a conflict of interest in the case because she improperly benefited from a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the Atlanta lawyer she hired as a special prosecutor for the case.
Following a days-long evidentiary hearing on the matter in which both Willis and Wade testified, McAfee ruled in March that Willis and her office could remain on the case so long as Wade stepped aside. Wade announced his resignation hours later.
McAfee said in his ruling that though he did not find a real conflict of interest, "an odor of mendacity remains." The judge allowed a request by Trump and his codefendant's to appeal the ruling.
Trump attorney Steve Sadow cheered the Georgia appeals courts' decision to take up the case, writing in a post on X on Wednesday: "The GA Court of Appeals has GRANTED President Trump's Application for Interlocutory Appeal from the trial court's order refusing to disqualify Fulton County DA Fani Willis!!!"
The case was not scheduled for trial. In the months leading up to the filing of the conflict-of-interest motion, Willis had been seeking an August trial date — but that was before her office lost its lead prosecutor on the case.
The appeals court's decision to review the ruling just increases the likelihood that the Georgia case against Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, won't go to trial before the presidential election in November.
The federal Florida judge overseeing Trump's criminal case over his holding onto secret government documents following his presidency delayed the trial indefinitely, giving him the chance to get rid of the charges if he wins the 2024 election.
The former president's legal team has been trying to delay Trump's criminal cases — and the strategy seems to be paying off.
Officials say the crew targeted retail chains in three states and sold stolen merchandise online.
Last week, corporate investigators joined law enforcement to raid locations where items were found.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said it has arrested eight people in connection with an organized crime ring that stole millions of dollars worth of products from retailers in the region.
Items were then brought to multiple locations throughout LA County and sold to other crews who would then sell to the public, the Sheriff's Department said. Cash and a gun were also recovered.
The announcement follows raids last week in which corporate investigators from Walmart, Target, and CVS joined law enforcement to identify and recover boxes of merchandise from a dozen locations, as witnessed by KCAL News.
Authorities told the TV station the products were connected with a string of smash-and-grab robberies and cargo theft incidents.
One warehouse in the area was so filled with goods that it "resembled a Costco," KCAL reported, and investigators said that most of the items are sold online, including on Amazon.
Elon Musk previously referred to lidar technology as a "fool's errand."
Arturo Holmes/Ethan Miller/Getty
Tesla spent around $2 million on lidar tech, according to a quarterly earnings report from Luminar.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly slammed lidar and referred to it as a "fool's errand."
It's unclear how Tesla is using lidar, but in 2021 the EV giant signed a contract with Luminar.
Tesla spent around $2 million on lidar, a technology used in EVs that Elon Musk has previously referred to as a "fool's errand" and that any carmakers relying on it are "doomed."
But according to a recent earnings report from lidar manufacturer Luminar, Tesla was its largest customer last quarter and "comprised more than 10%" of its revenue during the period.
That's about $2 million, given that Luminar's reported quarterly revenue was $21 million. Luminar did not respond to a request for comment.
Lidar stands for light detection and ranging, and it uses light pulses to measure distance and create a 3D image of its surroundings. It's often used in EVs, specifically in self-driving and Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems, to help detect a vehicle's surroundings.
"It's like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices," Musk said at Tesla's "Autonomy Day" event in 2019. "Like one appendix is bad, well how about a whole bunch of them? That's ridiculous. You'll see."
"Humans drive with eyes & biological neural nets, so makes sense that cameras & silicon neural nets are only way to achieve generalized solution to self-driving," Musk said in an October 2021 tweet.
Musk most recently reiterated his stance on lidar during Tesla's quarterly earnings call. The CEO said Tesla EVs only rely on camera-based vision systems for driver-assist features.
"No lidars, no radars, ultrasonic. Nothing," Musk said.
Musk has also said that he doesn't hate lidar, he just opposes its use in electric vehicles. The Tesla CEO said he personally ran a project at SpaceX to create lidar sensors to help navigation.
For now, it's unclear how Tesla is using the technology, or if it will eventually make its way back into the company's vehicles.
The company's self-driving Autopilot feature has also caught the eye of regulators in the past. Last year, Tesla recalled over 2 million vehicles after regulators said its Autopilot system didn't protect enough against drivers misusing it.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi praised Tesla and CEO Elon Musk in a Wednesday interview with CNBC after Uber reported first-quarter results.
"I would never underestimate Elon Musk and Tesla. We're big fans of his," he told CNBC. "They're clearly the leaders in EVs, and we have a lot of Teslas in our marketplace."
But Tesla will need more than just self-driving cars to make robotaxis a reality, Khosrowshahi told CNBC.
Uber already offers some of the needed tools, including scheduling, pricing, and identity verification technology, which any manufacturer of autonomous vehicles (AVs) would use to start offering rides, he said.
"As a result, we think we're in a great position to work with any and all AV manufacturers as the technology develops safely, including Tesla," he said, referring to autonomous vehicles.
"We can drive enormous demand to this promising technology," Khosrowshahi added.
In the US, Tesla is still testing FSD. The technology has reportedly struggled to navigate some parts of San Francisco, like making left turns at busy intersections.