Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk on Saturday said that its robotaxi vehicles will look “like the future” while dimming hopes on the Model 2 design.
What Happened: Musk was responding to a user who wrote that Tesla’s $25,000 car and dedicated robotaxi offering will be Cybertruck-inspired.
“No, but Robotaxi will look like the future,” Musk wrote, without elaborating.
The rumor that the $25,000 Tesla car, nicknamed Model 2, and the robotaxi from Tesla will have a Cybertruck-inspired design stems from excerpts of Walter Isaacson‘s upcoming biography of Musk published by Axios.
According to the report by Axios citing the biography, Musk was pushing back plans on the $25,000 electric vehicle in favor of the robotaxi. While the CEO wanted the robotaxi to be made for autonomous driving, his aides wanted a more conventional design with steering wheels and pedals given their more “realistic” timeline for Tesla perfecting its full self-driving capability.
Musk, however, was apparently determined not to make a “amphibian frog” or a “halfway car,” and said, “No mirrors, no pedals, no steering wheel. This is me taking responsibility for this decision.”
The aides, however, allegedly convinced Musk later of the need for a cheaper EV and that Tesla could build both the Model 2 and the robotaxi on a next generation engineering platform using the same assembly lines.
Why It Matters: During the company’s second quarter earnings call in July, Musk said that its dedicated robotaxi will be a revolutionary design made in a revolutionary way.
"It’ll be by far the highest units per hour of any vehicle production ever," Musk said, while adding that he was very excited about the same. Musk has been touting the idea of fully autonomous Tesla vehicles functioning as a robotaxi since 2019.
“This is the product that makes Tesla a ten-trillion company,” he reportedly told Isaacson about the robotaxi. “People will be talking about this moment in a hundred years.”
Musk had himself introduced the idea of a smaller EV priced at about $25,000, lower than its current cheapest offering Model 3. During Tesla investor day earlier this year, Musk refused to say when the next-generation vehicle would be showcased while adding that he would be jumping the gun if he answered the question.
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Read More: Elon Musk Drops A Hint About Future Tesla EVs: ‘No Side Or Rear View Mirrors’
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