EV giant Tesla Inc. TSLA is now looking to unveil its dedicated robotaxi product on October 10th, two months later than CEO Elon Musk‘s initial timeline.
Robotaxi Unveiling Delay: Musk announced the new date himself on Tuesday at the company’s second-quarter earnings call. The company delayed the event to make a few important changes aimed at improving the robotaxi and to give itself time to prepare a ‘couple of other things’ to showcase at the event, Musk said.
Autonomous Driving: While the product unveiling is slated for October, it is “difficult” to say when the first unsupervised Tesla robotaxi ride would be, Musk said. However, the CEO, known for ambitious timelines, hinted at the possibility of it happening by the end of 2024.
“It’s difficult, obviously, my predictions on this have been overly optimistic in the past,” Musk said. “…based on the current trend… you could do [it] unsupervised possibly by the end of this year. I would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.”
Tesla’s robotaxi is expected to rely on the company’s full self-driving (FSD) driver assistance technology to enable autonomous driving. The company is currently enhancing the capabilities of FSD towards autonomy and versions of the software that require active driver supervision are already in operation on several Tesla vehicles on U.S. roads.
Regulatory Approval Concerns: The deployment of robotaxis relies on both technological advancement and regulatory approval. Musk, however, does not believe regulatory hurdles will be a limiting factor for Tesla.
“…if you’ve got billions of miles that show that in the future unsupervised FSD is safer than human, what regulator could really stand in the way of that? They’re morally obligated to approve,” Musk said on Tuesday.
How Will Tesla’s Robotaxi Fleet Function: Musk expects his company’s robotaxi fleet to function like a combination of Airbnb and Uber. While a certain portion of the fleet will be owned by Tesla, individual customers can also add or subtract their vehicles to the robotaxi fleet at will. As for riders, they can summon a car using the Tesla App, Musk said.
However, Tesla will not give its vehicles to third parties for autonomous operations, he added.
“There’s an important clause we’ve put in every Tesla purchase, which is that the Tesla vehicles can only be used in the Tesla fleet. They cannot be used by a third party for autonomy,” Musk said.
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