Mark your calendar. Tesla CEO Elon Musk signaled this afternoon that his electric car maker is committed to self-driving technology, and that Tesla's robotaxi will be unveiled on August 8th.
announcement, Posted by Musk on X Tesla shares rebounded in after-hours trading Friday afternoon after falling 6 points a day earlier, ending a bizarre day of reports and counter-reports that sent Tesla shares on a roller coaster ride. Earlier in the day, Reuters reported that Tesla had scrapped long-standing plans to develop affordable electric cars for the masses. “Next generation” vehicles are widely believed to be the key to electric vehicle manufacturers' survival, especially as competition intensifies in the EV space. The news agency reports that Tesla will instead focus on building robotaxis, which use nearly the same hardware as its lower-cost vehicles.
But Musk logged on to X and denied at least part of the Reuters article. “Reuters is lying (again)” he postedThe news agency did not reveal what it had done wrong. Hours later, he appeared to confirm some of the reports, posting that Tesla's next product release will focus on robotaxis.
This apparent pivot is surprising for several reasons.
Tesla has been promising for years but has yet to deliver true self-driving technology. Tesla announced in 2016 that all of its vehicles will ship with the necessary hardware for self-driving. This allows drivers to take naps without anyone in the car, or even to send the car overseas.
In a “master plan” posted by Musk that same year, he outlined a (yet) futuristic scenario in which Tesla owners could share their self-driving cars with others. “If true self-driving is approved by regulators, customers will be able to add their car to Tesla's shared fleet with the tap of a button on Tesla's phone app and earn money while driving. “It will be,” he wrote. Whether you're at work or on vacation. ” In 2019, Musk told a room full of investors that by next year, the automaker would have “more than 1 million Tesla vehicles equipped with fully self-driving hardware” on the road. That didn't happen.
On the other hand, Tesla's driver-assistance technology, called Full Autonomous Driving, is technically only at Level 2 on the five-level autonomous driving scale, meaning the car can only drive itself under the supervision of a driver. Tesla's latest self-driving software update is the first not labeled as a “beta” by the automaker.
Still, Tesla's driver-assistance technology has been heavily criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. road safety watchdog. A two-year investigation by the nation's top road safety regulator concluded late last year with a finding that Tesla's technology could be misused by drivers who were not paying enough attention while driving. Tesla said it disagreed with the regulator's analysis and distributed the fix to customers through over-the-air software updates. Tesla claims its driver assistance features are safer than human drivers.
Additionally, other self-driving car developers have also faced severe growing pains over the past five years. Technologies once touted as “just around the corner” have turned out to be more difficult and more expensive than ever planned. Years after most major auto and tech manufacturers committed to implementing self-driving software, only a few remain. After billions of dollars in research and development and more than 7 million miles driven, Google spinoff Waymo now offers paid taxi rides in just two cities: Phoenix and San Francisco, but also in Austin, Texas. , Los Angeles, and will soon reach the broader San Francisco Bay Area. Another robotaxi competitor, General Motors' Cruise Corp., suspended all services after its driverless taxi hit and injured a pedestrian, causing a run-in with California regulators. If Tesla wants to roll out a robotaxi service everywhere its cars are sold, its plans will be even more ambitious than those of its competitors, which have been grappling with autonomy issues for years. Dew.
