A few months ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised a Tesla Robotaxi unveiling in August. Now, a new report by Bloomberg claims it’s not happening.
According to the report, the launch event has been moved to October to give the teams working on Robotaxis more time to build additional prototypes. The delay has already been communicated internally, though Musk hasn’t mentioned it on X, his preferred medium of communication.
Robotaxis are a major step for Tesla. For years, Musk has been promising a fleet of autonomous cars which will lug passengers around without the need for a driver (he also promised that all Tesla cars will be able to do so via the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Autopilot set of features, but it hasn’t happened yet). The unveiling, originally penned for 2023, keeps being pushed into the future.
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Prior to Musk’s announcement of the Robotaxi event in August, Reuters released a report claiming that Tesla scrapped its plans for a low-cost car in favor of the Robotaxi project (Musk responded by claiming, “Reuters is lying.”).
It’s unclear what caused this latest delay, but the main issue hindering Tesla’s progress on autonomous cars has so far been the company’s inability to create a truly autonomous car. To be able to do so, the company’s FSD suite of driving assistance features should get to the SAE Level 5, meaning the car could drive itself without user intervention in all situations.
To be fair, other companies haven’t been able to do so, either, but Musk has been promising it for years, with FSD still essentially being at Level 2 autonomy. Local, near-autonomous taxis do exist, though; Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise are running an autonomous taxi service in San Francisco, and are expanding to other U.S. cities, but the progress is slow and not without controversy.
