Tesla has entered the robotaxi arena. CEO Elon Musk on Thursday unveiled the company's Robotaxi autonomous vehicle during his We, Robot event at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles. The car shown is silver chrome and does not have a steering wheel or pedals. It will charge via induction and use AI to navigate roads. Musk said the car will cost “less than $30,000.”
The process of rolling out fully autonomous, unsupervised driving will begin in Texas and California with the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y next year, Musk said, ahead of the eventual launch of the Robotaxi, which Musk also called the Cybercab during the event.
“We hope to be in production with the Cybercab, which is really highly optimized for autonomous transportation, in probably – well – I tend to be a little optimistic about time frames,” Musk hesitated, “but in 2026. Before 2027, let's put it that way.” .” This all depends on regulator approval, as Musk also noted.
“I think it will be a glorious future,” he said.
Musk also revealed what we call the Robovan, which is a larger autonomous vehicle that can seat up to 20 people as well as transport goods. Tesla demonstrated the Robotaxi and Robovan by having them tour the Warner Bros. studios. Musk opened the event by inviting a ride on the Robotaxi to the main stage.
“When we think about transportation today, there is a lot of pain that we consider normal, like having to drive through Los Angeles in 3 hours of traffic,” Musk said during the keynote, no doubt appealing to those in attendance. “With autonomy, you get your time back.”
Tesla's Robovan can accommodate up to 20 people, according to the company.
An increasingly competitive space
The autonomous driving space is quite nascent, but it is advancing quickly. Among the biggest players are Waymo, owned by Alphabet, which operates in cities such as San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles; and Amazon-owned Zoox, which has not yet opened to the public but is running tests in cities including San Francisco, Las Vegas and Seattle. GM-owned Cruise, which was suspended indefinitely in California last year after one of its driverless cars struck a reckless pedestrian, also resumed operating manual and supervised rides in certain cities.
Musk and Tesla have long touted what the company calls Full Self-Driving, which is still far from living up to its name. Instead, FSD can help a Tesla vehicle change lanes, park, and navigate roads, but the driver needs to remain alert and behind the wheel even with the feature activated. It's more advanced than Tesla's Autopilot feature, which includes features similar to cruise control and automatic steering, but can't perform more complex tasks like responding to traffic lights and stop signs. (Tesla owners have to pay up to $199 extra per month for FSD.) Earlier this year, Musk mandated that Tesla staff “install and activate” the FSD software for each new customer and do a “short trial.” .
Both Autopilot and FSD have faced obstacles, as the California Department of Motor Vehicles in 2022 accused Tesla of false advertising when promoting the features. The Justice Department later that year launched a criminal investigation into the company after more than a dozen accidents were reported with Tesla vehicles using Autopilot software. In December 2023, Tesla recalled more than 2 million vehicles due to an Autopilot safety issue, adding a software update intended to ensure drivers paid attention to the road even with the feature activated.
Still, Tesla has long committed to building a fully autonomous car, with Musk previously saying he was “highly confident” the automaker could achieve full autonomy in 2021. (That, of course, didn't happen.) In fact, Musk proposed the idea of a fleet of Tesla robotaxis in 2019, saying the goal was to have 1 million robotaxis on the road testing without passengers by the end of 2020. (That didn't happen either.)
Watch this: Everything announced at Tesla's 'We, Robot' event
Now, with the launch of the Robotaxi and Robovan, Musk has touted the potential time-saving and safety advantages of autonomous vehicles, saying you could spend more time on your phone, watching a movie or working while traveling to your destination.
“This will save lives, like many lives, and prevent injuries,” Musk said. “I think we will see self-driving cars become 10 times safer than humans.”
In addition to self-driving cars, Tesla also showed off developments in the Tesla Bot, which Musk said could perform various tasks like babysitting, mowing the lawn, shopping and “just being your friend, serving drinks – whatever you can think of.” of, this will do.” He says the bot will end up costing between $20,000 and $30,000. A live stream of the We, Robot event showed the humanoids standing behind a bar, apparently serving drinks to attendees as the talk ended.
If Musk's timeline for putting fully autonomous cars on the road seems aggressive, it's because Tesla has some catching up to do with other companies that have already started work. Waymo, for example, claims that it offers more than 100,000 trips per week in the few cities in which it operates. Additionally, the Alphabet-owned company will soon expand to more cities, including Austin and Atlanta, thanks to a partnership with Uber. So for Tesla, time is running out. It remains to be seen whether it actually meets these ambitious schedules.
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