For a decade, Elon Musk has championed the concept at some point Tesla vehicles will drive themselves as robotaxis. Subsequent week, the corporate will unveil the design of its autonomous cabs.
Regardless of years of bold predictions and missed deadlines, followers of the corporate are holding out hope that Musk will lastly ship at an Oct. 10 occasion. No matter what the corporate showcases at its robotaxi day, consultants are skeptical of the corporate’s technique, citing its Auotpilot and FSD know-how as a barometer for Tesla’s progress, or lack thereof.
Within the decade that Musk has promised driverless autos, opponents have made them.
Alphabet-owned Waymo already operates a business robotaxi service in a number of U.S. cities, surpassing 100,000 paid rides per week as of August. Amazon-owned Zoox started testing rides for employees in February 2023 with ambitions to launch its own robotaxi service. In China, Pony.ai and Baidu are operating business robotaxi providers too.
The market may very well be profitable. In a single bullish estimate, Raymond James predicts $50 billion in annual robotaxi bookings by 2030.
With U.S. EV sales growth slowing, there’s so much driving on Tesla’s potential pivot to autonomy.
Watch the video to see the highway Tesla has taken to realizing its robotaxi ambitions.
