Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla is delaying the unveiling of its Robotaxi and adds that he requested a front design change.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Tesla is delaying the unveiling of the Robotaxi, which was planned for August 8th, to October. The report claimed that the delay was to give Tesla more time to build more prototypes.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has now confirmed that the unveiling has been delayed, without confirming the new timeline.
The CEO added that he requested “an important design change to the front”:
Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things.
For the last few years, Tesla has been working on a vehicle designed from the ground up to be a self-driving vehicle. The company has been referring to it as ‘Robotaxi’.
CEO Elon Musk insists that Tesla is still dedicated to delivering its promised self-driving capability to existing vehicles delivered since 2016 through software update, but it also decided to build a new vehicle designed entirely around the fact that it will be driverless.
Not much is known about the vehicle other than hints that it won’t have a steering wheel or pedals, and that it will be “Cybertruck-like” in terms of design. We might have also seen a glimpse of the interior in a video that Tesla released.
In April, Musk said that Tesla would unveil the vehicle on August 8th.
What I really want to know is if the Robotaxi is using the same hardware and equipment (cameras, sensors, etc) that is being utilized in Tesla’s current fleet of vehicles, or if it’s using something else, because either way I expect a flood of negative feedback.
If the equipment is the same, then why is it that every car that has FSD is still stuck at level 2? And if the Robotaxi is indeed incorporating additional equipment, then what guarantee do we have that the thousands that we have paid for FSD will ever achieve Elon’s promise of full autonomy? Because I highly doubt that Tesla is going to offer retrofits for free no matter how much we have paid for FSD.
Now, it sounds like the unveiling is going to be closer to the end of the year.
Electrek’s Take
In my opinion, the only thing that Tesla could unveil or announce at the Robotaxi unveiling that would have any impact would be deals to actually use the Robotaxi in geo-fenced areas, like a deal with the city of Austin, for example.
Anything else seems either unlikely or unimpactful.
