- Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the automaker Robotaxi will now debut on Oct. 10
- The new date means the reveal was pushed back two months
- Musk has provided no details about the Robotaxi
The Tesla Robotaxi reveal originally scheduled for Aug.8 has been pushed back to Oct. 10, CEO Elon Musk confirmed during the automaker’s second-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.
Musk announced the event earlier this year, but Bloomberg already reported earlier this month that the unveiling of the Robotaxi, expected to be an autonomous vehicle aimed at ride-sharing, would likely be delayed to give engineers more time to work on the prototype.
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Musk hasn’t provided any details on the vehicle since announcing it in April, and remained vague during the earnings call.
He wouldn’t confirm whether the Robotaxi would have a steering wheel and pedals, deletion of which could lengthen the timeline for its deployment due to a more complicate regulatory approval process, The Verge reports. General Motors’ Cruise subsidiary recently confirmed that it would mothball the Origin EV, which lacks manual controls, for its ride-sharing service, opting for a modified version of the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt EV instead.
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Musk has periodically talked about this idea of revenue-generating self-driving taxis since 2019. At that time Musk suggested that Tesla would provide the interface and support to owners who would then rent out their cars as taxis, collecting a fee of 25% or 30% that still left some room for owners to generate income from their vehicles.
Building a dedicated robotaxi is a greater challenge than repurposing existing vehicles. Previous efforts by startup Arrival to develop an EV for Uber haven’t gone anywhere, and Tesla would likely need a completely different and more sophisticated hardware set, as its Full Self-Driving system continues to attract scrutiny from regulators and won’t be a system allowing the driver to hand over full responsibility anytime soon. Although, if reports prove true, the robotaxi project might improve the chances of eventually seeing Tesla’s $25,000 EV to production.
