Elon Musk Promises Tesla Robotaxi Will Be Ready in 2024
But the CEO's history of missed deadlines kind of makes us doubt it.
Will Tesla actually deliver a driverless taxi by 2024? This guy thinks so.
Tesla boss Elon Musk is famous for making grand predictions of timelines for his company and then not delivering on them. Still, things may be different with the company's much-vaunted robotaxi, which he promised on an earnings call Wednesday will be ready for 2024. Excuse us if we're not overly optimistic.
Musk has previously stated that the company's Full Self-Driving technology will allow people with Teslas to let their car go off and make them money when they're not using it. This sounds great, but the company has offered the Full Self-Driving upgrade since 2016 and it's still in limited beta testing, with users reporting all kinds of bugs.
Now though, Musk's robotaxi aspirations involve a bespoke vehicle that won't have any controls and will be ready in two years' time. That seems ambitious to us, considering we still can't operate our long-term Tesla Model Y with FSD without it phantom-braking on normal, uncrowded roads in ideal conditions.
During the earnings call, Musk said the company would unveil the new robotaxi in 2023 and that it would achieve the "lowest -- fully considered -- cost-per-mile, cost-per-kilometer, accounting everything." Previously, he's said that Tesla's robotaxi service would be cheaper than taking the bus, which also seems unlikely unless it was heavily subsidized by either the government or by Tesla itself.
Given Musk's penchant for giving out wildly optimistic timelines for new products and features, do you think Tesla's robotaxi will become a reality in the next two years? Let us know in the comments.
