Tesla will push back the unveiling of its Robotaxi autonomous vehicle from Aug. 8 to Oct. 10, CEO Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday during the automaker’s second-quarter earnings call.
Musk first mentioned the Robotaxi in 2022, and announced the August reveal date in April of this year. But Bloomberg already reported earlier this month that the unveiling of this vehicle, expected to be a self-driving car for ride-sharing services, would be delayed to give engineers more time to work on the prototype.
Tesla Model 3 Performance
Musk also did not answer questions during the earnings call about whether the Robotaxi would have a steering wheel and pedals, The Verge reported. General Motors just this week confirmed that its Cruise self-driving technology company would no longer use the Origin, an EV designed without manual controls, for a planned taxi service, opting for a modified version of the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt EV instead.
Before Musk consistently discussed a purpose-built autonomous vehicle, the executive repeatedly promised that Tesla owners would one day be able to rent out their cars as taxis via service called the Tesla Network.
Tesla charging
Musk announced this idea in 2016 and in 2019 said Tesla would provide the infrastructure and support, taking a 25% to 30% cut of the revenue in return. He said at the time that owners would be able to use their cars to give free lifts to friends and family, but that those using their cars to generate revenue would need to do so within the Tesla Network.
All of this is dependent on Tesla developing an autonomous-driving system capable of replacing a human driver. The automaker’s current Full-Self Driving system is in fact a driver-assist system ranked at Level 2 on the SAE scale of self-driving capability. The misleading name, as well as performance issues, have attracted scrutiny from regulators. Now, Tesla may be complicating things further by designing an entirely new vehicle around the tech.
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