Undeterred by limits, Elon Musk plots a big robotaxi expansion
Tesla wants to provide its Robotaxi service to new markets, including cities in Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California, Elon Musk said in a call for results on Wednesday. The company tests its total autonomous (supervised) characteristic in Europe and China and hopes to launch the controversial product in the near future. And it draws a new version of its humanoid robot optimus.
“We did what we said we were going to do,” said Musk. “This does not mean that we are always on time, but we do it. And our opponents are sitting there with an egg on their face.”
It was another sign that Musk was not going to leave the limits of his business’s autonomous driving technology to oppose his rapid expansion. Tesla Robotaxis in Austin includes safety instructors in the passenger seat with access to a killing switch – a withdrawal that Waymo does not currently need its Robotaxi service. The company does not have many permits to launch a Robotaxi company in California. And its vehicles have committed a series of minor security violations, including braking and ghost driving on the road side, during the first weeks of operation.
“Our opponents are sitting there with an egg on their face.”
Musk repeated her position according to which Tesla was “extremely paranoid” about the deployment of her technology, but could not help making great grandiose promises on the future – which is typical of the billionaire CEO. He said 50% of the American population would have access to Tesla Robotaxis by the end of the year. And he predicted that Tesla customers could update their own vehicles to drive independently without supervision by the end of 2025.
Musk also cited “regulatory approvals” as possible obstacles to the fruit of his dreams of Robotaxi. Some states require companies to obtain permits before deploying autonomous vehicles for drawing purposes. But there are no federal requirements, and most companies are only limited by their own risk of responsibility if an accident occurs.
Musk has admitted in the past that people who have older Tesla vehicles with HW3 will need new HW4 or 5 computers from the company to support its unopensed version of the full self-deputy. This hardware update is probably incredibly expensive for the company. In the call of the earnings of today, Musk provided a brief update, saying that he wanted FSD to have been finished unattended on HW4 vehicles before determining what to do with HW3 vehicles. He ceased to recommend that customers simply buy new vehicles.
Musk’s promise that Tesla’s regular owners could one day update their cars to become fully autonomous vehicles have been at the heart of the enormous increase in business assessment over the years. But now it seems that millions of Tesla owners are probably completely excluded from this future.
