Tesla wants to bring its robotaxi service to new markets, including cities in Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and California, Elon Musk said in an earnings call Wednesday. The company is testing its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) feature in Europe and China and hopes to launch the controversial product in the near future. And it is plotting a new version of its Optimus humanoid robot.
âWe have done what we said we were going to do,â Musk said. âThat doesnât mean weâre always on time, but we get it done. And our naysayers are sitting there with egg on their face.â
It was another sign that Musk wasnât going to let the limitations of his companyâs autonomous driving technology stand in the way of its rapid expansion. Teslaâs robotaxis in Austin include safety monitors in the passenger seat with access to a kill switch â a fallback that Waymo currently doesnât need for its commercial robotaxi service. The company lacks many of the permits to launch a robotaxi business in California. And its vehicles committed a raft of minor safety violations, including phantom braking and driving on the wrong side of the road, in the first weeks in operation.
âOur naysayers are sitting there with egg on their face.â
Musk repeated his position that Tesla was âbeing extremely paranoidâ about the rollout of its tech, but also couldnât help himself from making broad, grandiose promises about the future â which is typical of the billionaire CEO. He said that 50 percent of the US population would have access to Teslaâs robotaxis by the end of the year. And he predicted that Tesla customers would be able to update their own vehicles to drive autonomously without supervision by the end of 2025.
Musk also cited âregulatory approvalsâ as possible obstacles to the fruition of his robotaxi dreams. Some states require companies obtain permits before rolling out autonomous vehicles for ridehailing purposes. But there are no federal requirements, and most companies are limited only by their own risk of liability if an accident occurs.
Musk has admitted in the past that people who own older Tesla vehicles with HW3 will need the companyâs new HW4 or 5 computers in order to support its unsupervised version of Full Self-Driving. That hardware update is likely to be incredibly costly for the company. In todayâs earnings call, Musk provided a brief update, saying that he wants to get unsupervised FSD finished on HW4 vehicles before figuring out what to do with HW3 vehicles. He stopped short of recommending that customers simply buy new vehicles.
Muskâs promise that regular Tesla owners would one day be able to update their cars to become fully autonomous vehicles has been at the core of the companyâs huge valuation increase over the years. But now it seems that millions of Tesla owners are likely to be completely left out of that future.
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