Tesla started talking about a revolutionary electric car in 2022. Given the price of technology then and now, a $25,000 EV would make a statement.
Was it enough? No. A year later, Tesla upped the ante. First, it set a presentation date: 2023. Then came the challenge: The car would be completely autonomous without a steering wheel. Boom. The company claimed that it would release robotaxi two years after the announcement, at an unbeatable price, and only three years after it said it was developing the car.
But we’re in 2024, and everything indicates that Tesla has put aside the Tesla Model 2 project—if one could call it that. It’s not clear if the company has already canceled it. Reuters pointed out in April that the $25,000 electric car project was dead. A few hours later, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said no: “Reuters is lying (again).”
April was a roller coaster for Tesla. Between rumors of cancelation and an earnings presentation that showed the company wasn’t having its best moment, the stock kept rising. The reason is simple: Musk promised that on Aug. 8, we would see the new Tesla robotaxi.
It's Not True. At Least, Not on August 8
On April 5, Musk revealed a date and a name on X:
Tesla robotaxi on 8/8.
As mentioned previously, investors went wild for the stock in light of the announcement. And then Musk did it again: He promised we’d see a fully autonomous car in a few months. In other words, he said he would release an EV requiring no human intervention. This happened just as Cruise, which has invested billions of dollars in this technology over the years, had its license revoked in California due to various operational problems.
Not to worry, Musk insisted. “If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company. We will, and we are,” he stated at an investor meeting, according to Bloomberg.
As if that weren’t enough, the Tesla CEO said he would put “millions” of cars on the road that wouldn’t require human intervention and would be operated on a pay-per-use lease.
However, in case there were any doubts, Tesla has postponed unveiling the robotaxi. We expected Aug. 8 to be the chosen day, but last week, Bloomberg became the first to report a delay of at least two months. Although the company’s CEO initially preferred to remain silent, he finally confirmed on his social network that Tesla delayed the announcement because he had requested what “I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things.”
Although Tesla’s top executive constantly repeated his strategy over time, he seems to have infinite authority. When Musk announced the pay-as-you-go Tesla robotaxi, his company's stock wasn't the only one that increased. The stock of competitors, such as Uber, also soared, even though experts at Automotive News and elsewhere pointed out that autonomous car technology has suffered several setbacks that have prolonged its development much longer than expected.
Tesla has long struggled to make the leap to a full self-driving vehicle. Its most advanced system, Full Self Driving (FSD), has been repeatedly criticized by regulators. In fact, the company has been touting its virtues since 2016, when it released a video that turned out to be fake.
FSD—which aims to reach level 3 autonomy in the future, a level that doesn't require the driver to pay attention to the road or hold the steering wheel—still needs to obtain certification. Mercedes became the first automaker to sell certified self-driving cars in the U.S. in certain circumstances.
There's no news on when we'll see the new Tesla robotaxi.
And the question is obvious. If the date is confirmed, should we believe it?
This article was written by Alberto de la Torre and originally published in Spanish on Xataka.
Image | Tesla
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