Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled on Thursday his vision of a βa fun, exciting future,β an βage of abundanceβ full of his companyβs self-driving cars without steering wheels, parking lots turned into parks and robots that will walk among the population β that he once again promised would be available within a few years.
Whether he can live up to these promises remains to be seen.
Those plans, and the revelation of the designs for his robotaxis, came at a glitzy event in California, full of the kind of hype that has built Tesla a dedicated fan base for its electric vehicles. The event featured models of the robotaxi as well as a Robovan, a driverless vehicle designed to carry a larger group of people or items.
The designs were heavy on a metallic, shiny sci-fi aesthetic of the future. Musk himself even referenced the classic science fiction movie βBlade Runner,β although he said he wanted his version of the coming years to be cheerier than that dystopian noir film.
Musk is famous for promising near-term targets that take years or more to reach. He had predicted five years ago that his fleet of robotaxis were only a year away. During his presentation at the Warner Bros. studio lot late Thursday, even he admitted: βI tend to be a little optimistic with time frames.β
The event unveiling these products, which was livestreamed to millions of viewers on his social media platform X, began 53 minutes late.
But the delay seemed to matter little to the in-person crowd waiting for the chance to ride in the 50 self-driving vehicles that were cruising around the studio lot. They continued to cheer Musk throughout his relatively short 20-minute presentation.
Tesla has long offered what it calls Full Self-Driving or FSD, currently priced at US$8,000, as an option on its cars. But despite its name, Tesla says drivers need to continue to sit in the driverβs seat, ready to take over control of the vehicle, even when in FSD mode.
Musk said Thursday that Teslas with FSD would be able to operate wherever state regulators would allow without human intervention, predicting that would occur in California and Texas by next year. And he also unveiled the Cybercab, a vehicle without steering wheel or accelerator or brake pedals which is specifically designed to carry passengers without a driver present, which he said should be in production by 2026.
βItβll be like sitting in a comfortable little lounge,β he said. βYeah, itβs going to be awesome.β
He said the Robocab, unlike other electric vehicles, would have no plug but would be charged by driving over a charging plate. And he also showed a larger vehicle that he said could carry up to 20 passengers or goods, which he called a βRobovan,β although he gave no timeframe for the introduction of that vehicle.
Musk said that in addition to Tesla selling rides in its own fleet of self-driving robotaxis, the robotaxis would lower the cost of ownership for Tesla buyers because theyβll be able to rent their cars out for rides when not driving themselves by using Teslaβs service to arrange the rides.
The planned robotaxi service would not only compete with services from Uber and Lyft that use human drivers but with other driverless services now being tested by companies like Googleβs Waymo. In fact, those other driverless robotaxi services are already well ahead of Teslaβs planned offering, said tech journalist and CNN contributor Kara Swisher, who called the Tesla robovan design βa lovely toaster on wheels.β
βI ride the Waymo (service) every time I go into San Francisco for a long time now,β Swisher told CNN late Thursday after the event. βTheyβve driven millions of miles. Elon has just been talking about it. I would like to see him deploy something on the road. Iβm very excited about autonomous vehicles. But heβs been promising them forever while others have delivered.β
βThis is typical of him,β she said. βHe makes a giant announcement, and then you see nothing. Heβs done amazing things, and I think thatβs part of this. But in this case, there is stuff on the road right now thatβs working by Google and by Amazon and others.β
Musk has insisted that the companyβs data shows that the current version of FSD that requires a driver to supervise the ride is already safer than cars driven by humans. But others who have tested that feature question whether that is true. One independent testing service, AMCI Testing, found that drivers needed to take control every 13 miles on average.
This is certainly not the first time that Musk has laid out ambitious time frames for his plans for self-driving cars. In a July call with investors, Musk said he expected to have βunsupervised (driving) possibly by the end of this year,β adding βI would be shocked if we cannot do it next year.β
But he also conceded, βobviously my predictions on this have been overly optimistic in the past.β
βIβm the boy who cried FSD. But I think weβll be better than humans by the end of this year,β he said in a call with investors in July 2023, before adding: βIβve been wrong in the past. I may be wrong this time.β
And even some analysts who believe that Tesla will eventually come up with the technology needed to have driverless vehicles carrying passengers believe that achievement is at least several years into the future.
βWeβre looking at disengagements at 3 per cent of miles driven,β said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, about the number of times that a human driver needs to take control, in an interview with CNN earlier this week.
βWhile 97 per cent of the way there sounds close, itβs not even close. It has to be well above 99 per cent. And to go from 95 or 97 per cent to 99 per cent is really hard. And then thereβs the question of how many 9βs the regulators will want to see. Is it 99.9 per cent, 99.999 per cent?β he added.
βI think itβll take two years to get the technology right,β Munster said. βAnd two to three more years to get the needed regulatory approval.β
As for Muskβs promise that the Cybercab would be available within two years, Munster pointed out that the Cybertruck pickup took about 48 months from reveal to production, and some other vehicles, including an electric semi truck, have gone more than six years since their reveal and are still not in production.
βLooking at the more recent history of product announcements and measuring the time it took to ramp production should remind investors that patience is a virtue,β he said.
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