Elon Musk has revealed the new Tesla Robotaxi to adoring fans at a staged event at Warner Brothers Studio in California.
After a lengthy delay to the start of proceedings (apparently a genuine medical emergency) the Robotaxi drove Musk to the stage so the CEO and future resident of Mars could spruik investors into believing the future is autonomous.
“The autonomous future is here,” Musk said. “We have 50 fully autonomous cars here tonight. You’ll see model Ys and the Cybercab. All driverless.”
But like a past US president, it’s hard to believe anything he says, given his past record. In 2019, he promised robotaxis would be in operation within a year.
The use of a Hollywood stage for the reveal makes you think it’s all make believe. The event was otherwise very thin on details and specifics but invited disciples were seen being driven around the set in the new Robotaxi.
The golden rod has butterfly doors revealing a two seat cockpit with no steering wheel or pedals, because like, it is fully autonomous dude. It does have a large, centrally-mounted touchscreen, so you will still be able to control the fart noises in the cabin. It’s electric of course, and can be charged wirelessly via induction. Honestly.
It’s going to cost ‘under $30k’ and Tesla will start building them before 2027. No, actually, they are, because Elon said. Go and buy some more shares people.
While many Tesla fans are still waiting for the Tesla Roadster (that will apparently be able to fly), Elon is forging on with this new venture. He doubled down on Tesla’s pivot towards AI and robotics as the future of the firm.
The enlightened one reckoned companies would buy fleets of these Robotaxis and would use them for ride hailing services. And it will cost just ‘20 cents a mile to operate over time’. Truly. Tesla also revealed the Robovan, above, a solution for transporting groups of people or goods, autonomously of course.
Given the timeline, the company doesn’t have long to perfect its full self driving technology, which is still far from perfect. Musk is still against using lidar and radar tech that other self driving cars use, saying the Tesla will only rely on cameras and artificial intelligence. Can’t imagine what could possibly go wrong there.
Musk has more problems at Tesla with a slew of top level executives departing the company in the past month. Hopefully he’ll be leaving for Mars soon.
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