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Tesla TSLA -0.95%decrease; red down pointing triangle Chief Executive Elon Musk has for years teased plans for a fully autonomous robotaxi that can shuttle paying customers around town.
On Thursday night, he finally showed the world what he had in mind, unveiling two new vehicles: an almond-shaped Cybercab with no steering wheel or pedals, and a Robovan, which can transport up to 20 people at a time or move cargo.
Musk said the Cybercab, a two-seater car designed to operate as a robotaxi, could cost less than $30,000 and customers would be able to buy one.
Before it hits the road, Tesla plans to deploy a fully autonomous version of its so-called “Full Self-Driving” software, a feature that now needs driver supervision, in Texas and California next year. This would run on two of its existing vehicles, the Model 3 and Model Y, though it wasn’t clear whether customers would be able to download it or ride in those cars.
He added that Tesla plans to start producing the Cybercab before 2027.
“I tend to be optimistic with time frames,” he said.
At the Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, Calif., Musk made a splashy debut, first appearing in a black leather jacket accompanied by a person wearing a SpaceX astronaut suit. He then got into the passenger side of the Cybercab, which drove him across the dark studio lot. The driverless car dropped him off near the stage, where he began his roughly half-hour presentation.
The new Cybercab he showed off was metallic with a band of headlights along the front end. Tesla had around 20 Cybercabs and 30 other Teslas running unsupervised “Full Self-Driving” software at the event to take guests on rides around the studio lots.
“I hope this goes well. We will find out,” Musk quipped. Later, attendees mingled with Tesla’s Optimus robots, which danced on stage and served drinks to the crowd.
Musk has described the event, called “We, Robot”, as the company’s most significant moment since the rollout of the mass-market Model 3 sedan in 2017.
The billionaire entrepreneur is betting the company’s future on a pivot to robotics and artificial intelligence, a shift that comes as Tesla’s profitability has slipped and broader consumer interest in electric cars has cooled within the past couple years.
Musk has said such technologies could help boost Tesla’s market value to as much as $30 trillion, nearly 40 times its current worth.
On Thursday, he said Optimus robots “will be the biggest product ever of any kind” and envisioned a future where personal robots go grocery shopping and mow the law on behalf of their owners.
He talked up autonomous vehicles as the future of transportation and said that human-driven cars will soon seem as outdated as elevators with human operators are today.
“When we think about transport today, there’s a lot of pain that we take for granted, that we think is normal, like having to drive around LA in three hours of traffic,” Musk said.
He also left many questions unanswered, such as providing specifics on the business model for the robotaxi. He didn’t mention the Uber-like ride-hailing app that Tesla showed to investors this spring.
Rather, in broad terms, he described a future where people who drive for Uber and Lyft would one day oversee a “flock” of Cybercabs that they care for like a “shepherd.”
The Robovan reveal was a surprise. Tesla presented a rectangular vehicle without any visible wheels. When the doors opened, a large group of people flowed out onto the street, revealing two rows of seats on each side, facing the center of the cab.
Tesla plans to introduce new battery-charging technology on the Cybercab and Robovan. Unlike today’s electric vehicles, which have charging plugs, the robotaxis will use a method called inductive charging, where the car drives over a charging pad. Tesla also showed a video of an automatic cleaning system for the Cybercab.
Tesla’s stock has rallied ahead of the presentation with shares up 52% since Musk announced it in early April.
Some analysts were cautious leading up to the event, noting that the CEO has a pattern of overpromising and under-delivering, particularly when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
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“We believe the Robotaxi event will be long on vision, and short on immediate deliverables or incremental revenue drivers,” said Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, prior to the presentation.
Tesla first floated the idea of a robotaxi last decade with Musk describing a shared fleet of autonomous Teslas that owners could lease out to strangers for extra income. In the years that followed, he said every Tesla sold since late 2016 has the hardware to function as a robotaxi, implying that once the software catches up, most Tesla drivers would be able to participate in the program.
His plans will continue to face technological and regulatory hurdles. While some states have taken a hands-off approach to regulating driverless cars, the rules remain a patchwork, and some governments have cracked down on their operation in recent years.
Tesla also needs to make leaps in advancing its own driver-assist software, which today is considered a “level 2” system. Its most advanced version, a feature Tesla refers to as “Full Self-Driving (Supervised),” requires the driver to remain alert and ready to take over, and it doesn’t make the cars autonomous.
By contrast, Waymo has achieved “level 4” autonomy on its cars, which means it can operate them without a human driver in most circumstances.
Waymo, the market leader in the technology, has fleets circulating within limited areas in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin, Texas.
Some analysts see robotaxis as a huge growth opportunity for Tesla. Deutsche Bank estimated such a venture could bring Tesla an additional $4 billion in sales and another $1 billion in pretax earnings by 2030. RBC pegged the total global revenue opportunity for robotaxis at $1.7 trillion by 2040.
“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company,” Musk told investors in April.
Write to Becky Peterson at becky.peterson@wsj.com
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Appeared in the October 11, 2024, print edition as 'Musk Shows Off Driverless Robotaxi'.
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