Elon Musk has just made a major product announcement on the Tesla Q1 2022 earnings call. Tesla is working on a dedicated robotaxi and this will go into volume production in 2024.
While Musk had recently mentioned a dedicated robotaxi at the Gigafactory Texas (Cyber Rodeo) event, it was not clear how aggressively Tesla would pursue this. Know we know.
Next year, Tesla will be busy launching the Cybertruck, Semi and Roadster, so to follow this with a dedicated robotaxi the following year is certainly ambitious and aggressive.
Committing to a date to launch a dedicated robotaxi with level 4 or 5 autonomy shows confidence from Tesla that their Full Self Driving software is going to be ready in time.
Currently FSD Beta is operating in 100,000 vehicles across the United States and Canada, with a suggestion Europe will also get access before the end of the year.
This morning’s Q1 2022 Earnings Slide Deck also confirms the plan to release to all US-owners who purchase or subscribe to FSD by the end of 2022. Musk has stated that he expects the software to be better than a human by then. While this would be a significant milestone, it is very different from being in a state where the driver is not required at all.
This leaves Tesla with the window of 2023 to finish the software and achieve regulatory approval, again, an ambitious timeline, but one that should put fear into competitors like Waymo and Cruise.
It is important to understand that while other providers have services in small geographic regions, Tesla’s solution targets a more generalised approach, meaning they should be able to scale rapidly.
Let us know what you think about Tesla’s timeline and robotaxis in the comments below.
