Tesla Announces Robotaxi Unveil in August
Tesla is dominating the headlines again this week, at least in the automotive world bubble. First, the delivery figures in the first quarter of 2024 were disappointing, with 386,810 units delivered, down 9 percent on the same quarter last year, and production, at 433,371, down 2 percent on the same quarter last year.
Electric cars delivered and produced by Tesla
At the same time, updates to the Full Self Driving software in version V12.3.3. were renamed Beta to Supervised, but were also released to all other North American Tesla owners for one month in addition to buyers and subscribers of the software. Since then, the enthusiastic reports from Tesla drivers have been coming in thick and fast. From my own experience, who has also had FSD on his Tesla in the USA for almost a year and a half, I can only agree.
Then a report from Reuters came as a surprise, claiming that Tesla had canceled plans for an announced low-cost electric car that was to be priced around 25,000 dollars and start production next year. Elon Musk contradicted the news on X and accused Reuters of spreading lies.
And on Friday afternoon, West Coast time, Elon Musk announced the unveiling of the Tesla Robotaxi on X for August 8, 2024.
Musk teased such an initial concept back in April 2018, when he presented a rendering of a Tesla without a steering wheel.
There is now speculation that Tesla is so convinced of the functionality of the FSD, not least encouraged by the apparently impressive test operation in North America, that the company wants to offer the low-cost electric car only as a robotaxi.
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has in turn published the first projections for the number of traffic fatalities in the USA for 2023. And this year, at 40,990, they were again only just below those of 2022, when 42,514 people died on the roads. Mind you: all accidents were caused by human drivers.
In other words: Tesla always keeps us on our toes. So make a note of August 8, 2024 in your calendar!
This article was also published in German.
