Elon Musk promises driverless in 2019 Tesla “Next year” will “robot” on the road, but nothing happened. A year later, he promised to deliver them in the second year, but that didn’t happen.
Despite the empty promise, the promise continues. “Next year, we will have more than one million robots,” Musk said last January.
Will you settle in 10 or 12?
Musk appears to be about to test in a small self-driving cab in Austin, Texas, making his robot vision a reality. But reaching a million dollars could take a year or more, although billionaires should be able to expand services this year if the Austin demo is successful.
The bet cannot be higher, nor is it a challenge.
While Musk made his “next year” commitment, rival Waymo was busy deploying driverless taxis in Los Angeles, San Diego, Austin and other cities by using other technologies to make it go to the market faster. It just completed its 10 millionth payment.
resist It was related to Musk’s politics, but Tesla’s sales were touched. Competitor electric car manufacturers with new competitive models have stolen market share. Investors are $150 billion in stock purification When Musk fought a social media battle with the federal auto regulator under the U.S. president, they could make Robotaxi launch even more difficult. Musk said he regretted some of his comments, and the stock recovered to a certain extent.
Tesla shareholders have been with Musk for years as he made a lot of money in the process by establishing a successful independent electric vehicle company (the self-driving car commitment). Ten years ago, Tesla’s stock price was about $18. The stock closed at $322 on Friday.
Musk seems to be happy x“this @tesla_ai Robotaxi launch started this afternoon in Austin, with customers paying a flat fee of $4.20! ”
The test started properly. Tesla is monitoring the vehicle remotely and putting a person in the passenger seat in trouble. There are also few Tesla people deployed – with only 10 or 12 vehicles – that will only pick up passengers in limited, geographically covered areas.
Musk vowed that the service will spread rapidly to other cities, eventually reaching hundreds of thousands or even one million cars next year.
Some musk watchmen on Wall Street are skeptical.
“Can he expand his fleet quickly?” asked CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson. “We might have said twelve cars at first. It’s small.”
Seth Goldstein of Morningstar said Musk is the classic Musk: too much promise, too fast.
“It will be successful when anyone in Austin can download the app and use the bot, but I don’t think it will happen until 2028,” he said. “The test will take a while.”
Among investors, Musk tends to increase the trend of stocks with a little exaggeration.
In 2018, he told Tesla shareholders that he had “funded funds” to buy all the shares at a huge premium and privatize the company. But he not only lacks the financier’s written commitment. Fine his federal stock regulatorhe did not discuss the loan amount or other details with them.
Recently, Musk told CNBC in May that Tesla is going through “Major rebound” need. A week later, a European auto trading group announced sales Fall half.
Musk has come under fire for allegedly exaggerating the system’s capabilities, starting with the name. Completely autonomous driving is a wrong name. The system still requires drivers to turn their eyes to the road as they may need to intervene and be controlled at any time.
After several accidents, federal highway safety regulators investigated FSD last year and the Justice Department conducted its own investigation, although the situation is not yet clear. Tesla also faces lawsuits over the feature, some leading to settlements and others being dismissed. In one case, the judge ruled against the plaintiffs, but it was simply because they did not “intentionally” prove that Musk made a false statement.
Musk said the robot will run on an improved full self-driving version and the cab will be safe.
He also said the service will be able to expand rapidly across the country. His Secret Weapon: Millions of Tesla owners on the road. He said software updates from outside Taiwan will soon enable them to turn cars into driverless taxis and start side jobs while staying in the office for eight hours or a week off.
“Instead of sitting in the parking lot, your car may make money,” Musk said earlier this year. Airbnb Model of the car. “You will be able to add cars or add them from fleets.”
Musk said Tesla could also deploy taxis quickly because unlike Waymo, he decided to rely solely on cameras to navigate, which is a more expensive route by supplementing its cameras with lasers and radar.
Musk mused on a conference call with investors, “Tesla will have,” 99% of the market share or something ridiculous. “Given Waymo’s hottest and Potential competition from Amazon There are others who dominate the driverless market to this extent that it may achieve their goals.
But Wedbush Securities analyst and Big Musk fan Dan Ives said that Musk may actually roll it out as Tesla’s capabilities quickly expands. Even skeptics like Morningstar’s Goldstein admit that Musk does make things right occasionally, and it’s excellent.
He upended the automotive industry by getting people to buy expensive electric cars and brought his Starlink satellite internet service to rural areas Landing in Unmanned Space X RocketOn the platform on the earth.
“Maybe his timeline isn’t realistic, but he can develop futuristic technology products,” Goldstein said.
