Tesla will reveal its long-promised robotaxi on August 8th, Elon Musk just posted on X. The forthcoming autonomous vehicle is said to be built on Teslas next-generation vehicle platform.

The announcement came on the same day that Reuters reported that the company had canceled its plans to build a more affordably priced electric vehicle, said to be in the range of $25,000. Musk reportedly told employees that instead of building a mass-market EV, he wanted to focus completely on an autonomous vehicle that would make other vehicles obsolete.

Musk has long teased the possibility of a Tesla robotaxi, even showing off a completely covered vehicle during a 2023 event unveiling the companys third Master Plan. Years earlier, he speculated that Tesla owners would be able to earn revenue from their autonomous cars by sending them out to pick up and drop off passengers.

This would be the so-called Tesla Network, as described in Musks Master Plan Part Deux. You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on the Tesla phone app, he wrote, and have it generate income for you while youre at work or on vacation, significantly offsetting and at times potentially exceeding the monthly loan or lease cost.

Those plans became even grander several years later. By the middle of next year, well have over a million Tesla cars on the road with Full Self-Driving hardware, Musk said in 2019. Teslas Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature would be so reliable the driver could go to sleep, he added. (Teslas with the companys FSD software are not autonomous, and drivers would be well advised not to sleep in their cars.)

Musks repeated claims that autonomous vehicles were just a year or so away are now part of Tesla lore. His supporters point to the success of Autopilot and then FSD as evidence that while his promises may not exactly line up with reality, he is still at the forefront of a societal shift from human-powered vehicles to ones piloted by AI. Hes even making an army of humanoid worker bots to prove the point that the technology is formally agnostic.

But critics argue that he inflates the capabilities of the technology, often with deadly results. There have been hundreds of crashes involving Tesla vehicles using FSD and Autopilot and dozens of deaths. The company is facing numerous wrongful death lawsuits. The US government isinvestigating the companys claimsaround self-driving, anda major recallwas announced late last year. Even the robot seemsflawed.

A robotaxi event in August is certainly in line with Teslas habit of showcasing at least two splashy events each year. Last year, it was the Master Plan and the Cybertruck delivery event. Now, we know of at least half of whats on tap for the company in 2024.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th - The Verge