Elon Musk predicts that by 2020, there will be over 1 million robotaxis driving on the roads
Is Musk really planning to go all out on self-driving robot taxis?
Around 4:50 am Beijing time on April 6th, Musk announced on the social media platform X: "Tesla will release a self-driving robot taxi product on August 8th."
After the news was announced, Tesla's stock price rose more than 3% in after-hours trading.
Prior to Musk's statement, he had just had a "fierce battle" with the media, and Tesla's stock price had just experienced a small roller coaster ride.
Earlier, at 11:38 pm Beijing time on April 5th, media reports cited informed sources as saying that Tesla had made a major adjustment to its business strategy, deciding to abandon the production plan for the budget model Model 2 and instead focus on developing self-driving robot taxi technology.
Musk had previously publicly predicted that self-driving robot taxis would be more common than human-driven cars in the future. He emphasized that achieving full self-driving capability is crucial for Tesla, even stating that if this cannot be achieved, Tesla's value will "basically be zero."
However, despite Musk's long-standing predictions that self-driving cars are about to emerge, Tesla's ambitions in the field of self-driving cars have not yet been realized.
Musk's proposed robot taxi project aims to use self-driving technology to enable Tesla vehicles to autonomously pick up and drop off passengers and collect fares.
In 2019, Musk predicted that by 2020, there would be over 1 million robot taxis driving on the roads. This project was also mentioned in Walter Isaacson's biography of Musk published in 2022.
Currently, Tesla offers advanced driving assistance systems including the Autopilot self-driving assistance system and the advanced "Full Self-Driving (FSD)" option, the latter of which charges $199 per month to subscription users. However, the system is not fully self-driving at the moment, and Tesla vehicles still require human intervention.
Competition in the self-driving taxi service market is becoming increasingly fierce. Alphabet's self-driving vehicle division Waymo has been offering driverless ride-hailing services in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and is expanding its operations in Tesla's home base of "Austin, Texas."
Meanwhile, General Motors' Cruise service had provided self-driving car services in San Francisco, but ceased operations after a regulatory review following an accidentNow, Musk suddenly announced the official launch of self-driving taxis on August 8th. Does this represent an important strategic direction for Tesla in the future?