Following news of Tesla’s first year-over-year sales decline since 2020, the electric car company is setting the stage for the launch of a unique product.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk published on X that the company will present its first robotaxi on August 8. However, the presentation date does not mean that this will be the date when deliveries will begin: the first deliveries of another Tesla product, the Cybertruck, arrived years after its presentation.
Tesla’s first autonomous taxi will enter a market that already features offerings from competitors such as Waymo, an independent company that began as Google’s self-driving car project, and Cruise, the General Motors company.
Tesla Robotaxi will be presented on 8/8
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024
Musk, who owns X and is the most followed person on the platform, shared the news 180 million followers.
A Waymo self-driving autonomous Jaguar taxi on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Reuters reported on Friday that Tesla had decided to shift its strategy away from an entry-level $25,000 electric car and toward self-driving cars, a report that Musk disputed in a “Reuters is lying (again)” send on X. Musk did not clarify which part of the article was inaccurate.
Related: Tesla sales and deliveries down for first time since 2020
A Reuters analysis on Saturday showed that robotaxis could be riskier and more complex to create. A robotaxi from GM’s Cruise was involved in an accident in October, leading to widespread scrutiny of the company and a recall of the company’s driverless robotaxis. Cruise was preparing to resume operations starting in February, according to Bloomberg.
In February, a driverless Waymo car struck a cyclist in San Francisco.
“We are deeply concerned that more people will be killed, that more emergency responders will be thwarted, that more sudden stops will occur,” Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, told MIT Technology Review. “We are not against autonomous vehicles. We are concerned about unsafe implementation and a rush to market at the expense of the traveling public.”
Tesla last released a new model in 2019 with the Cybertruck.