The trouble with Elon Musk’s robotaxi dream
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Elon Musk’s choice of Warner Bros Studios for the long-anticipated launch of his robotaxi on October 10th was entirely appropriate. Hollywood’s film studios are as much a dream factory as Tesla, his electric-car company.
The vision he served up, accompanied by whoops of delight from the superfans in the audience, is an autonomous Cybercab so cheap that it will serve as “individualised mass transit". But Mr Musk’s promises were, like many Hollywood movies, long on bombast and short on reality. The road to self-driving taxis will be long, and Tesla will face intense competition along the way.
The Cybercab, a two-seater car without a steering wheel or pedals, will be on sale “before 2027", according to Mr Musk, though his timelines often slip—he once promised a fleet of 1m robotaxis by 2020. He also showed off a Robovan, which will carry 20 passengers, and modestly predicted that his humanoid robot will be the “biggest product ever of any kind". Yet the event, which was light on details, disappointed investors; Tesla’s share price fell by 9% the following day.
In recent years robotaxi services have popped up in a growing number of cities. Waymo, a division of Alphabet, has raced ahead in America. After 15 years and perhaps $30bn of investment it now has a fleet of 700 self-driving cabs operating in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix, and will soon launch in Atlanta and Austin.
Farther back is Cruise, whose biggest investor is General Motors. It also operates in Phoenix and is resuming tests in San Francisco after regulators slammed on the brakes following an accident last year. Zoox, Amazon’s contribution to driverless travel, is testing vehicles in five locations including Las Vegas
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