Tesla-CEO Elon Musk.
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Tesla will unveil its robotaxi in August, CEO Elon Musk announced.
The electric car manufacturer has been planning a self-driving vehicle for a long time.
This year, Tesla began using its software for such cars more widely.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
Tesla plans to unveil its long-awaited robotaxi in August. CEO Elon Musk announced this. “Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8,” Musk wrote on Friday afternoon on X, formerly known as Twitter. A self-driving car that functions similarly to a taxi has been a linchpin for Tesla’s valuation in recent years. Because Musk is aiming for such functions in order to increase the value of his company’s vehicles through groundbreaking software.
Tesla shares rose more than three percent in after-hours trading following Musk’s tweet.
In previous interviews and conference calls with analysts, Musk had touted Tesla’s software for self-driving cars as adding value. What you need to know is that profit margins in the automotive industry are notoriously low. New cars lose much of their value as soon as they leave the dealer’s premises.
Using the FSD (Full Self-Driving) autopilot system, Teslas are intended to function as robotaxis when their owners don’t need them. However, until earlier this year, FSD was still in beta until Tesla began calling it FSD “supervised”.
The software is currently classified as “level two” in an industry standard that ranges from one to six. This is because FSD still requires full human supervision and is not fully autonomous.
Other companies have already successfully launched more advanced versions of autonomous vehicles, such as Google parent Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors-backed Cruise.
Previously, Reuters reported on Friday that Tesla scrapped plans for a cheaper mass-market electric car to put more resources into the robotaxi. “Reuters is lying (again),” Musk wrote on X in response to the report.
It’s unclear what pricing might look like for a possible robotaxi and whether it would be sold to consumers or businesses. FSD currently costs $200 (184 euros) per month for owners whose cars have the appropriate hardware to activate it.
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