Elon Musk Confirming Delayed Tesla Robotaxi Event Confirms Other Things

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When rumors came out that Tesla’s robotaxi reveal event would be delayed, it was not the greatest shock the world has ever seen. Musk has been overly optimistic on robotaxi timelines for about a decade. The date for the event originally seemed to be pulled out of the air, and there’s suspicion that the point of the announcement was largely to distract from dropping sales (an actual decline in sales year over year, not just a decline in sales growth and not hitting Tesla’s previously targeted 50% growth per year). Many just saw it as Elon Musk trying to protect Tesla’s stock price.

However, on the more optimistic side, many other followers of the company hoped that it meant Tesla robotaxis were almost ready and that Tesla could even launch limited Tesla robotaxi service somewhere. I saw a lot of people highly convinced of this, especially on X (formerly known as Twitter), in part due to improvements in version 12 of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” suite.

My assumption, being used to covering Elon Musk and Tesla for a dozen years, was that Tesla wasn’t going to be announcing Tesla robotaxi, but would simply be showing a robotaxi prototype that could one day theoretically be used for robotaxi service once the software is ready. Sort of like how the Tesla Semi was revealed years before it went into limited commercial service and the Tesla Roadster 2 was shown several years ago but still isn’t on the road. In theory, the robotaxi vehicle could be used in a year, or it could be used in 5 years, depending on when the software is ready and the vehicle is truly finalized.

Musk has now confirmed that it is indeed a new vehicle model that will be presented at the event, but has also confirmed that the vehicle’s exterior design is still being worked out. “Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things,” Elon tweeted. Oh, “other things” being added too.

Original Tesla robotaxi vehicle digital concept from years ago.

In short, this vehicle is still in pretty early design stages. It’s certainly not ready for prime time, and it won’t be roaming the streets of Cali or NYC picking people up and dropping them off anytime soon. It’s a vehicle concept.

I’m sure the event will be fun and the robotaxi model will look cool, and seemingly have some cool unexpected features, but I think people should temper their expectations if they’ve been hoping for any big robotaxi launch this year. I am still especially concerned about the see-saw problem of some FSD software fixes leading to other FSD problems, and just the extreme challenge of the “march of 9s” — reaching not just 99.9% accurate self driving but 99.9999% accurate self driving. Plus, of course, Tesla will need to get regulatory approval for robotaxi operation. When will it be able to convince California regulators it can join Waymo and Cruise in that party? Will it be able to convince Texas regulators to let it operate robotaxis in the state, a state, incidentally, where you still can’t legally sell a Tesla car? Perhaps … but we’ve still got a long way to go, it seems.