Tesla’s robotaxis and upcoming challenges

At the “We, Robot” event held at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, California, Elon Musk unveiled two interesting innovations: a robot taxi and a larger car called Robovan; These cars have dramatically revolutionized the world of self-driving vehicles and have the potential to revolutionize the transportation industry with their advanced technologies. With this technology, there is no need for a steering wheel or pedals.

Tesla transportation network

Tesla predicts that the production of robotaxis will begin in 2026. Until then, Tesla has time to improve its self-driving systems and overcome legal challenges to the use of self-driving cars. Over the years, Tesla has collected a lot of data from cities as diverse as San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as specific locations such as the Tesla Diner in Hollywood.

The robotaxi, designed specifically for Tesla’s self-driving transportation network, will probably come to market for less than $30,000. This price makes it an affordable option in the electric car market. Elon Musk emphasized that the goal of this robot taxi is to provide “personalized mass transportation”; This means that the owners can use these cars to provide taxi services and even manage a fleet of these cars.

Musk also claimed that Tesla’s self-driving robot taxi could reduce the cost of transportation to 20 cents per mile. This is significantly less than the $1 per mile charge for traditional internet taxi services.

A decade of Elon Musk’s promises for Tesla’s robot taxi

It seems that Tesla’s robotaxi project has ended at the cost of abandoning Musk’s previous promise to produce a next-generation electric car for $25,000. A few weeks after announcing the Robotaxi event, Musk laid off more than 10 percent of Tesla’s workforce and announced that the company was focusing on developing “fully self-driving” technology.

Although Musk had ambitious plans to launch these cars and in 2019, he said that by 2020, Tesla will send millions of robotaxis to the streets and create a big revolution in the self-driving transportation industry, but this project has faced many delays; Delays caused by both technical problems and legal and regulatory obstacles.

The project faced more challenges after GM Cruise’s driverless cars were stopped in San Francisco after hitting a pedestrian.

While robotaxis seem like a natural fit for the technology, Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas believes that Tesla’s current fleet could play an important role. He explains that if Tesla’s self-driving system (FSD) is combined with Tesla’s ride-hailing app, Tesla car owners can use their cars to provide ride-sharing services. He added: “The real change will happen when we can exploit the full potential of these cars.”

Some analysts believe that the robotaxi may serve as a prototype for Tesla’s new car design, which will be made specifically for passenger transportation; The same car that Tesla has promised to produce for a long time. Although Tesla announced a lot of news about the unveiling of the robotaxi, the market reaction was not very strong and the company’s stock price only fell 1%.

Meanwhile, Kathryn Wood, who is known for making big investments in technology and buying stocks of small and large companies, believes that robotaxis could create an opportunity for Tesla to earn more than a trillion dollars in the next five years.

In the race for self-driving cars

Analysts are skeptical that Tesla’s robotaxi service will be commercialized within the next two years, citing legal and technological challenges. Additionally, Tesla’s competitors, including Waymo and Cruise, have already launched their own self-driving taxi services in certain areas, which may give them an edge.

Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives previously said Tesla is trying to catch up to rivals in the self-driving car space, where Waymo already has a strong foothold.

While Tesla continues to develop its technology and has the resources and motivation to launch a robotaxi service, it currently lags behind competitors like Waymo; Competitors who have been able to successfully operate self-driving services. However, Tesla has managed to manage the technical and regulatory complexities of this path well and to prove its capabilities in this field.

Robotaxis are built for passengers, not drivers

Elon Musk announced: “We will soon have a fleet of about 7 million cars that are capable of self-driving. In the coming years, this number will reach more than 10 and 20 million, which is a huge achievement.” He also pointed out: “Unlike human drivers, these cars are able to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

However, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed skepticism about Tesla’s robotaxi concept in a Bloomberg podcast. “The most important issue is, can we make this technology safe?” he said. Can we win the trust of travelers? For example, in the markets where we offer self-driving services, half of the passengers say: “No, thank you!”

Tesla, like Uber, plans to implement a model for robot taxis where the revenue is divided between the company and the car owners. Elon Musk explained that Robotaxi will allow owners to set their own operating hours, so they can use it both as a personal and business vehicle.

However, there are still doubts about self-driving technology. For example, when customers are offered a ride in a self-driving car, about half enthusiastically say “that’s cool,” while the other half prefer a human driver. Of course, it is expected that the adoption of self-driving cars will increase over time.

However, the CEO of Uber did not rule out the possibility of working with Tesla in the future. In this regard, he said: “We hope that Tesla will be one of our partners. You can never be sure.”

While there are many self-driving cars on the market, the main difference between them lies in the companies’ different approaches to self-driving capabilities. Each company has its own strategy in the development and implementation of this technology.