Tesla is aiming at developing a ‘robotaxi’ network by 2020, essentially on the base of how Uber and other cab aggregators work. This ambitious new network will largely comprise of Tesla owners’ cars that they will put up on an app. However, at places where there are not enough Tesla owners, the company will put up its own robotaxis.
Talking about this on Uber’s Autonomy Day event, Elon Musk said, “I feel very confident predicting that there will be autonomous robotaxis from Tesla next year — not in all jurisdictions because we won’t have regulatory approval everywhere” . However, Musk left a lot of ambiguity over the “regulations” that he is referring to. Musk added that he is confident the company will have regulatory approval somewhere next year.
These plans however, are not new. Musk has been talking about such a network of taxis since 2016. However, it is for the first time that we have an year launch date of sorts.
Detailing about how it will work, Musk talked about how all new Tesla vehicles are now equipped with the “best in the world” self driving computing chip, which will ultimately be used to build up the taxi network. He further mentioned, that the rest of it is only software.The billionaire founder added that the software will be “feature complete”
“From our standpoint, if you fast forward a year, maybe a year and three months, but next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the road,” Musk said. “The fleet wakes up with an over the air update; that’s all it takes.”
