During the company's first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Musk said that the company plans to bring a car with no steering wheel or pedals to market in four years.
Two years is all it takes to develop, test, verify, produce, and commercially launch a service that meets regulatory rules that vary from state to state. In California, the largest market for passenger vehicle sales, it will mean navigating the permitting process.
Musk was bullish despite the challenges.
Musk said that the dedicated robotaxi would not have a steering wheel or pedals and that there were a number of other innovations around it that were quite exciting.
Musk said the product can be very powerful and that it will be a huge driver of the company.
At the gigafactory opening in Austin, Musk outlined a variety of future products that are a departure from the passenger car business. There was a mention of a robot concept by the company.
There are companies that have been developing self-driving technology for years, including the Cruise, Motional and Zoox units.
It raises questions about whether or not the current strategy of full autonomy will be scrapped or if it will be developed in parallel.
Musk has been talking about robotaxis for a long time, but not through a product like the one he described Wednesday. Instead, he has promised to turn the cars that people own today into their own self-drive taxis using an upgraded self-drive system called Full Self-Driving that currently costs $12,000.
The autopilot system is standard in the vehicles of the company. Musk has promised that one day full self-driving capabilities will be delivered. It is not possible for FSD to drive on its own. It requires a human driver to pay attention and take control. Dozens of videos posted by owners provide a mixed picture of the software's capability and includes clips of the vehicles failing to navigate basic driving and even suddenly straying off into another lane.
The introduction of robotaxis is a way of providing customers with the lowest cost per mile of transport that they have ever seen, and it was acknowledged during the call that its vehicles are largely unaccessible for many people given their high cost.
It would appear that a ride on arobotaxi will cost less than a bus ticket, a subsidized bus ticket or a subway ticket, according to Musk.
He didn't say if the vehicle would use only cameras or if it would use lidar and radar, which is the industry standard.
Most other companies rely on a combination of cameras, radar and lidar to reach autonomy, whereas most other companies rely on cameras and a vision-based approach. During the call, Musk admitted to the difficulties of reaching full self-driving through this method, which ends up being a constant game of two steps forward, one step back.
I've never seen more false dawns or where it seems like we're going to break through with full self-driving. The road system is made for eyes and neural nets. Neural nets and cameras have to be solved to a degree of capability that is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556 I think we will achieve that this year.
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