Elon Musk says he will show off Tesla’s prototype “robotaxi” at an event on October 10. He had planned to do this on August 8, but changed his mind. Musk also said that Tesla would show off “a couple of other things,” but he didn’t say what those things were.
The comments made on Tuesday during Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call mostly back up Bloomberg’s original story about the delay, including the fact that Musk wanted to change some parts of the prototype. Musk said earlier this month that he had asked for a “important design change to the front.”
Musk said on the call, “Moving it back a few months let us improve the robotaxi and add a couple of other things for the introduction of the product.”
At the heart of Tesla’s future is the robotaxi and the “unsupervised” full self-driving software that Musk says will run it. He fired more than 10% of Tesla’s global staff earlier this year in an effort to reorganize the company to focus on making goods that use artificial intelligence. This included a “balls to the wall” push to make cars that can drive themselves.
That future focused on AI is running into trouble with the company’s main source of income, which is selling electric vehicles. Tesla said on Tuesday that its profit for the second quarter of 2024 was $1.5 billion, which is 45% less than the same time last year. Even though Tesla had a restructuring charge of $622 million that cut into its profits, it still made a record $890 million in regulatory credit sales. Total sales went up 2% year-over-year, but sales of cars went down 7% to $19.9 billion.
The company had a rough start to the year—its profit dropped 55% year-over-year in the first quarter. This success comes after that.
There is a real chance that the company will sell fewer EVs in 2024 than it did in 2023. This would be a huge change from its previous growth track. Tesla has tried to calm investors’ fears by stating that the company is in the middle of “two major growth waves.” The company hopes that the new, controversial, and expensive Cybertruck and unknown future models that could be sold at a lower MSRP will bring in more customers.
Musk, however, says that’s all “in the noise.” Tesla’s long-term value is in autonomy, and only autonomy, he said on the call on Tuesday. That includes the company’s work on Optimus, a humanoid robot, which was sneakily pushed back this week. But it’s mostly about Musk’s longest-running promise that he hasn’t kept: cars that drive themselves.
So, Musk tried to get investors to pay attention to the event on October 10. A history of Musk written by Walter Isaacson in 2023 included a drawing of a small robotaxi prototype. Other than that, not much is known about what Tesla will show off.
For example, Musk has talked about letting people book the car through Tesla’s app, like how Uber and Lyft do it. He also said that Tesla owners will be able to connect their own cars to the shared network once the company’s Full Self-Driving software is powerful enough to do all the driving. Despite its name, this is still a long way off.
Musk has been promising fully self-driving cars for years, but he hasn’t been able to make them happen. As a result, Tesla owners are suing the company and many government agencies are looking into it.
When asked on the call when Tesla might be able to offer its first robotaxi ride without a driver, Musk said he thought it might be possible by the end of the year. That being said, he also said it could happen in 2025 and that his estimates are “too optimistic.”
Also Read: Elon Musk Says That on August 8, He Will Show Off a Tesla Robotaxi
More information from Tesla’s second-quarter results call has been added to this story. The story came out at 2:45 p.m. PT the first time.
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