Tesla's CEO Musk set to unveil highly anticipated robotaxi plans

Tesla is poised for a pivotal moment on Thursday as CEO Elon Musk is scheduled to present the long-awaited plans for the company's robotaxi project at Warner Bros. Hollywood studio.

Musk has said Tesla 's robotaxi product - called a Cybercab - will be a new model of vehicle that can drive itself and work on a Tesla ride-hailing platform. Tesla also will allow owners to make money off their cars by putting them on the ride-hailing network as autonomous cabs, which he has called a "combination of Airbnb and Uber," News.Az reports, citing Reuters.

Tesla's relies on cameras and artificial intelligence to drive current cars, with driver supervision but without the costly additional hardware associated with radar systems and lidar technology that other robotaxi players use.

Musk expects that improving this technology will let him crack a still-nascent and tightly regulated industry that has resulted in billions of dollars in losses for others.

Investors, attracted by Musk's estimate that Tesla's robotaxi business could drive the company's valuation to $5 trillion from $750 billion now, want to see a prototype and learn how quickly Musk can mass-produce it, at a profit. They want to understand regulatory hurdles and how FSD, still categorized as a type of partial automation, can become safer than a human driver.

Tesla shares - hurt in recent years by worries EV rivals with cheaper and fresher models are eating in to its market share - are up nearly 50% since April when Musk announced the shift to robotaxis. Still, expectations of volatility in Tesla's stock over the next 30 days are close to a two-year high, driven primarily by uncertainties around the robotaxi event, according to options data from Trade Alert.

Bringing self-driving vehicles to market has proven time-consuming and costly for other companies.

Alphabet's Waymo is the only U.S. firm operating uncrewed robotaxis that collect fares. Others still in the race include General Motors' Cruise - re-launching robotaxis with a safety driver after an accident last fall forced it to halt operations - and Amazon's Zoox, which is expanding testing of its self-driving taxis that come without steering wheels and pedals.

To keep Tesla's costs in check, Musk has decided to steer clear of sensors beyond cameras and he could potentially develop the first generation of Cybercab on its existing platform that runs the Model 3 and the Model Y.

Tesla also has learnings from the data it collects from millions of vehicles.

News.Az