Washington (United States) (AFP) – Tesla’s much-touted autonomous “robotaxi”, called the Cybercab, has started production, CEO Elon Musk said on Friday, the same week that the carmaker reported first-quarter profits that beat expectations. Musk posted a promotional video on X accompanied with the brief caption, “Cybercab has started production.” The 38-second clip, mostly shot from within a driverless Cybercab, showed the vehicle rolling off the factory floor and driving onto streets. Musk also shared a short video clip showing what appeared to be multiple gold-colored Cybercabs driving in formation on a road.
Tesla said on Wednesday it was on track to commence “volume production” of both its Cybercab and Tesla Semi this year, after reporting first-quarter profits of $477 million. Musk said on a Wednesday earnings call that the initial production of Cybercab will be “very slow, but then ramping up and going exponential towards the end of the year.” He added that he hoped to have Tesla’s unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assistance program operating “in a dozen or so states by the end of this year.”
“We’re taking a very cautious approach to the rollout here,” said Musk, adding that he expected the venture to be “material probably in a significant way next year.” Cybercab — billed as a self-driving robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals — was unveiled in the fall of 2024, with Musk predicting at the time that it would become available in 2027. Tesla began offering robotaxi services to “early access” users on an invitation-only basis in the US city of Austin, Texas, last June.
The auto manufacturer posted a photo in February showing employees gathered around a Cybercab on a factory floor, with the caption “First Cybercab off the production line at Giga Texas.” Tesla’s robotaxi launch comes well after the 2021 rollout of commercial robotaxi service by rival Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said this week that growth in FSD will “change the financial model/margins for Tesla looking ahead.”
© 2024 AFP
