Tesla Inc’s Chief Executive Elon Musk said that company’s human-less robotaxis will become available in some U.S. market by next year, another announcement by the chief executive who is in a habit of making bold statements that came to be exciting many investors while routinely missing the deadlines.
Musk, while admitting of being late to meet hard lined targets, predicted that in two years from now, company is likely be making cars that would have no steering wheels or pedals.
During a webcast presentation on Monday, Musk came on unveiling a new microchip for autonomous vehicles, which also become the basis of that latest commitment of self-driving cars in two years. Tesla will now be using that chip, made by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in Texas, in all of its vehicles that is likely to be giving the company an edge over its rivals and will also be paying off the company’s investment in self-driving vehicles, which Musk described as “basically our entire expense structure”.
Tesla remained posting profits throughout last year, but the webcast presentation came two days before company on Wednesday announced a quarterly loss of $702 million in the first quarter with fewer-than-expected deliveries of Model 3 sedan, a model company launched in an attempt to become a larger car manufacturer.
After launching the event providing the audience with the Tesla’s progress on hardware and software related to the self-driving cars by top executives, Musk said that Tesla is the only company that have a full suite of autonomous vehicles.
Using the term “full self-driving” by Tesla, invited much of the criticism as the company is in practice of selling an option today that is not yet acquired the industry standard of “Level 4” or fully autonomous, a standard level for self-driving vehicles of being capable of handling all aspects of the driving in most of the situations without having a need or intervention by humans.
