Tesla Inc. has delayed the launch of a robotaxi by about two months until October after the design team was asked to redesign some elements of the vehicle, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the decision.
Shares of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), which is betting on self-driving vehicles over less expensive cars, fell more than 6% on the news, ending an 11-day winning streak that had sent the stock up 44%.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Musk had announced the unveiling of a robotaxi on August 8, after Reuters reported on April 5 that Tesla had cancelled its long-awaited low-cost car and would continue developing a self-driving robotaxi on the same small-vehicle platform.
“Tesla has been playing this game for nearly a decade, promising ‘next year, next year,’ and I have seen no indication that Tesla is … on the road to deploying the Autopilot system that Tesla has been promising all along,” said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who specializes in autonomous vehicle law.
Beyond announcing a reveal date, Musk has offered few details about the robotaxis so far, saying only that some of the vehicles will be owned and operated by Tesla, while others will be privately owned but will be rented on Tesla’s network.
Analysts and industry experts say the race to develop self-driving systems and robotaxi will be tough and take years as the technology faces engineering and regulatory hurdles.
“I think the launch event will be disappointing because we probably would have gotten a cyber taxi, not a robot taxi,” said Craig Irwin, senior research analyst at Roth MKM. “It’s likely to be another overkill. No one will be able to knit socks on the way to work or take a nap while the car takes you to Grandma’s.”
Musk is focusing on artificial intelligence, self-driving software, robotic taxis and a humanoid robot called Optimus to combat slowing sales of electric vehicles, which generate more than 80% of Tesla’s quarterly revenue.
Tesla will introduce “new models” by early 2025 using its existing platforms and production lines, he said on the company’s first-quarter earnings conference call in April.
During the call, he outlined ambitious visions for diversifying Tesla’s business into artificial intelligence, human-like robotics, and operating a fleet of millions of self-driving vehicles — all based on software and hardware products that the automaker has yet to fully develop.
The billionaire visited Beijing in April on an unannounced visit to discuss the rollout of full self-driving software and other data transfer permissions, a source told Reuters.
