Elon Musk made a surprise announcement back in April that Tesla would be holding an event on August 8 to talk about the company’s plans for robotaxis. But anyone excited about what Tesla might unveil will have to wait a couple more months. The robotaxi event is going to be pushed until October, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
The reason for the delay is “to allow teams working on the project more time to build additional vehicle prototypes,” Bloomberg reports, citing anonymous sources “familiar with the decision.” Tesla did not respond to questions emailed Thursday, though that’s not a surprise given the fact that the carmaker dissolved its PR department in 2020.
The robotaxi event was announced at a time of particularly bad news leaking from Tesla, as Reuters reported in April that Tesla was pivoting away from producing a $25,000 vehicle. Musk wrote at the time that Reuters didn’t have its facts right and immediately announced the same day there would be a robotaxi event in the summer.
Musk has a long history of making splashy announcements after bad news breaks, an apparent attempt to distract from things that may affect Tesla’s stock price. Tesla’s stock fell 6% immediately after the announcement that its robotaxi event would be pushed to October, which came after the anticipation for the robotaxi had contributed to an 11-day positive streak for the stock.
Musk has made lots of promises over the years about robotaxis that always seem to be just around the corner. The Tesla CEO has previously blamed regulatory challenges, though it’s not clear whether Tesla has produced a completely autonomous vehicle yet.
“Functionality still looking good for this year. Regulatory approval is the big unknown,” Musk tweeted in April 2020 about Tesla’s robotaxis.
Nobody knows what to expect when the world finally gets a better look at what Tesla has been working on. But the robotaxi is currently in the category of products that are still very much a work in progress, similar to Tesla’s Optimus robot. Musk recently insisted that Optimus will one day babysit your kids. Needless to say, nobody thinks that’s going to be happening anytime soon, at least, not by parents who love their children.
