Tesla’s CEO Musk’s Driverless Robo-taxi to Hit the Market Soon
Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently announced the creation of a fully autonomous driverless taxi, which he refers to as a “Robo-taxi.” The futuristic design of the taxi resembles something out of a science fiction movie. Musk unveiled the exciting news while inaugurating Tesla’s newly built factory in Texas, USA, called the Giga Plant, which cost $110 million to build.
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The Texas factory is part of Musk’s efforts to increase production of Tesla cars around the world. Tesla already has a Giga plant in Berlin, Germany, and the Texas plant could be the largest car manufacturing plant in the United States, producing about 500,000 vehicles annually. The factory has already started delivering the Model Y electric sports utility vehicle.
While opening the factory, Musk made several other announcements this year, including the availability of Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) beta software to customers across North America. This software currently sells for $12,000 but is not fully automated or driverless, as the driver still needs to keep an eye on the vehicle while driving in self mode.
However, Musk’s past record of under-promising has some skeptics wondering if robo-taxis will ever come to market. He had previously announced that the driverless robo-taxis would be on the market by 2020, but this was delayed due to the supply chain crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to robo-taxis and FSD software, Musk announced that Tesla’s much-awaited Cyber Truck and human-looking robot Optimus will be available next year. Despite these exciting developments, Tesla faced some setbacks due to the COVID-19 outbreak in China, which forced the company to halt production at its factory located in Shanghai.
Overall, Elon Musk’s days seem to be going well, as he recently bought 9% of Twitter shares and owns the largest number of shares in the world’s most popular microblogging site. He also accepted an invitation from Twitter authorities to become a member of their board of directors.