Elon Musk has announced that electric car maker Tesla, which he controls, will introduce a robotaxi this summer, a move that comes as self-driving vehicle deployments are stalling due to safety concerns.
The billionaire did not provide details of these plans, only announcing in his post on the X social network that the presentation of the Tesla Robotaxi will take place on August 8.
E. Musk has long boasted that Tesla is developing a project for a self-driving system for electric cars.
Tesla models with FSD Full Self Driving) “will be so superhuman that in the future it will seem strange that people drove cars even when they were exhausted or drunk!” he said in a March X post.
Despite the potential, the adoption of autonomous vehicles in the United States has so far been cautious and sluggish, as both regulators and the public have expressed safety concerns.
In San Francisco, which has become a testing ground for the technology, Google-built Waymo robot taxis have been targeted by anti-autonomous vandals, and General Motors-owned Cruise suspended its robot taxi service indefinitely in late October after several accidents.
Tesla's Autopilot feature has also come under scrutiny amid allegations that its marketing overstated its real capabilities.
Editor Svajūnas Laukineitis
