Elon Musk sets new date for Tesla robotaxi reveal, calls everything but autonomy 'noise'

Elon Musk says he will show off Tesla’s purpose-built “robotaxi” prototype during an event October 10, after scrapping a previous plan to reveal it August 8. Musk said Tesla will also show off “a couple of other things,” but didn’t explain what that meant.

The comments, made on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call Tuesday, largely confirms Bloomberg’s original report about the delay, including that it was driven by Musk’s desire to redesign certain elements of the prototype. Musk confirmed earlier this month that he requested an “important design change to the front.”

“Moving it back a few months allowed us to improve the robotaxi, as well as add in a couple other things for the product unveil,” Musk said during the call.

The Tesla robotaxi — and the “unsupervised” full self-driving software that Musk says will run them — is at the center of the company’s future. Earlier this year, he laid off more than 10% of Tesla’s global staff in a bid to reorganize the company toward developing artificial intelligence-powered products, including a “balls to the wall” push toward developing autonomy.

That AI-focused future is bumping up against the company’s primary profit center of selling EVs, though. Tesla reported Tuesday that it made $1.5 billion in profit for the second quarter of 2024, down 45% from the same period last year. That profit was padded by a record $890 million in regulatory credit sales, too, though Tesla reported a $622 million restructuring charge that dragged down its earnings. And while total revenues were up 2% year-over-year, automotive revenues dropped 7% to $19.9 billion.

This performance follows what was already a rough start to the year for Tesla, where it saw a 55% year-over-year drop in profit in the first quarter.

The company is now looking at a real possibility of selling fewer EVs in 2024 than it did in 2023, which would represent a stunning reversal of its prior growth trajectory. Tesla has massaged this by telling investors that it is between “two major growth waves,” pinning hopes of more sales on the new (but polarizing and expensive) Cybertruck, and mysterious future models that could be sold at a lower MSRP.

That’s all “in the noise,” though, according to Musk. Tesla’s long-term value lies in autonomy and autonomy alone, he stressed on Tuesday’s call. That includes the company’s humanoid robot effort, dubbed Optimus, which got a sneaky delay this week. But it mostly centers around Musk’s longest running promise that he has yet to deliver on: self-driving cars.

With that in mind, Musk tried to focus investors’ attention to the October 10 event. Not much is publicly known about what Tesla will show off, though there was an illustration of a small robotaxi prototype in the biography of Musk written by Walter Isaacson in 2023.

Musk has spoken about making the vehicle available to people through Tesla’s app, similar to how Uber and Lyft operate. He’s also claimed Tesla owners will be able to put their own cars on the shared network once the company makes its Full Self-Driving software advanced enough to handle all driving — something it is still far from accomplishing, despite the name.

Despite years of promises, Musk has struggled to execute on the idea of fully self-driving cars, and as a result Tesla is being sued by owners and investigated by numerous government agencies.

Asked on the call when Tesla would be able to offer its first unsupervised robotaxi ride, Musk said he believes it could be possible by the end of this year. But he added that it also could happen in 2025, and that he is “overly optimistic” with his predictions.

This story has been updated with more details from Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call. The article originally published at 2:45 p.m. PT.