Tesla's Robotaxi Reveal Event Delayed, Musk Cites Design Updates

Why Elon Musk Delayed The Tesla Robotaxi Event

Musk said the event will happen later than expected but didn't say exactly when. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said confirmed in an X post on Monday that an event meant to showcase Tesla's design for an autonomous taxi will happen later than previously announced. Musk said he asked for "an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things." Musk first announced the event in April, saying that the time that Tesla would show off a robotaxi -- potentially called the CyberCab -- just a few months later on August 8. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Tesla planned to delay the event to October so that the automaker could build additional prototypes. In Monday's post, Musk didn't specify when the event will actually take place. It's also unclear what the "few other things" he noted are. These could have to do with the robotaxi or the other AI-related efforts that Musk is increasingly obsessed with, like Tesla's Optimus robot. Tesla has touted big plans for self-driving cars for many years now, but it hasn't delivered yet. The automaker sells an add-on feature called "Full Self-Driving," but it requires driver supervision as it navigates the world and is far from perfect. Musk envisions a self-driving taxi network that uses both purpose-built robotaxis -- the vehicle we were expecting to see for the first time in August -- as well as cars from Tesla customers who opt in. The CEO has said that Tesla's future rides on its ability to deliver self-driving technology. And Wall Street agrees, rewarding Tesla with a market capitalization that's several times that of its automaker peers. As far as Musk sees it, the robotaxi is central to Tesla's future as a tech and AI company. Investors and fans are surely hoping it's worth the wait.

Elon Musk says the robotaxi team has extra time to update the design

Elon Musk responded on social media site X to a question about the timing of the robotaxi event. He stated that he requested what he thinks is an important design change to the front of the robotaxi model. Musk added that the extra time allows the electric vehicle maker to show off a few other things. The Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO did not offer a new date for the robotaxi reveal. The robotaxi event was originally scheduled for August 8. Earlier in the day, Morgan Stanley updated investors that it does not think a delay in the robotaxi event would be a negative. Analyst Adam Jonas and his team see scope for the postponed robotaxi day to highlight more of Tesla's (TSLA) embodied AI capabilities beyond app-based autonomous cars. The firm expects Tesla's Master Plan 4 to be underpinned by its commercial ambitions in AI, robotics, and hybrid compute (including distributed thermal and compute in the car) that spans from cloud to edge. "Over the next few months/quarters we expect to see the world of GenAI (digital AI assistants) colliding with the automotive ecosystem," noted Jonas.