Tesla is expected to announce an electric robotaxi in the small hours of Friday morning.
“The future will be streamed live,” Tesla teased on X, announcing the live stream of its We, Robot launch event.
The live launch takes place at 7pm in Burbank, California, which means it will begin at 3am Friday, UK time.
While the most technically competent and user-friendly spot for these events to be streamed is YouTube, the Tesla account has not posted a YouTube stream page for the upcoming launch. This suggests it may be streamed exclusively through X. The companies share the same CEO, MAGA evangelist Elon Musk.
“Watch the Tesla product launch event live on X,” Mr Musk posted on the platform. “All transport will be fully autonomous within 50 years,” he claimed in a post a few hours after.
The Tesla robotaxi is expected to be a forward-looking design that may not even have a steering wheel, instead relying on pure autonomous navigation.
Its design and name are yet to be confirmed or fully leaked. However, it is widely expected to be a two-seater vehicle with butterfly doors, typically seen in luxury performance cars rather than everyday vehicles.
The robotaxi concept was covered in Walter Isaacson’s 2022 Elon Musk biography, where it is claimed Mr Musk clashed with Tesla engineers over whether the vehicle needed a steering wheel or not.
Engineers insisted it should, Mr Musk that it should not.
Tesla cars’ autonomous mode was first introduced a decade ago as the Tesla Model S’s Autopilot.
A US National High Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation report released in April 2024 found Autopilot has had a role in at least 13 fatal car accidents. It suggested the system “may lead drivers to believe that the automation has greater capabilities than it does and invite drivers to overly trust the automation”.
ACMI Testing, an “automotive research firm”, recently published the results of a test of Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) model, which is not currently available in the UK.
It tested the software over 1,000 miles of driving in the Tesla Model 3, and found the system could drive for, at most, 13 miles before requiring human intervention.
“Getting close to foolproof, yet falling short, creates an insidious and unsafe operator complacency issue, as proven in the test results,” AMCI global CEO David Stokols said in a statement. “You simply cannot reliably rely on the accuracy or reasoning behind its responses.”
Whether the robotaxi is safe enough for the streets or not, you can expect to hear more about it on Friday.
