Tesla CEO Elon Musk showcased the firm's long-awaited robotaxi at an event at Warner Bros studio near Los Angeles, promising the public that the vehicle will be in mass production "before 2027."
Musk opened the event 'We, Robot' arriving in the robotaxi, a car with two gull-wing doors and no steering wheel or pedals. A sleek 20-passenger capacity robovan with little ground clearance came later with several people inside.
"Future must look like future," Musk said about the look of the vehicle, which he called 'RobOvan'.
The billionaire pegged the price of the cybertaxi at under $30,000. No price point was mentioned for the van.
The full-self driving robotaxi has been in the making for a long time at Tesla, having missed a number of deadlines and chafed a lot of the company's investors.
In 2019, Musk said he was "very confident" Tesla would have operational robotaxis by 2020.
"The autonomous future is here," a leather jacket-clad Musk said. "With autonomy, you get your time back."
He said autonomous cars could be 10 times safer than humans and drive five to 10 times longer.
The entrepreneur said Tesla owners will also be able to attach their cars with the app and lend them as taxis.
He also sought to rebrand Tesla as not just an automaker but as an AI robotics firm.
Running the Cybercab will cost 20 cents a mile over time and charging will be inductive, requiring no plugs, Musk said. Operating the robovans will be even cheaper at 5 cents a mile.
The vehicles, Musk said, will rely on AI and cameras rather than such hardware components as lidar, used by rival robotaxi firms, such as Google's Waymo.
Besides the vehicles, Musk claimed there has been "a lot of progress" made with its humanoid robot "Optimus" that could eventually be priced at $20,000 to $30,000 and which can perform many daily tasks.
Alphabet's Waymo, with about 700 Jaguar Land Rover cars in its fleet, is the only US firm operating uncrewed robotaxis that collect fares.
Image Source: Unsplash
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