Elon Musk is doing it again! The Tesla company owner is announcing the development of robotaxis, nobody will be taking us somewhere, but the robotaxi. Who would have thought this day will come true some day? Now, we won’t need to have any social interaction more than the people accompanying us.
We will see autonomous cars taking the road while we are inside them minding our own business. This would make us save some time on these rides. This seems like a very futuristic project, but coming from Elon Musk is not rare. Let’s find more about these robotaxis!
Elon Musk’s robotaxis
Elon Musk is developing a new ambitious project, robotaxis. Robotaxis are autonomous cars using a system called FSD (Full Self-Driving) and Musk is using Tesla’s Model Y to incorporate it. These taxis will be able to drive with no human driver needed and analyze every traffic rule and every situation happening on the street.
When could you see these futuristic taxis?
If you are curious about seeing them in action, you could do it by the end of June in Austin, Texas, where 10 robotaxis will be tested on the streets. After this, if everything goes as planned, Musk will increase the number of robotaxis by sending them to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
At the beginning, Tesla’s robotaxis will need supervision, so cars will be geolocated by driving through specific parts of Austin and Tesla workers will be supervising from a distance. This will last until these cars are fully reliable.
Tesla, the pioneer of robotaxis… or maybe not
Even though this is an ambitious project, Tesla is not the only company interested in launching these robotaxis. In fact, Waymo – which is part of Google – is already doing it in cities like Phoenix and San Francisco.
However, Elon Musk talks about his robotaxis as more intelligent and different than Waymo’s. The main difference is the system they each use to make the cars detect its surroundings: Waymo uses lasers and radars whereas Tesla uses cameras and computer vision.
Another controversy
Most of Elon Musk’s projects are very criticized for his business or political relationships and this one was not to be an exception to this. In a CNBC interview, Musk was asked about the negative responses against Tesla regarding his involvement in politics and Donald Trump’s administration, since the company has seen its sales decrease in numbers.
However, Musk knew how to muddle through and he said that they were updating the companies, so they weren’t able to manufacture any product. Do you believe it or do you think it is because of political involvement?
What about the future?
Well, the future for Elon Musk is very certain, he is considered one of the richest men in the world with around a $376 billion fortune (he can basically do whatever he wants). Also, he will continue leading Tesla and his other companies like SpaceX (space rockets) and xAI (Artificial Intelligence), among many.
On the other hand, our future with respect to technology wll be closer to a science fiction movie. As soon as this project is fully tested and green-lighted, we will experience a whole new way of driving (well, not really us, but the robotaxis). Nonetheless, people are worried about the safety of no human driver driving, the lack of driving jobs for citizens and they wonder if politics will have a say in this project.
As we can see, there is not much limit when it comes to technology, but the more technology advances, the more people will question it. At first it may seem like a wonderful decision and we might be curious about it, but this is an uncertain situation for many citizens’ aspects.