Elon Musk had a big 2024 event, with a heavy push into right-wing politics and considerable influence to help leverage his X social media platform. Donald Trump He won the presidential election.
Put politics aside for a moment; We should focus on Musk's leisure time making promises for Tesla.
The Tesla CEO's promises — and repeated missed deadlines — have become a central theme in the Tesla storyline. And they've always had an eye-popping quality that has captured investors' imaginations and boosted Tesla's stock value. 1.3 trillion in value. He claimed in 2015 that it would be Tesla vehicles. Self-driving within two years., Driverless road trips Launching at the end of 2017, Tesla owners will be able to earn money by 2020 through a massive network of self-driving rides.
While Tesla has cemented its place in the history books for building and selling millions of electric vehicles, None of the above promises (or many others) have materialized.
But that hasn't stopped Musk from making more promises by 2024. This is when he hopes to list these promises and make them a reality.
EV $25,000
Musk in 2024 alone He promised to reveal it. EV $25,000. I deleted it. A decision made—to prioritize the robot prototype—in April Mass layoffs Because Tesla is continuing its “next phase of growth.”
There is Musk. flip-flopped Will affordable EVs ever hit the market? But during Tesla's third-quarter earnings call, Musk called the idea of building a $25,000 car with a steering wheel and pedals “absurd” and “silly.” He said the only car he would sell would be the Cybercab.
During the call, Asked by an analyst if Tesla would produce a low-cost EV, not the Cybercab, Musk replied that all of the company's cars going forward would be self-driving. He also said that the “vast majority” of the 7 million cars Tesla has built to date have been “autonomous” and that Tesla is “currently able to order 35,000 autonomous vehicles per week.” Musk is clearly using a loose definition of autonomy here; That's because Tesla still can't make cars that are safe to use without a human behind the wheel.
(Flashback: Musk originally promised in 2016 in a since-deleted post on Tesla's website that “all Tesla cars now in production will have full self-driving hardware,” and that converting older Teslas to self-driving would only require a software update. Cars. That didn't happen. (Tesla needs to upgrade cars with older hardware.)
It's also worth noting during the earnings call that vehicles are expected to grow by 20% to 30% by 2025, driven by “low-cost vehicles” and “the rise of autonomy.”
Production begins on Cybercab in 2025 or 2026.
Tesla unveils 20 Cybercab prototypes At a Hollywood event in October, Musk shared some plans for the vehicles, as well as Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. FSD is Tesla's advanced driver assistance system that can perform many autonomous driving tasks, but still requires a human to be attentive behind the wheel and take over if necessary.
Musk is offering customers a two-door with no steering wheel or pedals for less than $30,000. Musk told customers that the pedal vehicle would one day be available for purchase. Cybercab's average operating cost will decrease to just $0.20 per mile over time, he said. Tesla will start producing purpose-built AVs in 2025 or 2026, he said.
(Flashback: Musk told Tesla he would do it by 2022. 2024 mass production of robots.. Before that, they said there would be a Tesla in 2019. A million robots on the streets by 2020. (Musk has been promising that Tesla will address fully autonomous driving “next year” since at least 2016.)
During Tesla's third quarter earnings call a few weeks later, Musk said. Tesla will reach “production volume” in '26; The company is “targeting at least 2 million units per year of the Cybercab.”
It could be existing federal regulations that require vehicles to be built with certain safety standards, such as manual controls. Roadblocks Tesla to mass produce its Cybercabs. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently New rules were proposed. There are fast-tracking exemptions for such vehicles, but they would require companies to share more data with the agency, such as crash reporting. Today, Vehicle manufacturers are required to report crashes when ADAS or autonomous driving technology is involved.
Musk has previously run afoul of the administration and President-elect Donald Trump's transition team. I researched it..
Robovan is in development.
During Tesla's robot unveiling, the company also showed investors a Robovan prototype. Musk didn't share specific plans for the vehicle at the time, but he did in November. Posted on X. Robovan is still in development, along with “other things.”
(Flashback: In 2016, Musk said he would give Tesla. Start building the minibus. (Use the Model X chassis for two to three years.)
“Unsupervised FSD” and autonomous driving by 2025
At the ceremony, Musk has promised that Model 3 and Model Y owners will be able to use an “unsupervised” version of FSD in California and Texas by 2025.
It's still not clear what Musk means by “unsupervised” FSD. Today, Tesla's FSD is not yet fully autonomous; To clear up all the confusion, this year Tesla began referring to the software as “supervised FSD.” Removing oversight could mean Tesla is planning to remove the driver; Or maybe Tesla plans to offer a Level 3 autonomous system that allows drivers to take off their hands and eyes for part of their ride.
During Tesla's third quarter earnings call, Musk took the unsupervised FSD promise a step further. He said he hopes to provide a service that people will get. Hail driverless Teslas In California and Texas by 2025, Tesla has already claimed to be testing the service in the Bay Area with employees.
(Contents: California has several levels of permits required to test and use autonomous vehicles. The Department of Motor Vehicles told TechCrunch in October that Tesla has held a permit to test AVs with a safe driver in the front seat since 2015. Tesla last reported using the permit in 2019..)
It's unclear if Tesla plans to launch this ride-hailing service with its robot stripes or with existing Tesla Model 3 and Model Y owners. No, not clear. Tesla's first-quarter earnings presentation included a mockup of a future Tesla ride-hailing app, and the company has for years teased the idea of a ride-hailing network using Teslas modified to drive fully autonomously. The idea is similar to Uber; Only Tesla owners will add their well-equipped self-driving vehicles to the automaker's ride-hailing app to make extra money when the cars aren't being used. Tesla will take 25% to 30% of the revenue.
Finally, during Tesla's first quarter earnings call; Musk said Tesla is in talks with “major automakers” to obtain an FSD license, but so far no such deals have been announced.
By 2025, “Over a thousand Optimus robots working at Tesla.”
Musk made some promises about Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus. During Tesla's annual shareholder meeting, Musk promised that Tesla would move to limited production of Optimus next year, with “1,000 or a few thousand Optimus robots working at Tesla” by 2025. It will be sold in 2026.. in one Put it on X.The billionaire executive said he hopes to have more Optimus bots for use by other companies by 2026.
He did not specify whether the bots would be fully automated or not. People control it remotely.Like them during Tesla's robot unveiling in October.
(Contents: Humanoid robots are making progress toward being able to complete specific tasks automatically, but experts say that's still years away due to a lack of training data.)
In addition to production promises, Musk also predicted that Optimus could one day boost Tesla's market capitalization to $25 trillion. That's the outline. Seven times Current market caps of Apple and Nvidia. At the end of December Tesla's market cap is around $1.42 trillion. That's a nearly 160% increase from the $550 billion market cap before Trump's presidential election.
Did we miss something? Get in touch at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com.