Tesla is ready to start a check of its long-promised robotaxi service on schedule in Austin, Texas, by the finish of June, Chief Govt Elon Musk mentioned on Tuesday, at the same time as the corporate faces security questions from a US regulator.
The electrical car maker will roll out about 10 self-driving vehicles in some elements of the town, and scale as much as a couple of thousand inside a couple of months, Musk instructed CNBC in an interview.
“We are literally going to deploy to not the complete Austin area, however solely the elements which might be the most secure.”
Tesla gross sales have fallen worldwide with rising competitors and as Musk faces a backlash for his right-wing political opinions and his work for US President Donald Trump.
Musk has mentioned he’ll scale back his work for Trump and give attention to Tesla. “My tough plan on the White Home is to be there for a pair days, each few weeks, and to be useful the place I might be useful,” he mentioned.
A profitable robotaxi trial is essential for Tesla as Musk has shifted the corporate’s focus away from constructing a brand new, cheaper EV platform to launching the robotaxi service and its Optimus humanoid robots. A lot of Tesla’s valuation hangs on that wager.
“The one issues that matter in the long run are autonomy and Optimus,” Musk instructed CNBC.
Autonomous car know-how has been exhausting to commercialise, with tight laws and heavy investments forcing many firms to surrender. These nonetheless within the race, together with Alphabet’s Waymo, have confronted elevated scrutiny.
The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration has been investigating collisions involving Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) superior driver help software program in decreased roadway visibility circumstances since October. The US highway security regulator requested Tesla final week to reply questions on its paid robotaxi service launch to evaluate how the vehicles will carry out in poor climate.
Tesla is in talks with main automakers to license the FSD software program that’s anticipated to underpin its robotaxis, Musk mentioned.
To energy his broader synthetic intelligence imaginative and prescient, Musk’s xAI startup has been ramping up its information middle capability to coach extra superior fashions, and its supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee, known as “Colossus,” is touted because the world’s largest.
xAI will deploy 1,000,000 of Nvidia’s superior Blackwell chips at a brand new facility close to Memphis, Musk mentioned. “As long as Nvidia is healthier than what we make, we’ll maintain shopping for from Nvidia,” he mentioned. xAI purchased a 1-million-square-foot property in Southwest Memphis, Tennessee, the Better Memphis Chamber mentioned in March.
Musk, who merged xAI along with his social media platform X in March, mentioned a merger between Tesla and xAI was not being thought of however was “not out of the query,” although it will want shareholder approval.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
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