Musk’s Robotaxi Needs to Come With a Time Machine
The entrepreneur must dazzle his audience this week into forgetting that the autonomous driving he’s promised is overdue and still far from a reality.
Razzle, dazzle.
Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg
When Elon Musk hosted Tesla Inc.’s “autonomy day” in March 2019, he was crafting a narrative. When he takes the stage at Thursday’s “robotaxi unveil,” he will fight to keep control of that narrative.
Five years ago, Musk touted robotaxis — self-driving, self-funding wonders earning money for their owners — that would be ready by the end of 2020. Even allowing for the pandemic, they are well past due. In the meantime, Tesla’s sales of electric vehicles surged fivefold but then stalled. Its market cap ballooned from less than $50 billion to a peak of $1.2 trillion before giving back about $400 billion of that.