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Will robotaxis get Tesla moving again?

2 months ago babelfish

Will robotaxis get Tesla moving again?

For Reuters, Tesla would have canceled the economical electric car and destined it to the robotaxi market. Musk goes into a rage about X but then ends up confirming everything. Almost

Elon Musk has never been too friendly, especially on social media. Much less on Twitter since he bought it, transforming it into also to the fact that the rumors that appeared in the newspaper are true and forced the South African tycoon to reveal a change (yet another?) in the strategy of the Texan electric car company well in advance.

STEERS IN TESLA'S BUSINESS PLAN

Yes, because since the demand for electric cars began to deflate and, at the same time, the pressure exerted by Chinese rivals to increase, Tesla has already made several changes to its business plan, announcing for example its intention to position itself as a technology supplier for the autonomous driving software in which, it is known, Elon Musk's company has been investing for over a decade, even if the results so far have not been those hoped for (there has been no shortage of class actions by those who had bought it in the hope that it would reach drive yourself ).

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHEAP TESLA MODEL 2?

Yet, for years the market has seemed to ask Musk for only one thing: the famous – infamous Tesla at a budget price. A challenge within the challenge, considering that the technology is not yet on a large scale to allow similar price reductions. Not only that, given that we must also take into account the recent inflationary flashes, the chip crises, the increase in raw materials, the changes of direction in distribution due to the Houthis and above all the price war wanted by Musk himself who in fact it already makes Tesla lose a lot of money for every car sold. How to lower prices further?

Reuters claims that Tesla will not be able to follow BYD on the path to an electric car for all budgets. That Model 2 whose idea was probably born more on the Web than in Tesla's industrial plans and was initially rejected by the serial startupper, only to then officially announce it, code name "Redwood", last January 24 during the presentation of the 2023 financial results : “We are very far ahead with our low-cost next-generation vehicle – Musk had reassured -, and it will be an innovation not only looking at its design, but also at the techniques that will be used for its construction. Our plans include starting production by the end of 2025." According to Reuters , however, things are no longer like this.

MUSK ARGULES WITH REUTERS

“ Reuters is lying (again)” Musk's prompt reply, while in a subsequent post, sharing the message of a user who reported the declining readership figures of the news agency's website, he wrote that Reuters “is dying” . Then, in a third tweet the announcement that Tesla will unveil its fleet of robotaxis next August. August 8th, to be precise.

IS TESLA NOW LOOKING AT ROBOTAXIS?

An undoubtedly strange move and one that goes hand in hand with the anger of the immediately previous posts with which Musk lashed out against Reuters . Also because in the piece contested by the entrepreneur, the news agency had anticipated: "Tesla will continue the development of a family of self-driving robotaxis using the same platform for smaller vehicles". Indiscretion confirmed just a few hours later by the official announcement from Musk himself, who in addition to the robotaxis ended up confirming the entire content of the piece.

REUTERS' REPLY

It remains to be seen whether the platform for the low-cost Tesla will actually be used only for robotaxis rather than for the private market. What is certain is that having engaged in a dispute with Reuters pushed the news agency to write a second article to respond to the accusations in which the reporters, after having lined up all the less than brilliant numbers of the House's most recent financial performances by Musk highlight how in the last year Tesla has lost over 250 billion dollars in value on the stock market, with the share price halved compared to the historic high recorded way back in 2021.

Furthermore, Reuters highlights the fact that analysts consider Tesla not to be a pure car company, but rather one of the software and hardware houses of the "Magnificent Seven", the group of companies to which Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Meta also belong. (Facebook) and Nvidia. Reuters highlights that, among these, Tesla was the only one to lose value in the last year, as well as the only one not to have presented tangible results on the AI ​​front (Musk actually continues the Grok algorithm with another of his startup, xAI): in short, Tesla's change in strategy with robotaxis would be essential to achieve such disappointing results.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/i-robotaxi-rimetteranno-in-moto-tesla/ on Mon, 08 Apr 2024 08:01:27 +0000.