Tesla boss Elon Musk today presented the Cybercab and Robovan, two self-driving taxis that the company wants to bring to the market in the coming years. They should drive fully autonomously, but a lot is still unclear about the two vehicles. And that can sometimes cause delays.
Tesla wants to put fully self-driving taxis on the road in the American states of California and Texas from next year. These should ultimately be the new Robovan and Cybercab, but before those are available, Tesla wants to send self-driving Model Ys on the road in the US. That should happen next year. Simply selling electric cars must become a thing of the past, according to Tesla. From now on, self-driving taxis and AI should play a major role in the company’s revenue model.
But there is great skepticism after the revelation. Because Musk has been promising since 2016 that he wants to have fully self-driving cars on the road within a short time. A promise that was postponed time and time again.
Where is the data on safety?
Whether that is different now remains to be seen. Much is still unclear on a technical level about the Cybercab, which should be the first to hit the asphalt if Musk has his way. Remarkably, Tesla has data that should support that the vehicle is safe not shared. Auto site Electrek believes that Tesla should provide more new data on the average number of times its Full Self-Driving driver assistance system has to intervene. Due to a lack of data, it is now unclear whether the company can deliver a safe autonomous driving system in the short term.
It is also not clear whether the Cybercab will have Lidar scanners on board, something that competing self-driving taxis do have. We also don’t know what other safety systems the car has on board. “The Tesla event was short on details and new information. This could all have been done in an email,” Electrek concludes.
Legal problems
In addition, there are still many bureaucratic hurdles and legal problems, notes The Verge on. Because permission to put self-driving Model Ys on the road has not yet been granted in California. It is also not yet clear who is responsible for a collision when the car steered itself.
And how do you get a car without pedals and steering wheel back on the road if it has ended up on the side of the road? And who will maintain a self-driving fleet of cars? Tesla did not provide answers to these questions.
Stock market down
Although it is possible that Musk’s ideas will become reality, nothing is certain yet and we will have to wait and see. Investors do not yet have much confidence in it: after the presentation, Tesla’s stock price fell by 8 percent.
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Source: www.bright.nl
