TESLA is making a risky bet if it shifts efforts on its small-car vehicle platform to robotaxis as the successful introduction of vehicles that drive themselves is in the distant future, and the technology faces engineering and regulatory hurdles.
Reuters reported on Friday that Tesla has cancelled its planned low-cost car and instead will continue developing self-driving robotaxis on the same platform.
Elon Musk replied via a post on his X.com platform: "Reuters is lying (again)."
He did not identify any specific inaccuracies.
Tesla could not be reached to comment on the timeline behind developing self-driving vehicles, but Musk subsequently said on X: "Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8."
A greater emphasis on robotaxis comes with more risk for the world's largest EV maker due to the complexity of the technology involved, analysts said.
"Everyone else has found out that what they thought was a two or three-year project turns out to be a 10 or 20-year project," said Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor working on autonomous vehicle safety. "Tesla's found that out too."
The development of autonomous vehicles has not been smooth.
In a recent example, auto-nomous driving software firm Ghost Autonomy on Wednesday closed worldwide operations, citing the uncertain path to profits.
Last fall, General Motors' Cruise autonomous unit came under regulatory scrutiny after one of its vehicles hit and dragged a pedestrian, leading the United States automaker to slash jobs and cut spending by US$1 billion.
Tesla's Musk has chosen to develop self-driving vehicles with radar and cameras, and without lidar, a remote sensing technology using pulsed laser light the way radar uses radio waves, and Koopman believes that is "like tying one's hand behind your back".
Anyone developing self-driving vehicles will need to prove it with a year or two of perfect performance, something the industry is nowhere near, he added.
Lidar offers such advantages as the ability to work in any lighting conditions and greater range than cameras, but cameras have greater visual recognition, industry officials have said.
Some Tesla investors and analysts said valuing a robotaxi business for Tesla is much more difficult than a low-cost car.
"Tesla promised all their cars would be fully autonomous eight years ago, and even though they've changed their approach several times during that period, many believe they still remain years away from achieving full autonomy," said John Krafcik, former CEO of Waymo, Alphabet's autonomous driving technology company.
Tesla's robotaxi ambitions come amid scrutiny from lawsuits and government investigations that are undercutting the automaker's aggressive claims about the capabilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving driver-assistance systems.
Those systems are designed to assist with steering, braking and lane changes, and are not considered autonomous.
Tesla agreed to recall more than two million vehicles with Autopilot in December under pressure from US safety regulators and push a remote software update to the system adding more driver alerts, despite disputing the government's safety concerns.
Tesla also faces a US Justice Department criminal investigation over claims the automaker's vehicles can drive themselves.
Tesla has explicitly warned drivers they must keep hands on the wheel and maintain control of vehicles and that Autopilot does not render its cars autonomous.
Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina professor with expertise in autonomous-vehicle law, said Tesla vehicles cannot support a true robotaxi.
The extra scrutiny Tesla's driver-assistance system faces follows a "multi-year string of unfulfilled promises and highly questionable statements coming from Tesla and its CEO about the capabilities and near-term timelines of automated driving", he said.
The writers are from Reuters
