Robotaxis will test Tesla in a trillion ways

Viewpoint

- Liam Denning

Tesla will launch its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, the United States, in June because it has to.

The countdown began just over a year ago when news broke that the company had abandoned its cheap electric vehicle (EV) project and chief executive Elon Musk responded by announcing a robotaxi unveiling, scheduled for August.

Delayed to October, that event was a flop, with the vehicles confined to a studio lot and guests heckling Mr. Musk on when the real robotaxis would appear.

With Tesla's core EV business having slumped since then, it is Mr. Musk's repeated promises of a June roll-out that have pushed the stock back up to a ridiculously high multiple and trillion-dollar valuation.

Missing another deadline is not an option. But far from Mr. Musk's grand vision of self-driving Teslas running around everywhere, what will likely materialize in Austin is a minimum viable robotaxi.

For Tesla diehards, it will nonetheless be enough to bolster their faith even as it reveals the risks to their favorite company's entire autonomy project.

Mr. Musk had spoken of launching 10 to 20 vehicles initially. Who they carry and when, where and how they do so are all important variables.

ALL ABOUT OPTICS

"There are a thousand ways to game the optics of a launch," says Mr. Alex Roy, general partner at New Industry Venture Capital and an expert on autonomous vehicles.

The operational design domain can limit where driverless vehicles go, on which type of roads, at what speed and even during which hours. For example, when Cruise, the former robotaxi start-up backed by General Motors, first got going in San Francisco, paid rides were available only at night, when roads are emptier.