Elon Musk and Tesla are ready to unveil the electric vehicle manufacturer’s future. On Thursday evening, Musk will hold a live event to unveil the long-awaited Robotaxi, or as Tesla would call it, a Cybercab. The announcement is meant to establish Tesla as more of a maker of groundbreaking robotics technology rather than electric vehicles.

“The way to think of Tesla is almost entirely in terms of solving autonomy and being able to turn on that autonomy for a gigantic fleet,” CEO Elon Musk told Tesla investors in April.

Speaking of Musk’s comments in April, the CEO also said the Cybercab would be revealed in August. However, Musk delayed the official announcement because the vehicle needed a few extra tweaks.

The Tesla Robotaxi

Tesla is set to unveil Robotaxi at the WE Robot event in California.

Tesla’s Robotaxi, or Cybertruck, whatever you want to call it, dates back to 2019 when Musk first hinted at the project. At that time, Musk promised to have “1 million” Robotaxis on the road by 2020. Obviously, Musk fell short of that goal. At the time, the company believed they could “flip a switch” and transform existing Teslas into autonomous ride-share vehicles.

Instead of transforming Teslas into Cybercabs, the company developed a purpose-built autonomous electric vehicle that is more central to the Robotaxi fleet. Musk compared the business model to a mix of Airbnb and Uber but will own and operate a number of the cars in the fleet.

Ride-sharing services are logistically complex and regulated by liability laws and state-by-state regulations. This is especially apparent with self-driving services. In addition, the San Francisco-based robot taxi service Waymo has made several claims that vandals are attacking automated vehicles. Therefore, Musk has a lot of obstacles to work out.

We will hear detailed plans for Tesla’s future and the future of cybercabs. The live event is set for 7 pm Pacific time, 10 pm Eastern time. Musk will take the stage at Warner Bros. Discovery movie studio in Burbank, California. The event will be live-streamed on the Musk-owned website X.com.

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