Tesla to Host “We, Robot” Event on October 10, Robotaxi Unveil Expected

Tesla has started sending out invitations to an event in Los Angeles on October 10, at which it will show off its autonomous Robotaxi for the first time. The event comes after Tesla postponed a previously announced August target. The highly anticipated Robotaxi has been the subject of much speculation, particularly thanks to hype generated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk online. 

In a post to the social media site he also owns and runs, Musk only teased “This will be one for the history books”, with an image of what looks like a camera lens filled with 1s and 0s. The name “We, Robot” is an obvious reference to “I, Robot”, the iconic collection of science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov. Musk also publicly prioritised the Robotaxi project over a previously planned Tesla car which would have been its lowest-cost model, and was likely to have been part of the company's previously expected push into emerging markets such as India. 

Not much is known about Tesla’s first vehicle built specifically for autonomous driving. It has not yet been confirmed whether the vehicle will ditch driver controls entirely, and whether Robotaxi will be its final name. It is likely to resemble the Cybertruck. The company has been offering early versions of its Full Self Driving software for several years now, but its current cars still cannot drive completely unattended; a selling point that Tesla has been working towards. The company added “Supervised” to the feature’s name earlier this year 

The event is likely to be held at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, Los Angeles, where a disguised vehicle reported to be the Robotaxi was spotted being tested just over a week ago. A promotional video tweeted by Musk in May this year shows sketches of a car interior without a steering wheel, which might turn out to be the Robotaxi.

Tesla will eventually be competing with Uber, Waymo, and GM’s Cruise Automation in the autonomous taxi space in the US. It is not yet known how soon after the October 10 event Tesla will begin deploying Robotaxi vehicles, what level of driving autonomy it has achieved, how it intends to run the service, and which cities or towns it intends to operate in.