Tesla just recently revealed its Robotaxi, It is an autonomous two-seater without steering wheel and pedals. Mr. Musk stated that it will become available in the market before 2027. However, the market reaction to Robotaxi was not positive, Tesla’s share price slumped 9% the following day. One reason according to JP Morgan is that full autonomous cars are still far away from making cash for the investors.
A growing number of cities have seen the emergence of robotaxi services in recent years. In America, Waymo, an Alphabet subsidiary, has exploded. It has a fleet of 700 self-driving taxis operating in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Phoenix after 15 years and possibly $30 billion in investment. Atlanta and Austin will shortly follow. Cruise, whose largest investor is General Motors, is farther back. Following an accident last year, regulators put the brakes on it, and it is now resuming tests in San Francisco. It also operates in Phoenix. Amazon’s contribution to autonomous travel, Zoox, is testing cars in five different places, including Miami and Las Vegas.
Autonomous cars have also gained popularity in China. The Chinese internet company Baidu’s robotaxi division, Apollo Go, began operations in Wuhan in 2022 and has since spread to eleven additional Chinese cities. By the end of the year, it hopes to quadruple its Wuhan fleet to 1,000 robotaxis. In a number of major cities, other Chinese companies are also experimenting with robotaxis, including Pony.ai, WeRide, and Didi, the largest ride-hailing company in the nation.
The cost of driving with self-driving cars is still too high. In the case of Waymo, the cost is 150,000 USD and two thirds of it comes from hardware. Its self-driving cars are equipped with batteries of expensive sensors such as radars and lidars. A significant amount of real estate is also needed close to city centers in order to charge, clean and maintain robotaxis.
Tesla Robotaxi is only reliant on cameras and image processing techniques. The cemara sights are then analyzed in a neural network of AI to prompt driving commands. Tesla says its robotaxis will cost under $30,000 and will be easier to transfer from one city to another.
Source: Taxi
