Tesla is betting on unmanned cars again
By ForGeeks
Tesla is stepping on the gas again. After a period of slow growth and suspended factory projects, Elon Musk has announced that the company is going to accelerate electric car production as much as possible. The reason for this abrupt turnaround — a sudden newfound, Musk says, «clarity» about Tesla’s main goal: full autonomous driving. He is confident that when Tesla cars can drive without human input, demand for them will skyrocket.
This statement is in stark contrast to the sentiment of recent years. After a period of rapid growth, Tesla has faced declining sales. The company, which once dreamed of producing 20 million cars a year by 2030, is now able to produce less than 3 million electric vehicles annually, while only utilizing about 60% of its capacity. Declining demand has forced Tesla to freeze major projects, including the construction of a gigafactory in Mexico.
At the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call, Musk explained why he changed his stance. He said he was reluctant to expand production until he was confident that Tesla could achieve a level of «unsupervised autopilot». Now, he claims, that confidence has emerged. Musk said he is «100 percent confident» of solving the challenge of full autonomous driving — although he has made similar claims annually for six years in a row.
Musk said he was not sure if Tesla would be able to achieve full autonomous driving.
The new strategy is based on what Musk calls «a killer app» for Tesla. It all, he believes, comes down to one simple question: «Is it possible to send messages while driving? » He believes that if the car becomes so smart that the driver can use the phone safely, demand for Tesla will skyrocket. «Anyone who can buy such a car will buy one. Period» —Musk stated.
The key element of this plan will be the futuristic Cybercab —a fully autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. Musk claims that this particular project will be a major growth area and expects to start production in the second quarter of 2026. However, if Tesla fails to realize fully autonomous driving by then, the Cybercab will be useless.
Mask also confirmed that he plans to remove the supervisor operator from Tesla’s robotaxi in Austin by the end of the year and open up access to «unsupervised autopilot» to all customers. That presents engineers with a monumental challenge —because no one has yet managed to bring this technology to real reliability.
The entire auto industry is watching as Tesla tries to redefine the very concept of a car. By betting on software, Musk is effectively moving the company from a production volume race to a technology race. For investors and employees, we can only hope that this story doesn’t end with another failure like the Cybertruck.
