It would be the first commercial use of autonomous Tesla vehicles without security drivers. For Musk, this start marks the provisional end of an almost ten -year start full of delays and missed appointments on the way to autonomous driving. This epic attempt has set Tesla under enormous pressure to succeed: the robotaxi start is not successful, the electric car maker threatens a massive loss of credibility-economically and strategically. In the development of self-driving cars, Tesla has a fundamentally different course than almost all competitors. While industry pioneers such as Waymo rely on a mix of high-precision laser sensors (lidar), radar, numerous cameras and detailed HD cards, Tesla almost exclusively relies on cameras and artificial intelligence. Musk’s argument: A software controlled by neuronal networks that records and interpret the traffic processes with camera images is more scalable and inexpensive than the competition-and also usable everywhere, but the time is not forced and the competition does not sleep: competitor Waymo conquers the US market, Volkswagen sends the autonomous ID. Starts the second attempt with partners such as VW and Wayve. But Tesla wants to take the big abbreviation: Without months of testing in tight test areas, standard model Y with new FSD software should be able to drive “where it is safe”. Musk announced that the robot taxis would be restricted to certain zones in Austin and digitally fence with geofencing. Also, an operator by radio should always be connected to every car in order to control remotely if necessary. But the claim remains to solve autonomous driving as a general AI problem-not as a local special solution. Elon Musk sees far more than just a comfort function in autonomous driving. It is the core of Tesla’s future business strategy. Already in 2019, he outlined the idea of a Tesla robotaxi fleet in which vehicle owners can provide their cars for profit sharing for driving services-a kind of Uber without a driver, operated via a Tesla platform. Such a model could change the automotive industry: Instead of earning once on the car sale, Tesla waves new income on every autonomous trip. Investors have accused Musk accordingly golden times. Should it be possible to bring fully autonomous driving to market maturity, Tesla would become the operator of a global mobility service from the pure car manufacturer – with potentially high profit margins. Each car sold would then be no longer an end product, but part of a value chain over the entire service life. If Teslas fails Robotaxi-Plan, the company would face sensitive consequences. Investors would re -evaluate the ambitious future visions that Tesla’s evaluation has so far borne. Without the view of a leading role in autonomous driving, Tesla would only be an electric car manufacturer who was once a pioneer, but whose position is pressed by the competition from Asia and Europe. The times when Tesla is more worth it on the stock exchange than all car manufacturers in the world would be just as history as Elon Musk’s personal reputation as a techvision. FAZ-BMDieses topic-and many other exciting developments in AI economy-we will be on our 2nd f.a.Z. AI conference on 2nd/3rd Discuss in Frankfurt in July 2025. Special guest of our conference is Federal Minister of Digital Dr. Karsten Wildberger. We also discuss with Richard Socher, the CEO and founder of you.com, why agents fundamentally simplify the use of AI. A master class with the AI agents is also not missing, as does answers to the question of what challenges the industry has to cope with in the AI age and what the AI does with the jobs. It goes along here. We look forward to seeing you! Holger Schmidt
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