An old clip of Elon Musk is resurfacing online—and it’s causing fresh embarrassment for Tesla as it prepares to launch its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.
The service, which Musk had earlier hailed as the future of transportation, is now scheduled to be launched tentatively on June 22. But the cars used in the test, slightly modified Model Y SUVs, will not be self-driving. They will instead be teleoperated by humans in case of issues and confined to geofenced, simple-to-navigate territories.
That is where the irony comes in. A 2019 video of Musk at Tesla’s shareholder meeting has resurfaced, where he mocked the very idea of geofencing: “If you need a geofence area, you don’t have real self-driving!” he declared.
Now, six years later, Musk says the robotaxis will only operate in the “safest” parts of Austin, admitting to CNBC, “So we will geofence it.” The inconsistency highlights a familiar trend: Musk constantly moving the goalposts on Tesla’s so-called Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.
Even after ten years of assurances that full autonomy was just around the corner, Tesla cars still have trouble with simple driving activities. Independent tests, such as a shocking demonstration by Tesla watchdog group The Dawn Project, demonstrate that the cars continue to fail key safety tests, such as running over a child-sized mannequin near a school bus.
Tesla executives are seemingly using more optics than substance to ensure investor confidence. In a recent promotional photo, a safety driver was cropped out, misleadingly suggesting that the car was autonomous.
As EV sales plummet and the company faces financial pressure, Tesla is putting its eggs in the robotaxi basket. However, as the Austin launch suggests, the company might be as far away as ever when it comes to full autonomy, despite its claims.
