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Comment by mg | Hacker News Reader

It seems the focus of Tesla has mostly shifted to operating robotaxis.

What is everybody's guess when they will have the first robotaxi on the road somewhere, offering rides without a safety driver? Could be interesting to look back in the future and see how close or how far off we have been with our guesses.

My feeling is that it will happen in about 2.5 years. Could be next year, could be in 5 years. So if I had to guess, I'd say in 2.5 years.

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Wasn’t Tesla pushing the whole robotaxi ‘coming soon’ thing as early as 2015? I wouldn’t say the focus has really shifted since then

Never.

Given priors:

- Same stonk pump in 2018, famously Elon called Teslas appreciating assets because of the looming robotaxi release. Shared screenshots of a ridehail app.

- No action on a ton of precursors for this to happen, in hardware or software. My favorite is "do the cameras have wipers yet?", because its simple and intuitive.

I also have the feeling that there is a good chance Tesla cars built in 2024 won't become robotaxis. But that is a different question.

My guess is about the first car using Tesla software to offer commercial rides. No matter when it was build or who built it. Because the most interesting part is the software.

Thats fair, and apologies, I edited that bit out as you were replying. (for posterity, at the end I had a stronger claim saying I was happy to put 6 figures on Teslas shipped in 2024 will never have a paid ride without someones hands on the wheel. Then I remembered that was irrelevant :P )

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