Elon Musk on Robotaxis 2019 vs. 2025 | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk on Robotaxis 2019 vs. 2025

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5 pointsTheAlchemist11 comments

The gap between promise and delivery isn't just about technical challenges but also regulatory hurdles - no major jurisdiction has approved fully driverless commercial robotaxi services without significant restrictions.

Tesla is having exactly the same regulatory hurdles on Robotaxi deployment as me. In both cases they are nonexistent. And we both don't have the technology necessary for running a Robotaxi service.

Tesla knows that damn well. That's why they did NOT even try to apply for any driverless commercial robotaxi service license. But hey, it's a nice plausible argument.

Here a recent story about a similar argument: https://electrek.co/2025/07/11/elon-musk-tesla-robotaxi-is-c...

Relevant quotes:

"The CEO also said that Tesla will bring Robotaxi to the Bay Area in California with “a month or two” and that the company is just waiting for “regulatory approvals”:"

" The CA DMV said that Tesla has yet to apply for those permits as of Thursday, July 10:

“To date, Tesla has not applied for either a driverless testing or deployment permit.”"

It's playing to Elon's narrative to even mention regulatory hurdles when it's clear they aren't technically there either. He'd love if they were banned because FSD is still completely unreliable and his 10 robotaxis have already had many documented issues. Unfortunately hard to keep his story with waymo running actual Robotaxis with no employees in them.

Elon Musk on Robotaxis in 2019 to investors: "I feel very confident predicting 1 million autonomous robo-taxis for Tesla next year,"

Elon Musk on Robotaxis in 2025 to investors: "We have done what we said we were going to do. That doesn't mean we're always on time, but we get it done. And our naysayers are sitting there with egg on their face."

Tesla launched a 'Robotaxi Service' which is:

- operating in a geofenced area in Austin, with a fleet of ~10 cars

- not open to public, only to Tesla influencers

- having a 'safety driver' inside the car with a finger constantly on an emergency stop button

- operating during clement weather

In the meantime, he became the richest person in the world selling those lies to gullible investors.

Ps. Sorry for posting so much about Tesla, but I feel like not enough people realize how scammy this whole thing is.

Turns out the lies don’t matter. Disappointing for sure.

He just said, on the Tesla investors call, that they are on track to have 'unsupervised FSD in US, by ... the end of the year'.

He said the same thing for 11 straight YEARS.

Yeah, disappointing for the state of the world we live in.

> Sorry for posting so much about Tesla, but I feel like not enough people realize how scammy this whole thing is.

Much of HN speaks on behalf of their investing portfolio and not logic or righteousness.

A lof ot HN is also probably younger people that never experience a bubble pop. And it's very easy to start to believe this bullshit when the stock (or everything for that matter) is going up.

In the long term however the reality always catches up.

I think that's social media for you.

Brave predictions (that cost nothing even if your wrong) are glorified before they've even done anything.

There was a story posted on HN about someone who said they thought they'd start a company making laptops and zero indication they would / could do that. The emphasis on empty "predictions" is weird.

I completely understand brave predictions for a small startup - I believe we (as individuals and as society) should encourage risk taking.

But this is a mature company that's part of S&P 500. There are laws, and for very good reasons, that regulates what such companies and their CEOs can say. Somehow, those laws don't apply to Tesla and Musk so far, and they got to touch billions of public money by straight up lying.

Where are the Zoox knob-polishers? One of these social media phenomena is not like the others. One of them has metastasized from clever guerilla marketing to a malignant cult and stock-pumping op.

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