Journalist Steve LeVine discusses Elon Musk's strategic pivot at Tesla away from mass-market electric vehicles toward robotaxis and humanoid robotics.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elon Musk scrapped Tesla's Model 2 on the spot for the robotaxi
“When he saw the robotaxi, he was so bowled over by whatever it was he saw in it, right, that he remarked to his to his team, wow, you know, this looks great. Let's just do this. He scrapped the Model Two on the spot, and he said, let's do the robotaxi. We're d…”
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Tesla insiders doubt the robotaxi is ready to operate without pedals
“No one outside the company and no one inside the company who I spoke to anyway believes that the robotaxi is ready to be without a steering wheel, without pedals, and even if it were ready, that is ready for regulators are ready to say, yeah, go.”
Opinion
Firing the Supercharger team to bet on autonomous tech is irrational
“You get rid of the team responsible for your most valuable asset, and
You put all the bets of your company, you bet the company on a technology that isn't anywhere near ready for the market.
All of these things together, they're not rational.
They are not rati…”
Opinion
Delayed affordable cars and unready robotaxis create a crisis for Tesla
“I think it is a crisis. If you don't have the Model Two, and you don't have new affordable vehicles to bring out by the first quarter of next year like you promised, and you can't do the robo-taxi on time, what do you have? What are you going to say next year?…”
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Tesla Roadster engineers learned of Musk's revised acceleration specs on Twitter
“He decided to Himself without, without telling anyone else that that it's gonna go twice as fast as I said before, so instead of going from zero to 60 in 1.9 seconds, which is very fast, like, think in your mind how long Okay, that was about two seconds, like …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Elon Musk targeted a late 2025 launch for Tesla's robotaxi
“So suddenly, he doesn't, not only wants the robo-taxi, but he wants it at the same time that the Model Two would have come out, which is the second half of next year.”