Elon Musk Claims Tesla Is Releasing Its Self-Driving Robotaxi This Year

Elon Musk has revealed that Tesla will unveil the highly anticipated robotaxi just in time for the summer season.

On Friday, Musk hopped on X to announce the vehicle that the business mogul has been talking about for several years. The announcement comes at an interesting time as Tesla continues to deal with a period of slow growth that has investors suspicious.

"Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8," Musk tweeted.

The tweet helped Tesla see shares rise over 4.8 percent. The announcement also came after Musk called out Reuters for "lying" in an article that claimed Tesla would stop development of its cheaper electric car.

Musk has been promising full autonomy vehicles since 2016 when he said Tesla cars will be able to drive cross-country without human intervention by the end of 2017. He then said in 2019 that drivers wouldn't need to pay attention to the road due to how advanced the self-driving tech in the car would be.

As recently as this year, Musk claimed Tesla was "very close to achieving full self-driving without human supervision" and that it would have a full realization of fully autonomous vehicles "later this year," but nothing has come about since then.

Tesla will also be seeing some competition in the robotaxi industry. General Motors recently developed Cruise, which gave consumers a self-driving rideshare service that started last year in California. Another self-driving rideshare service, Waymo, has begun operating in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Investors will be keeping an eye on Tesla as they had the worst-performing major stock in 2024, dropping more than 30 percent according to Forbes.