TapTechNews July 16th news, previously there was news that the release time of Tesla's driverless taxi, Robotaxi, prototype sample car would be postponed from the original August 8th to October. Today, Elon Musk confirmed this news, claiming that they will make a series of important design changes to the car, which is expected to bring a sci-fi exterior design similar to the Cybertruck pickup.
The idea of launching an autonomous taxi service has been brewing at Tesla for many years, at least dating back to Elon Musk's Master Plan Part Deux written for Tesla in 2016. Elon Musk has prioritized this series of projects in recent months rather than developing a cheaper electric car Model 2 than Tesla's current Model 3.
However, now the postponement of Robotaxi implies that Tesla is facing challenges. After the previous news of the postponement of the Robotaxi prototype sample car was exposed, the company's stock price dropped rapidly, with a daily decline of 8.44% and a market capitalization shrinkage of about 70 billion US dollars (about 500 billion Chinese yuan), returning to the pre-release state overnight.
Referring to TapTechNews' previous reports, currently Tesla is testing related camera sensor tests in the North California area of the United States. Referring to TapTechNews' previous reports, recently a user on Reddit witnessed a Tesla Model 3 test car with multiple suspicious cameras installed. As can be seen from the photos, this test car has three cameras in unique positions, seemingly conducting tests on the camera positions for Robotaxi to assess the autonomous driving performance.