Just now, the Musk Honor Battle has ended! The stunning release of the $30,000 Robotaxi, with Optimus Prime “serving tea and water” on the spot, has caused a sensation among netizens!

On October 11th Beijing time, after being delayed for more than 50 minutes, Tesla's highly anticipated Robotaxi Day finally started at Warner Bros. Studios. Before the start, Musk explained the reason for the delay on X: "There was a medical emergency in the crowd. We have dealt with it and will be setting off soon."

Elon Musk once said, "This will be a historic day." It was reported that Tesla had been collecting the latest map data there before the press conference. At the event, Musk finally unveiled the Robotaxi robot taxi Cybercab and the passenger and cargo van Robovan, while the humanoid robot Optimus also made a surprising appearance.

At the beginning of the event, Musk got into a car, which drove him through the movie shooting site. There were 20 Model Y cars parked on the site, as well as 30 self-driving Model Y cars.

Later, Musk took to the stage and officially announced that the Tesla Robotaxi will be named Cybercab. It does not have a steering wheel, pedals, or a plug. Musk stated that the self-driving rental car will be wirelessly charged through inductive charging. It is clear that Tesla has been promoting its electric vehicles to adopt wireless charging technology for a long time.

"Therefore, most of the time, cars can't do anything. But if they achieve autonomous driving, their utilization rate will increase fivefold, or even tenfold," Musk said. "As a result, the value of the same vehicle will increase fivefold, or even tenfold." He stated that vehicle owners can use their Cybercab as a ride-sharing tool to make money when not driving."

In terms of pricing, Musk stated that the cost of Cybercab is expected to be below $30,000 and will be available for public purchase. "Yes, you can buy one." Musk reiterated his previous statement that the cost of autonomous driving transportation will be very low, similar to "personalized public transportation." He believes that the average operating cost of Cybercab will be around $0.20 per mile over time.

In addition, Musk stated plans to begin fully self-driving Model 3 and Model Y services in Texas and California "next year." He admitted to being overly optimistic with timelines but anticipates the Cybercab to enter production by 2026 or "before 2027."

Musk also unveiled an unexpected new vehicle: a passenger and freight truck. This autonomous truck will be used for Tesla's Tesla Network, which is a service designed for autonomous driving vehicles and for Tesla customers to call for a ride with their personal vehicles.

It is very different from traditional trucks. The Tesla Robovan (Musk emphasized the "bo" sound) has a sleek shape, similar to a high-speed train front, with no visible wheels. Musk said that the vehicle can carry up to 20 people and can also be used for transporting goods.

"Robovan can solve the issue of high density," Musk said. "So if you want to take a sports team somewhere, or if you truly want to reduce travel costs to 5 to 10 cents per mile, then you can use robovan."

Tesla has previously hinted at developing a van. In the second part of its master plan, the company stated that it is working on developing "high-density urban transport" and hinted at deploying autonomous buses. Earlier this year, Musk showed a picture of an invisible van at the company's annual shareholder meeting.

With the recent releases of the Volkswagen ID Buzz and the Mercedes eSprinter, the electric cargo van sector is heating up. In the commercial field, there are also the Ram ProMaster EV, Ford E-Transit, and BrightDrop Zevo.

Elon Musk once stated that he firmly believes in the transformative power of Robotaxi, and deems it worthy to bet Tesla's financial future on this product. He also expects that this business has the potential to raise Tesla's valuation to $5 trillion. In other words, Tesla is betting the company's future on the success of Robotaxi.

The launch of Robotaxi is part of Tesla's "full steam ahead towards achieving autonomous driving" plan this year. Prior to this, the company stopped prioritizing the production of $25,000 electric cars and laid off 10% of its workforce (including most of the charging team). However, Musk's vision for the future of autonomous driving has been in place for many years, which is also a key reason why investors price Tesla's stock as a tech company rather than a car manufacturer.

However, some netizens also expressed, "It is very extravagant, full of a futuristic feeling, and absolutely very cool! But Wall Street believes that it lacks any content that can contribute to the company's profitability in the next two years. Tesla hasn't even showcased ride-hailing applications or the so-called affordable models expected to begin production within a few months. If the stock price plummets tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised."

In the second half of the event, Tesla showcased its Optimus robot. A video was shown demonstrating the robot carrying out daily human tasks, such as fetching packages from the porch.

"Optimus will walk among you." Tesla's Optimus robot was on-site delivering drinks to the attendees. Musk stated that these robots will interact with the guests at the event, and he urged the guests to treat the robots "kindly."

"I believe this will be the greatest product of all time," Musk said. Tesla also showcased a performance of a robot dancing to Daft Punk music.

Elon Musk announced that Optimus robot has made great progress, and the cost of mass-produced Optimus robot will be around 20,000 to 30,000 US dollars. Earlier reports suggested that the robot is expected to complete "useful tasks" by the end of this year. Musk has also stated that by the end of 2025, this product will be available for purchase.

"A netizen commented, 'Although the details of the self-driving taxi / unmanned driving FSD are disappointing, and knowing that there was a human controlling Optimus' actions and voice in this demonstration, the progress they have made in development / flexibility is impressive. It is definitely worth it.'"

The Robotaxi project was originally scheduled to be launched in August but was postponed until now. Some analysts had previously pointed out that this would divert the company's attention because the focus should be on releasing low-cost electric vehicles (EVs).

In recent years, there have been reports that Tesla is developing these two types of cars. However, according to Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk, Musk has not yet produced a fully autonomous driving car, and he is hesitant about whether to prioritize regular cars or cars without a steering wheel or pedals.

In 2022, Musk opposed his engineers' insistence on incorporating cars with steering wheels and pedals. Isaacson wrote that while he continued to advance, Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and VP of Engineering Lars Moravy still kept more traditional car versions as "shadow projects."

Over the years, Musk has been promising that Tesla cars will have self-driving capabilities. In December 2015, Musk stated that Tesla was only two years away from achieving fully autonomous driving (which was not achieved). In 2016, he claimed that Tesla would be able to autonomously drive across the US by the end of 2017 (which was not achieved). In 2019, he promised to launch the company's first self-driving taxi as part of the broader vision for a 2020 self-driving ride-sharing network (which was also not achieved). Several years later, he stated that a dedicated self-driving taxi without a steering wheel or pedals would be launched in 2024.

"After discussing the concept of Robotaxi for a long time without specific details, there will definitely be a lot of arguments," said Jessica Caldwell from edmunds.com. Therefore, this press conference is also highly anticipated by the public.

FSD is Tesla's self-driving research and development system, which includes many autonomous driving functions. However, it still requires the driver to be ready to take control at any time, including parking functions, automatic driving navigation, etc. In December 2023, Tesla officially launched FSDBetaV12, the first system to achieve end-to-end AI autonomous driving, adopting a single deep learning model to process the entire process from raw input to driving decisions.

In March this year, Tesla rolled out the FSD V12 (Supervised) version to some users in the United States. By June, Tesla provided its employees with the latest FSD v12.4.1, and planned to open testing to "a small group of external users" over the weekend. On September 5th, Tesla's AI team announced to foreign media that they anticipate launching a fully autonomous FSD system in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, subject to regulatory approval.

It is worth noting that autonomous driving taxis developed by competitors such as Waymo under Google's parent company Alphabet are already operating on some roads in the United States. This also means that Tesla has a long way to go to prove that it can launch a self-driving car that can compete with rivals like Waymo.

Before the Tesla conference, Kyle Vogt, founder of the American self-driving car company Cruise Automation, posted, "I don't know what we will see tonight. What I know is that it takes a lot of work to move from making cars drive without intervention in most situations to establishing a safe, robust, and legal robotaxi network that integrates well with local communities."

Kyle also proposed 15 key points that the new robotaxi company needs to pay attention to: traffic congestion, collision detection, coverage of artificial intelligence, emergency personnel, connectivity interruption, sensor cleaning, degradation status, congestion control, emergency vehicle detection, long-tail detection, liability, regulation and licensing, severe weather conditions, roadside parking, and local laws.

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