Elon Musk took the stage Thursday night during Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting the meeting And made some big claims and promises. The company allows owners to “text and drive” with “almost comfortable” fully self-driving (FSD), he said. Right now, its vehicles are still strictly monitoring drivers to make sure their eyes are on the road, but Musk said Tesla will enable unsupervised FSD that will allow texting and driving “within a month or two.”
Note that Tesla’s FSD is currently capable of Level 2 autonomous driving. Musk is promising at least a Level 4 capability, where the driver can be disengaged as the car performs all the driving tasks for them in a short amount of time. Although he said Tesla would look at its safety data first, he did not discuss the steps it is taking to enable texting while driving and whether it is already discussing its legality with regulators.
Talking about the CyberCab, Musk said that production of the Robotaxis will begin by April next year. Since it will be built specifically with autonomy in mind, it won’t have pedals, a steering wheel or even side mirrors. Cybercab’s manufacturing process, he explained, is vastly different from normal car production and more comparable to phone production. Because of that he thinks the company will be able to produce one unit every 10 seconds.
Elon Musk says Tesla owner
Musk also talked about the flying car he teased on Joe Rogan’s show. When asked at the event, he said the demo will now take place on April 1, 2026 instead of this month, as he told Rogan. It remains to be seen if we’re going to be April Fools, but Musk has claimed that production of Tesla’s flying vehicle will be a year or so after the unveiling. As always, take Kasturi’s claims with a grain of salt, as he is notorious for being overly ambitious with his deadlines.
As Musk spoke on stage about Tesla’s plans, an Optimus humanoid robot stood nearby. The CEO says Optimus is bound to be the “biggest product ever,” bigger than cellphones, “bigger than anything.” Tesla will start with a 1-million production line and then a 10-million production line, but he said the company hopes to eventually produce 100 million to a billion Optimus robots a year. He envisions a world where humanoid machines provide medical care to humans… as well as a world where instead of going to jail, Optimus follows criminals to stop them from committing more crimes.
Before Musk took the stage, Tesla shareholders voted to approve a pay package worth up to $1 trillion over the next 10 years. Tesla has had to achieve several goals for Musk to become the first trillionaire, though, including reaching a market value of $8.5 trillion from its current value of $1.4 billion and selling one million Optimus robots.
