Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO known for his out-of-the-box ideas, has announced a vision for the future that spells the death of driving as we know it.
On the company’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday, Musk said the current business model of cars piloted by people is nearing its end and will be replaced by self-driving electric vehicles with next-generation technology, no steering wheels, and no brake pedals.
“We’ve made very clear that the future is autonomous electric vehicles,” Musk said.
He went on to compare piloted vehicles to horses as a means of transportation and said the trend toward autonomous vehicles will appear obvious in retrospect.
“Non-autonomous gasoline vehicles in the future will be like riding a horse and using a flip phone. It’s not that there are no horses,” he said. “There are some horses, but they’re unusual. They’re niche.”
Musk’s comments come after Tesla earlier this month announced its autonomous robotaxi, the Cybercab, along with a self-driving Robovan for bigger groups. Some analysts criticized the supposedly autonomous vehicles for running on a controlled, closed course during their unveiling. But Musk said Wednesday that the robotaxi was already being tested by employees on San Francisco streets.
Musk added during the call that he believes car companies that are not focusing on autonomous vehicles will pay the price in the future.
“A lot of automotive companies or most automotive companies have not internalized this, which is surprising, because we’ve been shouting this from the rooftops for such a long time, and it will accrue to their detriment in the future,” he said.
Musk promised that in the future all of Tesla’s vehicles will be autonomous. Of the 7 million Tesla vehicles on the road, he said a “vast majority” are capable of being autonomous. Musk has previously said that with an upgrade to Tesla’s FSD (Full Self-Driving) software, customers can “soon” look forward to a full year of driving without ever having to touch the steering wheel.
He also took a shot at Waymo, which analysts have pointed to as an example of self-driving technology that is already on the roads following Tesla’s robotaxi announcement.
“We’re currently making on the order of 35,000 autonomous vehicles a week. Compare that to, say, Waymo’s entire fleet is less than—[they] have less than 1,000 cars,” Musk said.
During the call analysts also asked about the long-promised $25,000 EV that Tesla reportedly scrapped earlier this year. While Tesla said in its earnings report that “more affordable models” will be launched in the first half of next year, Musk made it clear that a low-cost EV without autonomous capabilities would be a step backward.
“I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless,” he said. “It would be silly. Like, it’ll be completely at odds with what we believe.”