Monday announcement.
Elon Musk wants fully driverless Teslas running wild across the United States. Later this year. He doesn’t even want a human in the seat to hit the brakes.
He’s talking from Tel Aviv, via video, at the Smart Mobility Summit. The plan is straightforward: expand what they started in Texas. To the rest of the country. Within the year.
It sounds confident.
Tesla sales have slowed though.
Right now, these robotaxis only run in three Austin, Dallas, and Houston spots. They work there, Musk says. But Reuters reporters took a closer look. What they found was… less impressive. Long wait times. Cars disappearing off the grid entirely. Drop-off points that felt miles away from where the passenger actually wanted to go.
“So overwhelmingly, it’ll be a niche thing in ten years to actually drive your own car.”
That was the prediction. In five years? Maybe 90 percent of all miles will be AI-driven. Ten years out, holding the steering wheel becomes a hobby. A quaint, rare habit.
Musk is a guy who predicts bold timelines and rarely hits them. This isn’t new. Last November, Tesla got a permit for Arizona ride-hailing. Still, the optimism persists. Even while the NHTSA flags problems.
Like the recent recall of 218,861 vehicles.
Rearview camera feeds lag. Images arrive too late.
It increases crash risk. Simply put.
Waymo had to do something similar. Alphabet pulled nearly 4,000 robot taxis last week. Their sensors missed flooded roads. The cars drove in, faster than safe.
Safety concerns grow. Musk looks at Mars.
He used the stage to brag about SpaceX. Reusable rockets are close, he claims. If they pull it off this year? Fork in the road. Humanity becomes spacefaring. Costs plummet.
Then comes the body hacking.
Neuralink.
Later this year, the Blindsight implant gets into its first human. The goal: sight for the born blind or those with severe impairments.
Start limited, Musk promises. Eventually? Super-human vision. Precise vision. They are also working on making paralyzed people walk again.
Robots finish the thought. Humanoid ones.
In ten years, Musk expects them everywhere. Productivity skyrockets. Wages rise. Universal high income arrives, supposedly.
Who exactly checks the blind spot?
The cameras lag. The roads flood. The drop-off is three blocks too far. And yet the countdown continues. Musk sees a future where driving is archaic, a niche hobby for the brave or the nostalgic. He sees a world built on reusable rockets, neural chips, and metal workers in factories that humans don’t run anymore.
He expects it all by 2035.
Maybe.
Probably not.
