Tesla announces robotaxi service for June 2025

Tesla plans to launch cheaper cars in the first half of 2025. In addition, an autonomous driving service with the new Cybercab will be launched as early as June, albeit initially as a test.

"In June, Teslas will be driving around Austin without anyone in them," Musk said in a conference call. Musk did not give any details about the paid service. Tesla unveiled a prototype of the Cybercab in October. The seemingly small vehicle, which has no steering wheel or pedals, was surprisingly a two-seater, with fewer seats than a normal taxi. Series production is planned for 2026 and will take place at the Gigafactory in Texas, Tesla announced last night.

"Our purpose-built Robotaxi product - Cybercab - will continue to pursue a revolutionary "unboxed" manufacturing strategy and is scheduled for volume production starting in 2026." (Tesla Shareholder Deck for Q4 2024)

Gallery: Tesla Cybercab

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Source: Tesla

Customers in the Europe will probably be most interested to hear that Tesla plans to launch new, more affordable models in the first half of 2025. This announcement confirms Elon Musk's announcement from April 2024, when Tesla cancelled its plans to build a Model 2 based on a new, more affordable platform. Instead, Musk wanted to focus more on the Robotaxi and also build more affordable models based on the current platforms.

"Plans for new vehicles, including more affordable models, remain on track for start of production in the first half of 2025. These vehicles will utilize aspects of the next generation platform as well as aspects of our current platforms and will be produced on the same manufacturing lines as our current vehicle line-up." (Tesla Shareholder Deck as of Q4 2024)

There were no new details on these vehicles. However, Tesla said that the average production cost of building a car in the fourth quarter was the lowest it has ever been. This was largely due to lower raw material costs. According to a chart in the Shareholder Deck, Tesla's production costs have fallen from just under $39,000 to around $33,000 over the past two years.

Tesla production costs: development from the beginning of 2023 to the end of 2024 (according to the company)

Photo by: Tesla

Lower costs seem to have helped Tesla cope better with last year's disappointing sales. For the first time, the manufacturer delivered fewer electric cars in 2024 than in the previous year, but only slightly.

However, the electric car specialist expects demand to pick up again in 2025. The facelift should help make the Model Y the world's best-selling car across all powertrains again, according to the Q4 Shareholder Deck. This was the case in 2023, but last year the title went to the Toyota Corolla, as reported by Focus2Move, albeit without the December data.

While Tesla always reports its production and sales figures immediately after the end of each quarter, the annual report always follows a few weeks later. Yesterday evening, US time, that time had come. As reported by Reuters, earnings and revenue for the fourth quarter were worse than Wall Street had expected. Nevertheless, the stock quickly turned positive after initial losses - it is possible that Tesla's lower costs and future plans have caught on.

More Tesla headlines:

New Tesla Model Y: Booming orders in China, criticism in the US

The strange case of Tesla Cybertrucks and rejected trade-ins

Refreshed Tesla Model Y arrives in the UK with £60,990 launch edition

Tesla put a steering wheel in a Cybercab - what's going on?

The bottom line

Elon Musk's announcements are sometimes very specific, but they must be taken with a grain of salt. We had to wait years longer than promised for the brand's latest models, the Semi and the Cybertruck, and it has long been a truism that full self-driving is still not what the name promises.

We are almost tempted to bet that by the first half of 2025 there will be no more affordable models, or only a slimmed-down Model 3 and Model Y. We are also sceptical about the Robotaxi. For the reasons mentioned above, but also because the Cybertruck only has two seats and autonomous driving doesn't seem to be making any real progress. It will probably be years before anything really comes of it.