Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced at an investor event Monday that he expects the company to operate robo-taxis next year.
The full self-driving vehicles would compete with ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. Musk pitched the robo-taxis as a way for Tesla owners to make money when they aren’t using their vehicles.
Tesla’s program would let a Tesla owner rent out their vehicle for rides, with Tesla taking a cut of the revenue and the rest of the money going to the vehicle’s owner.
“It’s financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla,” Musk said. “It’ll be like owning a horse in three years.”
Tesla forecasted the robo-taxis would last 11 years, drive 1 million miles and make $30,000 gross profit per car annually.
It’s another aggressive prediction from Musk about Tesla’s technology. His company has missed a previous self-imposed deadline for having an autonomous Tesla drive across the country. Musk also said he expects to convince regulators by the end of next year that self-driving Teslas are sufficiently safer than a human driver.
Musk also acknowledged his pattern of missing deadlines.
“The only criticism and it’s a fair one, sometimes I’m not on time. But I get it done and the Tesla team gets it done,” Musk said.
