Tesla-owner Elon Musk is set to unveil the design of its new robotaxi at Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, California on Thursday.

The event, called “We, Robot,” is happening at 7pm Pacific time, with the audience expecting to see the chief executive showing the firm’s new technology that will passengers without a driver.

Musk said on X the event will be live streamed.

The news comes after other companies including Alphabet's Waymo and GM's Cruise have already begun the production and road rollout of driverless cars.

Musk's project, on the other hand, has suffered a number of delays, as the company had originally planned the launch for August.

Explaining the reason for the delays on X, Musk said: “Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things.”

Because of this, expectations around the event to show some real signs of progress are high and analysts are speculating on the event’s outcome.

"There is certainly heavy build-up after discussing the Robotaxi concept without concrete details for so long," Jessica Caldwell of edmunds.com, the US online resource for automotive information, told the BBC. "The expectation is that this event should clear the air on the concept.”

The BBC said it tried and failed to secure an invitation to Tesla’s event, with journalists including an anchor at Bloomberg TV personally asking Musk to cover the event in a Twitter post – but failing as well.

In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer services to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.

In February, Waymo announced it had recalled software previously used in its autonomous vehicle fleet after two cars crashed into the same pickup truck.

The company said that in December, a Waymo robotaxi driving in Phoenix, United States hit a backwards facing pickup truck being “improperly towed” ahead of the car so that the truck was persistently angled across a centre turn lane and a traffic lane.

https://nationaltechnology.co.uk/Waymo_Recalls_Robotaxi_Software.php

At the time, Waymo said that its entire fleet was updated with software to address this “rare issue” between December 20, 2023 and January 12, 2024.

In September, Waymo reported on its website that there were over 22 million rider-only miles driven through the end of June, with the Waymo Driver involved in 84 per cent fewer crashes with airbag deployment, 73 per cent fewer injury-causing crashes, and 48 per cent fewer police-reported crashes compared to human drivers.

Earlier this month, Waymo confirmed the appointment of Tesla’s former head of vehicle programmes responsible for product and programme management of all Tesla vehicles Daniel Ho, who joined the firm as programme director.

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