Huge setback to Elon Musk could leave billionaire forced to press pause on project he's been working on over a decade
Doesn't sound like he'll be popping the champagne in June
While Elon Musk's position as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency has called his role as the CEO of Tesla into question, it doesn't look like the world's richest man is leaving his EV baby behind anytime soon.
The world's richest man has claimed he'll soon be stepping back from politics to focus on Tesla, although there are continued calls from top investors saying he should be fired, alongside wild claims that the company is searching for someone to replace him.
Elon Musk is on the charm offensive, and keen to take the spotlight away from legal troubles with Tesla vehicles, he's been promoting other avenues like the Optimus robots.
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Unfortunately for the tech billionaire, there could be more Tesla troubles as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) could pump the brakes on his plans for Full Self-Driving Tesla Robotaxis.
During a damning April earnings call where Musk had to address Tesla's 70% slump in profits, the company overlord made big promises about "selling fully autonomous rides in June in Austin," adding that it would be "maybe ten or 20 vehicles on day one." This was hyped as rolling out to 'millions' of Teslas by the second half of 2026, but as June looms, that date is looking more unlikely by the day.
Hearing about the FSD rollout on robotaxis, the NHTSA has written a letter to Tesla and asked for additional information. Highlighting its investigations into four crashes and a pedestrian incident involving FDS, the NHTSA wants to "understand how Tesla plans to evaluate its vehicles and driving automation technologies for use on public roads" before it approves of Robotaxis on the streets of Austin.
Futurism reminds us that Musk has been pushing full autonomy since 2014, adding that a wide array of 'nagging obstacles' are in the way before it reaches that goal, let alone a Waymo rival ride-hailing service that Tesla’s Robotaxis are clearly aiming to be.
The news was welcomed by Musk critics like Dan O'Dowd. O'Dowd is the founder of The Dawn Project, whose site accuses: "Anyone who buys a Tesla from Elon Musk is an enabler for his reckless behavior, including his self-driving experiments that have resulted in over 1,000 crashes." Posting on X about the NHTSA inquiry, O'Dowd wrote: "You can almost hear Elon's sigh of relief. He now has an excuse for canceling Tesla's June Robotaxi launch."
Although Tesla has boasted about testing over 1,500 trips and 15,000 miles of autonomous driving to expand the FSD network, the Daily Mail says the NHTSA is 'alarmed' that the Robotaxi program is being based on the existing FSD framework.
Considering the NHTSA was already concerned about the FSD Supervised system that demands the driver keep their hands on the wheel to take control at any time, the alarm bells are ringing that Robotaxis could go with an unsupervised version.
Among the NHTSA's demands, it wants to know how similar FSD Unsupervised is to the software it's currently investigating, the size of the Robotaxi fleet, which Tesla models will be used, and what safety measures Tesla has put in place.