“an important design change to the front” and the opportunity to “show off a few other things” were two of the items that the CEO desired to have additional time for.
In a statement released on Monday, Elon Musk announced that the robotaxi event that was supposed to take place in August has been moved to October. The Chief Executive Officer responded to a user’s post on X, which is the former Twitter platform that he owns, by saying that he “requested what I believe to be an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things.”
What was reported by Bloomberg the previous week appears to be echoed in Musk’s X post. In an article published on July 11, the magazine asserted that delaying the event will provide Tesla with additional time to construct further prototypes. In addition, it was stated that the business had informed its employees about the delay, and that the design team had been instructed to “rework certain elements of the car.” This instruction appears to be Musk’s order to alter the front design of the vehicle.
It was announced by the CEO at the beginning of April that the Tesla Robotaxi would be presented to the public on August 8th. The teaser was released on the same day that Reuters claimed that Tesla was abandoning a planned affordable vehicle with a price tag of $25,000 (which is commonly referred to in the industry as the vehicle 2) in lieu of a full-court drive for robotaxis. The assertion that Reuters was “lying” was made by Musk, although he did not provide any specific grounds of issue.
After a few weeks had passed, Tesla made “more than 10 percent” of the company’s workforce, which consisted of more than 140,000 employees at the time. Musk issued a warning to the workers that “we need to be absolutely hard core about headcount and cost reduction.” The layoffs were announced two weeks after the news of the layoffs leaked. The electric vehicle manufacturer let rid of two top executives. Additionally, he stated, “While some on executive staff are taking this seriously, the majority of them are not yet doing so.” This statement was interpreted as a threat.
In the first half of 2024, Tesla delivered nearly seven percent less vehicles than it did in the same period in 2023, and in the second quarter, the company produced nearly fifteen percent fewer vehicles than it did in the same period.