Elon Musk in New Interview: Robotaxis Widespread by Year-End

Elon Musk in New Interview: Robotaxis Widespread by Year-End, AI Will Drive 90% of Miles in 10 Years Elon Musk made a virtual appearance at the Samson International Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv on Monday, delivering some bold predictions regarding the future of autonomy and robotics.

Speaking via video link from Texas at 2 AM, Musk outlined a roadmap where manual driving becomes a relic of the past and unsupervised Full Self-Driving expands rapidly across the United States. A Niche Thing to Drive

During the interview, Musk offered his vision for the next decade of transportation. As expected, he predicted a shift away from human-operated vehicles. Five years from now and certainly 10 years from now... probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car, Musk stated.

He added that because the vehicle will simply take you to your destination, itll be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car.

Robotaxi Expansion

To back up that ten-year timeline, Musk pointed to the progress of Teslas Robotaxi fleet. He confirmed that Tesla already has fully unsupervised vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three Texas cities: Austin, Houston, and Dallas.

When asked about the timeline for expansion, Musk projected that unsupervised FSD services would become widespread in the US by the end of this year and noted that he hopes to bring FSD to Israel as well.

More Robots Than Humans

The conversation also pivoted to the broader application of AI and robotics. Musk has frequently referred to Teslas vehicles as four-wheeled robots, but he used the interview to expand on his vision for humanoid robots like Optimus.Musk predicted that the world is rapidly approaching an era where intelligent, humanoid robots will become a ubiquitous part of daily life. My prediction is that there will be far, far more robots, like intelligent robots, in the world than there will be people, he noted, adding that he believes this will ultimately be a good thing for humanity.

SpaceX IPO Tease

While the summit was focused on smart mobility, Musk also dropped a hint regarding the future of his aerospace company, SpaceX. When explaining why he was attending the Tel Aviv summit virtually rather than in person, he revealed he was working in Texas to finalize plans for a public listing.

We have got to get the SpaceX IPO stuff going here pretty soon, Musk stated. This comment adds more fuel to recent reports that SpaceX is preparing for a record-breaking initial public offering. Wall Street rumors suggest SpaceX is seeking to raise up to $75 billion on a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, which would easily make it the largest IPO in the history of global markets.