Tesla Inc. is delaying its planned unveiling of the robotaxi until October to give teams working on the project more time to build additional prototypes, people familiar with the matter said.
The roughly two-month delay was communicated internally, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information had not yet been made public. The design team was told this week that they would have to rework certain elements of the car, one of the people said.
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk set the event’s initial date for Aug. 8 months ago, and optimism about the spectacle has helped fuel an 11-day winning streak that has added more than $257 billion to Tesla’s market cap. The stock closed down 8.4% on Thursday, its biggest drop since January.
Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
Shares of potential ride-hailing rivals Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. both rose on the news. Uber’s stock rose 6.1% Thursday. Lyft shares rose 4.6%.
The idea of creating an autonomous ride-hailing service has been kicking around at Tesla for years, dating at least as far back as Musk penning a second “master plan” for the company in 2016. The CEO has prioritized the project in recent months over work on an electric vehicle that’s cheaper than Tesla’s most affordable car, the Model 3 sedan.
Read more: Tesla is consumed by chaos as it transitions to Musk’s robotaxi dream
Musk has touted Tesla’s work on autonomous vehicle technology for more than a decade, persuading customers to pay thousands of dollars for a suite of features the company markets as Full Self-Driving, or FSD. The name is a misnomer — FSD requires constant supervision and does not make Teslas autonomous — but Musk and top engineers have become increasingly bullish on FSD in recent months as the company’s vehicle sales have slowed.
Tesla delivered 6.6% fewer cars in the first half of the year, despite adding a new model — the Cybertruck — to its lineup. The automaker also produced 14% fewer vehicles in the second quarter than a year earlier as it sought to curb growing inventory.