Tag: tesla

Elon Musk Takes Witness Stand, Defends 2018 Buyout Tweets in Tesla Shareholder Trial

Elon Musk took the witness stand Friday to defend a 2018 tweet claiming he had lined up the financing to take Tesla private in a deal that never came close to happening.

The tweet resulted in a $40 million (roughly Rs. 323 crore) settlement with securities regulators. It also led to a class-action lawsuit alleging he misled investors, pulling him into court for about a half hour Friday to deliver sworn testimony in front of a nine-person jury and a full room of media and other spectators.

The trial was then adjourned for the weekend and Musk was told to return Monday to answer more questions.

In his initial appearance on the stand, Musk defended his prolific tweeting as “the most democratic way” to distribute information even while acknowledging constraints of Twitter’s 240-character limit can make it difficult to make everything as clear as possible.

“I think you can absolutely be truthful (on Twitter),” Musk asserted on the stand. “But can you be comprehensive? Of course not,”

Musk’s latest headache stems from the inherent brevity on Twitter, a service that he has been running since completing his $44 billion (roughly Rs.3,56,300 crore) purchase of it in October.

The trial hinges on the question of whether a pair of tweets that Musk posted on August 7, 2018, damaged Tesla shareholders during a 10-day period leading up to a Musk admission that the buyout he had envisioned wasn’t going to happen.

In the first of those two 2018 tweets, Musk stated “funding secured” for what would have been a $72 billion (roughly Rs. 5,83,100 crore) buyout of Tesla at a time when the electric automaker was still grappling with production problems and was worth far less than it is now. Musk followed up a few hours later with another tweet suggesting a deal was imminent.

After it became apparent that the money wasn’t in place to take Tesla private, Musk stepped down as Tesla’s chairman while remaining CEO as part of the Securities and Exchange Commission settlement, without acknowledging any wrongdoing.

The impulsive billionaire came into court wearing a dark suit and tie on the third day of the civil trial in San Francisco that his lawyer unsuccessfully tried to move to Texas, where Tesla is now headquartered, on the premise that media coverage of his tumultuous takeover of Twitter had tainted the jury pool.

The jury that was assembled earlier this week focused intently on Musk while he answered questions posed by Nicholas Porritt, a lawyer representing Tesla shareholders. At one point, Musk asked Porritt if he would speak closer to the microphone so he could hear him better. At other times, Musk craned his neck as he gazed around the courtroom.

Musk, 51, said he cares “a great deal” about investors and also railed against short sellers who make investments that reward them when a company’s stock price falls. He called short selling an “evil” practice that should be outlawed, denigrating those who profit from it as “a bunch of sharks.”

When shown communications from Tesla investors urging him to curtail or completely stop his Twitter habit before the 2018 buyout tweet, Musk said he couldn’t remember all those interactions from years ago, especially since he gets a “Niagara Falls” of emails.

Even before Musk took the stand, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen had declared that the jurors can consider those two tweets to be false, leaving them to decide whether Musk deliberately deceived investors and whether his statements saddled them with losses.

Musk has previously contended he entered into the SEC settlement under duress and maintained he believed he had locked up financial backing for a Tesla buyout during meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

An expert on corporate buyouts hired by shareholder lawyers to study the events surrounding Musk’s proposal to take Tesla private spent the bulk of his three hours on the stand Friday deriding the plan as an ill-conceived concept.

“This proposal was an extreme outlier,” said Guhan Subramanian, a Harvard University business and law professor for more than 20 years. “It was incoherent. It was illusory.”

In a lengthy cross examination that delayed Musk’s appearance, a lawyer for Tesla’s board of directors tried to undermine Subramanian’s testimony by pointing out that it relied on graduate student assistance to review some of the material related to the August 2018 tweets. The lawyer, William Price, also noted Subramanian’s $1,900-per-hour (roughly Rs. 1,53,900) fee for compiling his report for the case.

The trial over his Tesla tweets come at a time when Musk has been focusing on Twitter while also serving as the automaker’s CEO and also remaining deeply involved in SpaceX, the rocket ship company he founded.

Musk’s leadership of Twitter — where he has gutted the staff and alienated users and advertisers — has proven unpopular among Tesla’s current stockholders, who are worried he has been devoting less time steering the automaker at a time of intensifying competition. Those concerns contributed to a 65 percent decline in Tesla’s stock last year that wiped out more than $700 billion (roughly Rs. 56,68,900 crore) in shareholder wealth — far more than the $14 billion (roughly Rs. 1,13,400 crore) swing in fortune that occurred between the company’s high and low stock prices during the August 7-17, 2018 period covered in the class-action lawsuit.

Tesla’s stock has split twice since then, making the $420 (roughly Rs. 34,000) buyout price cited in his 2018 tweet worth $28 (roughly Rs. 2,300) on adjusted basis now. The company’s shares were trading around $133.42 (roughly Rs. 10,800) Friday, down from the company’s November 2021 split-adjusted peak of $414.50 (roughly Rs. 33,600).

After Musk dropped the idea of a Tesla buyout, the company overcame its production problems, resulting in a rapid upturn in car sales that caused its stock to soar and minted Musk as the world’s richest person until he bought Twitter. Musk dropped from the top spot on the wealth list after the stock market’s backlash to his handling of Twitter.

When asked Friday about the challenges that Tesla faced in 2018, he recalled spending many nights sleeping at the automaker’s California factory as he tried to keep the company afloat.

“The sheer level of pain to make Tesla successful during that 2017, 2018 period was excruciating,” he recalled.

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Tesla Shareholders Claim Elon Musk Will Get Fair Trial in ‘Funding Secured’ Lawsuit in California

Tesla shareholders argued it would be unfair to move the trial to Texas as requested by Musk, who has outraged many in Northern California with the steep job cuts he ordered at Twitter, a San Francisco company he bought in October.

“What they refer to as ‘biased’ coverage is, in fact, factual reporting about his management of Twitter, and has no bearing on the jury’s ability to render a fair verdict,” said the court filing by the shareholders.

Musk‘s lawyers requested on January 6 that the federal judge delay or move the trial to Texas due to media coverage of Twitter‘s job cuts that was “inflammatory” compared with balanced reporting on layoffs at other companies in the city like Lyft.

Videos of an audience booing Musk during a surprise appearance at a Dave Chappelle show in San Francisco in December were circulated online. “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience,” the comedian said in the clip.

Musk later admitted it was “a lot of boos” and added in a now-deleted tweet: “It’s almost as if I’ve offended SF’s unhinged leftists … but nahhh.”

Tesla moved its headquarters from the San Francisco area to Texas in 2021.

The trial is scheduled to start on January 17 and feature testimony from Musk about his behind-the-scenes efforts in 2018 to line up financing to buy out the electric vehicle maker.

The judge will hear arguments on the requested venue change on Friday.

Shareholders accuse Musk of causing billions of dollars in losses for investors by making false and misleading statements to artificially inflate the stock price. Musk tweeted in August 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, sparking 10 days of volatile trading in its stock shares, bonds and options.

Defendants, which also include Tesla and its board at the time, will make their case that Musk was not misleading investors in a material way. Musk had met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, on multiple occasions, according to the court filing, which also said Al-Rumayyan had urged Musk to take Tesla private and offered up to $60 billion (roughly Rs. 4,90,290 crore) in backing.

Al-Rumayyan is among the witnesses expected to testify along with Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison and James Murdoch, son of Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch, according to court filings.

US District Court Judge Edward Chen determined in May that the 2018 tweets were untrue and reckless. The jury will determine if the statements actually impacted Tesla’s share prices, whether Musk acted knowingly and whether to award damages and in what amount.

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Tesla Hit With KRW 2.85 Billion Fine in South Korea Over Alleged False Advertising

South Korea’s antitrust regulator said it would impose a KRW 2.85 billion (roughly Rs. 18 crore) fine on Tesla for failing to tell its customers about the shorter driving range of its electric vehicles (EVs) in low temperatures.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said that Tesla had exaggerated the “driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers” on its official local website since August 2019 until recently.

The driving range of the US EV manufacturer’s cars plunge in cold weather by up to 50.5 percent versus how they are advertised online, the KFTC said in a statement on Tuesday.

Tesla could not be immediately reached for comment.

On its website, Tesla provides winter driving tips, such as pre-conditioning vehicles with external power sources, and using its updated Energy app to monitor energy consumption, but does not mention the loss of driving range in sub-zero temperatures.

In 2021, Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty, a South Korean consumer group, said the driving range of most EVs drop by up to 40 percent in cold temperatures when batteries need to be heated, with Tesla suffering the most, citing data from the country’s environment ministry.

Last year, the KFTC fined German carmaker Mercedes-Benz and its Korean unit 20.2 billion won for false advertising tied to gas emissions of its diesel passenger vehicles.

On Monday, Tesla reported record production and deliveries for fourth-quarter electric vehicles, but it missed Wall Street estimates, burdened by logistics problems, slowing demand, rising interest rates and fears of recession.

The world’s most valuable automaker delivered 405,278 vehicles in the last three months of the year, compared with Wall Street expectations of 431,117 vehicles, according to Refinitiv data. The company had delivered 308,600 vehicles in the same period a year earlier.

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Twitter, Tesla, Other Elon Musk Companies to Remain Well Positioned Till 2023

Elon Musk, who heads five companies including Tesla and Twitter, said in a tweet on Friday that his companies will be well positioned in 2023 despite the possibility of a tough economy.

Musk’s tweet comes a day after he raised the possibility of Twitter going bankrupt. Earlier in the day, in his first company-wide email, Musk warned that Twitter would not be able to “survive the upcoming economic downturn” if it fails to boost subscription revenue to offset falling advertising income, three people who have seen the message told Reuters.

Twitter currently has $13 billion (roughly Rs. 1,050 crore) in debt and faces interest payments totaling close to $1.2 billion (roughly Rs. 9,685 crore) in the next 12 months.

The payments exceed the company’s most recently disclosed cash flow, which amounted to $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,880 crore) as of the end of June.

Meanwhile, electric carmaker Tesla added to its inventory in Shanghai, China, at its fastest pace ever in October.

Tesla, which counts China as a key market and production base operates a factory in Shanghai that accounted for about half of its global deliveries last year.

In October, Tesla produced 87,706 Model 3s and Model Ys in Shanghai but delivered 71,704 vehicles, leaving a gap of 16,002 China-made cars in inventory, according to data from China Merchants Bank International (CMBI).

In a bid to boost sales, Tesla reduced prices for its Model 3 and Model Y cars in China and also offered an additional rebate for buyers who take delivery in November and buy insurance from one of its partners.

Musk told analysts last month that demand was strong in the quarter and he expected Tesla to be “recession-resilient”.

Musk is also the CEO of satellite internet company SpaceX, brain-chip startup Neuralink and tunneling enterprise The Boring Company.

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Elon Musk Wants to Make ‘Everything App’: Here’s All You Need to Know About It

Why is Elon Musk suddenly thinking about creating an “everything app,” and what does that even mean?

The question arose after the billionaire Chief Executive of Tesla earlier this month reversed course on his decision not to buy Twitter.

Musk completed his $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,62,300 crore) acquisition of Twitter on Thursday, but provided little clarity on how he will achieve the ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.

The concept of an everything app, often referred to as a “super app,” is massively popular in Asia and tech companies across the world have tried to replicate it.

What is a Super App?

A super app, or what Musk refers to as an “everything app,” has been described as the Swiss army knife of mobile apps, offering a suite of services for users such as messaging, social networking, peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce shopping.

These mega apps are widely used in Asia because mobile is the main form of access to the internet for many people in the region, wrote Scott Galloway, a New York University professor of marketing and co-host of tech podcast “Pivot,” last year.

What are some examples of Super Apps?

Chinese super app WeChat has more than 1 billion monthly users, according to one estimate, and is a ubiquitous part of daily life in China. Users can hail a car or taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments at stores. In 2018, some Chinese cities began testing WeChat for an electronic identification system that would be tied to users’ accounts, according to the South China Morning Post.

Grab, a leading super app across Southeast Asia, offers food delivery, ride-hailing, on-demand package delivery and financial services and investing.

Why does Elon Musk want to make a Super App?

During a question-and-answer session with Twitter employees in June, Musk noted there is no equivalent to a super app like WeChat outside of Asia.

“You basically live on WeChat in China,” he said, adding he saw an opportunity to create such an app.

Adding more tools and services to Twitter could also help Musk reach his lofty growth goals for the company. During the Q&A with employees, Musk said he wanted Twitter to grow from its 237 million users to “at least a billion”.

Musk and members of his inner circle texted multiple times about the idea of adding digital payments to Twitter, according to messages released in the discovery phase of litigation between Musk and the social media company.

In the text messages, Musk discussed the possibility of placing Twitter on the blockchain, though he later appeared to decide such a move would not work.

However, crypto exchange Binance, which has invested $500 million (nearly Rs. 4,100 crore) into Musk’s buyout of the social media firm, is creating a team to work on how blockchain and crypto could be helpful to Twitter, a company spokesperson said on Friday.

Have other US companies tried this? 

Yes, Snapchat parent Snap previously introduced peer-to-peer payments called Snapcash, but ended the feature in 2018. It also made a push into mobile gaming and recently ended that venture as part of cost-cutting plans.

Meta Platform’s Facebook and Instagram have also tried to expand beyond social networking and messaging into e-commerce.

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EU Electric Car Makers May Soon Have Level Playing Field With US EV Manufacturers For Subsidies: Details

European Union and US officials expect to reach an agreement that would grant EU companies, including electric car makers, the same status as US ones in the US market, to avoid what the EU calls discrimination against its producers by the US Inflation Reduction Act.

The EU says that while it allows government tax breaks or subsidies for purchases of US electric cars such as those made by Tesla, the United States makes such support conditional on the car, or parts of it, being made in the United States.

European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis, responsible for trade, is holding talks on Thursday and Friday with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the issue.

“Last month Tesla model Y was the most sold car in Germany,” Dombrovskis told a news briefing.

“That would not have been possible without the un-discriminatory EU subsidy, while EU electric cars do not get a similar subsidy in the US, which is discrimination that we want to address,” Dombrovskis said.

EU car makers – like Volkswagen – are affected by the US legislation, which covers a host of other products.

He said the problem also concerned a wide range of goods from the “green economy” sector, including batteries, hydrogen, and renewable energy equipment.

“There is a willingness to engage on the US side on this,” Dombrovskis said.

“We hope we can resolve these issues before they become disputes,” he said, adding talks would focus on whether changes to the status of EU companies could be made through the implementation of regulations to the US law, rather than having to send the whole Inflation Reduction Act back to Congress for amendments.

US Trade Representative Katherine Tai, asked if the issue could be resolved, told reporters she expected the EU and U.S. would reach an agreement.

“On the strength of the EU-US relationship, I have every confidence we will work through this,” she said after a meeting with Dombrovskis.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

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PayPal Says It Never Intended to Fine for ‘Misinformation’ Days After Drawing Criticism for User Agreement

PayPal Holdings said it has no intention of fining customers for spreading misinformation, after attracting criticism for publishing a new user agreement outlining such a plan.

The issue gained traction over the weekend after the company published policy updates prohibiting users from using the PayPal service for activities identified by the company as “the sending, posting, or publication of any messages, content, or materials” promoting misinformation, in an Acceptable Use Policy due to kick in on November 3. A penalty of $2,500 (nearly Rs. 2,06,000) could be imposed for each violation,” according to the update.

The notice included “incorrect information,” a spokesperson for PayPal said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “PayPal is not fining people for misinformation and this language was never intended to be inserted in our policy.”

Shares of the company tumbled as much as 5.3 percent to $85.43 (nearly Rs. 7,000), the biggest intraday decline since July 26. They dropped 4.7 percent to $85.90 (nearly Rs. 8,000) today morning in New York.

The original notice attracted the ire of former leaders at the company, including David Marcus, the president of PayPal from 2012 to 2014, who called such a move “insanity” on Twitter. Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, who co-founded the platform, said he agreed with Marcus in a tweet.

Right-wing politicians in the US have long accused major tech firms of censoring conservative voices, with social media giants such as Twitter and Meta Platforms attracting the most ire. Musk, who is offering to buy Twitter for $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,62,500 crore), has said he will prioritise free speech on the platform, after criticizing its treatment of personalities including former President Donald J Trump and rapper Kanye West.

While Republican calls for more regulation of big tech has found support among some progressives, current proposals requiring platforms to safeguard user privacy and security have largely faltered as Congress pursues other priorities.

The PayPal controversy was also seized upon by conservative politicians and social media personalities, who called on users to delete their PayPal accounts. Tim Scott, a Republican senator from South Carolina, said before the firm’s statement that his office will look into the validity of the policy and take any necessary action to stop such “corporate activism.”

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Tesla Begins Production of Electric Semi Trucks, PepsiCo Confirms First Deliveries to Start in December

PepsiCo confirmed on Friday it would take delivery of Tesla’s Semi trucks on December 1, becoming the first company to receive its orders of the much-delayed electric vehicle.

PepsiCo said in a statement that the trucks would be used at its Frito-Lay plant in Modesto, California, and its PepsiCo beverages factory in Sacramento. PepsiCo has been aiming to reduce fuel costs and emissions, and reserved 100 of the trucks in 2017.

US companies have pledged to take action to reduce their impacts on the environment, with PepsiCo aiming to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.

Transportation accounts for roughly 10 percent of the Mountain Dew maker’s greenhouse gas emissions, PepsiCo’s CEO, Ramon Laguarta, has said. Its company-owned fleet travelled 1.2 billion miles (around 2 billion km) last year.

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced the start of production of the Semi truck late on Thursday on Twitter, saying the vehicles have a 500-mile (805 km) range and are “super fun to drive.”

Musk initially said the trucks would be in production by 2019 but the timeline has been delayed by years due to parts shortages.

Other companies including United Parcel Service, Walmart Canada, and food service distributor Sysco had also placed preorders for Tesla’s Semi trucks.

Walmart, UPS, and Sysco did not respond to requests for comment on the status of their orders or delivery timings.

Neither Musk nor Pepsi disclosed the number of Semis that would arrive at the packaged food company in December. On its website, PepsiCo said it expects 15 of its trucks to deploy by the end of this year.

Tesla, on the other hand, has been struggling to deliver as many electric vehicles as it produces, which has hurt its share price. Musk is also trying to close his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3.6 lakh crore) takeover of Twitter, which has Tesla investors worried that the billionaire was spreading himself too thin.

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Elon Musk blames ‘neo-Marxists’ for poor relationship with daughter

Elon Musk said that “neo-Marxists” who have taken over elite schools and liberal universities are to blame for the fact that his 18-year-old daughter wants nothing to do with her uber-wealthy dad.

“It’s full-on communism . . . and a general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil,” Musk told the Financial Times on Friday when discussing his estranged daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who recently changed her legal name to avoid being associated with the Tesla CEO.

The mogul did not single out any particular college or reveal which one his daughter is attending.

“It [the relationship] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others [children],” the father-of-nine said. “Can’t win them all.”

In June, Vivian, who was born Xavier Alexander Musk, announced her decision to change her gender and famous surname.

“Gender Identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” Vivian wrote in court papers filed in Los Angeles County.

Vivian, 18, is one of five children Musk had with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson. She has a twin brother Griffin, along with triplets Kai, 16; Saxon, 16; and Damian, 16.

Musk lamented the fact that he is estranged from his 18-year-old daughter, Vivian Wilson, who recently changed her name and gender.
MEGA

All five attended an ‘experimental’ private school in California funded by Musk called Ad Astra — Latin for ‘to the stars.’

Musk has said that while he supports transgender rights, he has been critical of the sensitivity surrounding pronouns for nonbinary and trans people.

 “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare,” he once tweeted.

In another tweet, he wrote: “Pronouns suck.”

Vivian Wilson, née Xavier Musk, is seen in the arms of Musk’s second wife, Talulah Riley, when Tesla went public in 2010.
Reuters

Musk, who has frequently spoken of the need for humans to have more children in order to combat birth declines, recently welcomed twins with one of his subordinates, Neuralink director of operations Shivon Zilis.

The billionaire also revealed earlier this year that he fathered a second child with on-again, off-again girlfriend, the Canadian pop star Grimes.

Vivian, 18, is one of five children that Musk shares with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson.
Justine Musk

The couple’s children are named X Æ A-12, a son born in 2020, and daughter Exa Dark Sideræl, who was born late last year.

Justine Wilson, the 49-year-old sci-fi author, said she was “proud” of her 18-year-old daughter’s decision to change her name.

Musk said his daughter “hates rich people.”
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She shared the exchange with one of her twins on Twitter earlier this year, writing: “‘I had a weird childhood,’ my 18-year-old said to me’.”

She also quoted her daughter as saying: “’I can’t believe I’m as normal-seeming as I am.’”

In the wide-ranging interview with FT, Musk — who has again agreed to buy Twitter — said he was driven to acquire the social media site because of the need to preserve free speech in the US, which he says has been curtailed by the political left.

“I’m not doing Twitter for the money,” Musk told FT.

“It’s not like I’m trying to buy some yacht and I can’t afford it. I don’t own any boats.”

He added: “But I think it’s important that people have a maximally trusted and inclusive means of exchanging ideas and that it should be as trusted and transparent as possible.”



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Elon Musk Previews Tesla Robot Optimus During AI Day, Says Not Ready

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Friday showed off a prototype of the humanoid robot ‘Optimus’, predicting the electric vehicle maker would be able to produce millions of them and sell them for under $20,000 (roughly Rs. 16,33,000)- less than a third of the price of a Model Y.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done to refine Optimus and prove it,” Musk told the electric vehicle maker’s “AI Day” event being held at a Tesla office in Palo Alto, California, where the robot was showcased.

A prototype model that Tesla said was developed in February walked out to wave at the crowd on Friday, and Tesla showed a video of it doing simple tasks, such as watering plants, carrying boxes and lifting metal bars at a production station at the company’s California plant.

The team rolled out the more streamlined current generation bot on a cart and Musk said he hoped it would be able to walk itself soon.

He said existing humanoid robots are “missing a brain” – and the ability to solve problems on their own. By contrast, he said, Optimus would be an “extremely capable robot” that Tesla would aim to produce in the millions. He said he expected it would cost less than $20,000 (roughly Rs. 16,33,000).

Musk and Tesla representatives acknowledged that there was a lot of work to be done to achieve the goal of a mass-produced, low-cost robot, using Tesla-designed technology that would be capable of replacing humans at work.

Other automakers, including Toyota and Honda, have developed humanoid robot prototypes capable of doing complicated things like shooting a basketball, and production robots from ABB and others are a mainstay of auto manufacturing.

But Tesla is alone in pushing the market opportunity for a mass-market robot that could also be used in factory work.

A next-generation Tesla bot, which was rolled on stage by staff, will use Tesla-designed components, including a 2.3kWh battery pack carried in its torso, a chip system and actuators to drive its limbs. The robot is designed to weigh 73 kg.

“It wasn’t quite ready to walk. But I think it will walk in a few weeks,” Musk said.

Musk has described the event as intended to recruit workers, and the engineers on stage catered to a technical audience. They detailed the process by which Tesla designed robot hands and used crash-simulator technology to test the robot’s ability to fall on its face without breaking.

Musk, who has spoken before about the risks of artificial intelligence, said the mass rollout of robots had the potential to “transform civilization” and create “a future of abundance, a future of no poverty.” But he said he believed it was important that Tesla shareholders had a role in vetting the company’s efforts.

“If I go crazy, you can fire me,” Musk said. “This is important.”

Many reactions on Twitter were positive, focusing on the speed of Tesla’s development effort since August last year, when Tesla announced its project with a stunt that had a person in a white suit simulate a humanoid robot.

Henri Ben Amor, a robotics professor at Arizona State University, said Musk’s price target of $20,000 (roughly Rs. 16,33,000) was a “good proposition,” since current costs are about $100,000 (roughly Rs. 82,00,000) for humanoid robots.

“There’s some discrepancy between sort of the ambition and what they have presented,” he said. “When it comes to dexterity speed, the ability to walk in a stable fashion and so on, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

Aaron Johnson, a mechanical engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, also said the robot’s need was debatable.

“What is really impressive is that they got to that level so quickly. What is still a little murky is what exactly the use case is for them to make millions” of these,” Johnson said.

Tesla also discussed its long-delayed self-driving technology at the event. Engineers working on the auto self-driving software described how they trained software to choose actions, such as when to merge into traffic, and how they sped up the computer decision-making process.

In May, Musk said that the world’s most valuable car maker would be “worth basically zero” without achieving full self-driving capability, and it faces growing regulatory probes, as well as technological hurdles.

Musk has said he expects Tesla will achieve full self-driving this year and mass produce a robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedal by 2024.

At an “Autonomy” event in 2019, Musk promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020 but has yet to deliver such a car.

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