Tesla CEO Elon Musk is brash and known for making bold proclamations and outlandish statements. And he called out other automakers in bold fashion this week when he said buying anything other than a Tesla in three years will be like “owning a horse.”
“If you buy a car that does not have the hardware for full self-driving, it is like buying a horse. And the only car that has the hardware for full self-driving is a Tesla.”
Per CNBC:
“The fundamental message that consumers should be taking today is that it’s financially insane to buy anything other than a Tesla, ” the CEO of the electric auto maker said after Monday’s robotaxi announcement. “It would be like owning a horse in three years. I mean, fine if you want to own a horse. But you should go into it with that expectation.”
Musk was his usual boastful self while speaking on stage at the Tesla Autonomy Investor Day in Palo Alto, California, where he touted Tesla’s self-driving technology. He also claimed his electric car company will have more than a million driverless robotaxis on the road as soon as next year.
“If you buy a car that does not have the hardware for full self-driving, it is like buying a horse,” he reiterated. “And the only car that has the hardware for full self-driving is a Tesla.”
It’s not the first time that Musk used the horse metaphor in describing Tesla cars. In September 2018, during that bizarre podcast with Joe Rogan, in which he appeared to smoke marijuana, he said that having Teslas and regular cars on the road speaks to a “time of transition where there were horses and gasoline cars in the road at the same time. ” He then added that “back in Manhattan” during that time there were “like 300,000 horses.”
Musk’s record for delivering on his predictions on time has been spotty. And on Monday, he admitted as much. “Sometimes I am not on time, but I get it done.” Some of his past promises, often made on Twitter, have landed him in hot water with the government.
The billionaire entrepreneur, behind the commercial space venture SpaceX as well, also predicted that Tesla in two years will be making cars with no steering wheels or pedals.
