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On April 22, Tesla had an event called the "Tesla Autonomy Day" where it discussed about the full self-driving capabilities that Tesla cars will have very soon. On stage, were Tesla engineers who talked about the hardware and software innovations that are making this possible.

On the hardware side of things, Tesla has designed its own Full Self-Driving computer which is already included in the cars that Tesla has been selling recently. According to Elon, it is the best chip in the world for self-driving cars and will enable the cars to be completely autonomous. 

On the software side of things, Tesla engineers talked about how their neural network works and is constantly getting smarter thanks to the immense amount of data that they are gathering from an established large fleet of cars that consumers are already driving.

Elon said that the hardware part was done but the software needs more work and progress to finally enable completely autonomous driving in Tesla cars, which he says will be happening by the end of this year. 

# RoboTaxi To Challenge Uber And Others?
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![Screenshot (46).png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmR4SVGCKM2EjSktzuP9bDX1GiC58zwUNi5JCTC2FMyV97)

Perhaps one of the biggest news out of the event was that of the robotaxi network. Pending regulatory approval, Elon said that Tesla plans to have about 1 million fully autonomous robotaxis on road by next year without any drivers at all. 

Basically how this will work is, Tesla owners would be able to allow their cars to be used by others, therefore creating a ride sharing network similar to how Uber works. Only, in this case, the owner wouldn't need to do anything.

The owners could specify the times when their cars could be used by others and the car would drive people around during those specific times, earning the owners money. So, basically if you do this, your car would be making you money without you having to do anything! Now, that's innovation!

Musk said that Tesla owners could earn a gross profit of around $30,000 per year and Tesla would take about 25%-30% cut. The cost to run a Tesla robotaxi would be around $0.18 per mile which would reduce over time. So that's surely on the lower side of the spectrum.

![Screenshot (47).png](https://ipfs.busy.org/ipfs/QmPw59dWT4YNnwykv6zjt3gNigc6KdDFTEM2e7UiDt6G8e)

Given that the average life of a Tesla car being produced today will be 11 years, the owner could earn more than $300,000 from the car during its life which means the car would basically be paying for itself many times over. 

The owners will also have the option to share their cars only with friends, co-workers and social media friends if they don't want to share with complete strangers. In places where there aren't enough people sharing their cars, Tesla will have dedicated robotaxis to maintain supply.

What's more is that Tesla cars will become cheaper in the coming years, as the company plans to delete things like the steering wheels and other useless parts once the cars are completely autonomous. So, it will be much easier for anyone to buy a car and use it for the robotaxi network. 

All this is a pretty ambitious goal and there are many hurdles to cross for the company. The first being the technical ones and then the regulatory ones. If everything goes according to the plan, we could be on the verge of not only autonomous driving, but the way the whole transportation network works!