Elon Musk’s big bet on robo-taxis will finally be unveiled on Thursday afternoon, Pacific time. It’s been a long road, with the billionaire promising fully automated cars since 2016 and a robo-taxi network since 2019. So far, Tesla only offers assisted driving, which still requires a human driver to supervise at all times.
But Tesla is already behind the robotaxi competition—much of which is based in China, one of the U.S automaker’s most important markets. Several Chinese startups and tech companies are already testing fleets of self-driving cars in cities like Guangzhou, Wuhan, and Beijing with the blessing of city governments.
