Elon Musk in New Interview: Robotaxis Widespread by Year-End, AI Will Drive 90% of Miles in 10 Years

Elon Musk joined the Samson International Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv on Monday via a virtual appearance, offering strong predictions about the future of autonomy and robotics.

Connecting from Texas at 2 AM, he described a path where manual driving fades into the past and unsupervised Full Self-Driving scales quickly across the United States.

A Niche Thing to Drive

During the discussion, Musk outlined his outlook for the next decade of transportation and anticipated a broad move away from human-operated vehicles.

"Five years from now and certainly 10 years from now... probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car," Musk stated.

He added that because the vehicle will simply take you to your destination, "it'll be quite a niche thing in 10 years to actually be driving your own car."

Robotaxi Expansion

To support that ten-year view, Musk pointed to progress with Tesla's Robotaxi effort. He said the company already has fully unsupervised vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three Texas cities: Austin, Houston, and Dallas.

When asked about how quickly service could expand, Musk projected that unsupervised FSD would become "widespread in the US by the end of this year" and said he hopes to bring FSD to Israel as well.

More Robots Than Humans

The conversation broadened to AI and robotics. Musk has often referred to Tesla's vehicles as four-wheeled robots, and he used the interview to expand on his vision for humanoid robots like Optimus.

Musk predicted the world is nearing a period when intelligent, humanoid robots become commonplace in daily life. "My prediction is that there will be far, far more robots, like intelligent robots, in the world than there will be people," he said, adding that he believes this will ultimately benefit humanity.

SpaceX IPO Tease

Although the summit centered on smart mobility, Musk also hinted at the future of SpaceX. Explaining why he attended virtually, he said he was in Texas working to finalize plans for a public listing.

"We have got to get the SpaceX IPO stuff going here pretty soon," Musk stated.

His comment reinforced reports that SpaceX is preparing for a significant initial public offering. Wall Street rumors suggest SpaceX is seeking to raise up to $75 billion on a valuation exceeding $2 trillion, which would easily make it the largest IPO in the history of global markets.