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Tesla Inc. is postponing its planned robotaxi unveiling to October to allow teams working on the project more time to build additional prototypes, according to people familiar with the decision.<\/p>\n
The roughly two-month delay has been communicated internally, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information hadn\u2019t been publicly announced. The design team was told this week to rework certain elements of the car, one of the people said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk set the initial Aug. 8 date for the event\u00a0months ago<\/a>, and optimism about the spectacle has contributed to an 11-day streak of gains that added more than $257 billion to Tesla\u2019s market capitalization. The stock closed 8.4% lower on Thursday, its largest drop since January.<\/p>\n Musk didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Shares of would-be taxi rivals Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. both surged on the news. Uber\u2019s stock rose 6.1% on Thursday. Lyft shares jumped 4.6%.<\/p>\n The idea of creating an autonomous taxi service has been kicking around Tesla for years, dating at least as far back as when Musk authored a second \u201cmaster plan<\/a>\u201d for the company in 2016. The CEO has prioritized the project in recent months over work on an electric vehicle cheaper than Tesla\u2019s most affordable car, the Model 3 sedan.<\/p>\n Read More: Tesla Is Consumed by Chaos in Shift to Musk\u2019s Robotaxi Dream<\/p>\n Musk has talked up Tesla\u2019s work on autonomous-vehicle technology for over a decade and convinced customers to pay thousands of dollars for a suite of features the company markets as Full Self-Driving, or FSD. The name is\u00a0a misnomer<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 FSD requires constant supervision and doesn\u2019t render Teslas autonomous \u2014 but Musk and top engineers have been increasingly bullish about FSD in recent months as the company\u2019s vehicle sales have slowed.<\/p>\n Tesla delivered 6.6% fewer cars in the first half of the year, despite the company adding a new model \u2014\u00a0the Cybertruck<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to its lineup. The automaker also produced 14% fewer vehicles in the second quarter than it did a year earlier to help curtail swelling inventory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSubscribe to the Fortune Next to Lead newsletter to get weekly strategies on how to make it to the corner office. Sign up for free<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n