“My predictions for achieving complete self-driving in the past have been optimistic,” admitted Elon Musk to investors in 2023. “I am a boy who cried FSD.”

During Tesla’s late April profit call with investors, elon Musk conceded to a 71 percent drop in profits.Attempting to spin the results positively, Musk declared that the car manufacturer would become the world’s leading robotics company, promising “the closest thing to heaven we can get on Earth,” even suggesting his robots would surpass R2-D2.

Despite declining car sales, Musk insisted “Tesla’s future is brighter than ever,” dismissing the sales slump as a mere “wind direction.” He urged investors to focus on the company’s potential in robotics rather than its current automotive business, envisioning “sustainable abundance with our available robots.”

While Elon Musk has a history of unfulfilled promises, investors seemed somewhat reassured by the prospect of Tesla transforming from a car company into a robotics giant.

Examining Musk’s past promises,including full self-driving,Hyperloop,Robotaxis,and even robot armies,reveals a pattern where reality often diverges from rhetoric. The frequently cited “next year” forecasts have repeatedly proven inaccurate.

“My predictions are quite good,” claimed Musk to Tesla staff. Here’s a look at some of those predictions.

The 19-Year-Old Promise

“My predictions are quite good.”

August 2006: Affordable Cars

“Our long-term plan is to create a wide range of models, including family cars at affordable prices,” wrote Elon Musk in Tesla’s secret master plan on Tesla’s website 19 years ago.

In the second part of the plan, written 10 years later, Musk reiterated the promise of building an “affordable, high-volume car.” However, 2016 passed without such a vehicle. In January of this year, Musk stated that an affordable model would finally begin production in the second half of 2025.

However, in April, Reuters reported that Tesla was scrapping plans for a cheap family car. Musk responded on X, stating “Reuters is lying (again),” prompting Reuters to reply that “[Musk] did not identify any specific inaccuracies.” The Tesla source told Reuters that instead of the long-promised cheap family car, “Elon’s directive is to go all in on Robotaxi.”

August 2013: Hyperloop hype

While not directly affiliated with any Hyperloop companies, Elon Musk authored a 58-page white paper titled “Hyperloop Alpha,” describing a “new open source transport form that could change travel.” This vision did not materialize. Hyperloop shut down in 2023, a decade after its initial proposal. Even in 2022, Musk was still suggesting Hyperloop could travel from Boston to New York in “less than half an hour.”

The Hyperloop concept involved magnetic levitation (Maglev) capsules traveling through evacuated steel tubes at high speeds. The company’s website described it as “a high-speed public transportation system in which passengers travel in autonomous electric pods at 600+ miles per hour.” This description has since been removed. It was documented that engineers from Tesla and SpaceX worked on Hyperloop for two years before other companies took over the project in 2017.