Today is Tesla’s AI Day, a sequel of sorts to the company’s Autonomy Day event held in 2019. The event, which will be held at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, will be livestreamed for the public starting at 5PM PT / 8PM ET (though the event may not actually begin until closer to 5:30PM PT).
We don’t have a lot of details about what will be announced, but based on the invitation, we’ll get a keynote address by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, hardware and software demos from Tesla engineers, test rides in the Model S Plaid, and “more.” Musk has also tweeted that the “sole goal” of the event is to lure experts in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence to come work at Tesla.
Tesla usually holds around two public events a year. This year, we got the Tesla Model S Plaid launch event in June, and now AI Day. Over the past few years, Tesla has been holding events, not to unveil new products, but to highlight certain technologies that the company views as crucial to its future development. Last year, Tesla held its first Battery Day event, at which it discussed plans to drive down the cost of battery development with the goal of producing a $25,000 electric car.
AI Day is expected to pick up on the themes first introduced during Autonomy Day, which include the manufacturing of Tesla’s own silicon computer chips to power it’s Full Self-Driving advanced driver assistance feature.
This AI Day comes at an awkward time for the company. Earlier this week, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it was investigating Tesla’s Autopilot for the nearly dozen incidents in which its cars crashed into emergency vehicles. Two Democratic senators also called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Tesla’s marketing practices for potentially misleading information.
