Musk traveled to the stage in a "Cybercab" and said production will start in 2026 with the vehicles being available to buy for less than $30,000.

"The autonomous future is here," Musk said. "We have 50 fully autonomous cars here tonight. You'll see model Ys and the Cybercab. All driverless."

The Cybercab will cost 20 cents a mile to operate over time, use inductive chargers and not require any plugs. They will also rely only on cameras and artificial intelligence, without the need for other hardware that robotaxi players use.

Musk also showcased a larger, self-driving vehicle - called Robovan - capable of carrying up to 20 people, and showed off Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot.

Enthusiasm around the event has been on display across social media for weeks, with screenshots of invites and speculation on what might be disclosed. But investors and analysts have flagged challenges with the technology and reined in expectations.

Musk's plan is to operate a fleet of self-driving Tesla taxis that passengers can hail through an app. Individual Tesla owners will also be able to make money on the app by listing their vehicles as robotaxis.

Thursday's event at the Warner Bros studio near Los Angeles, California, is titled "We, Robot" - an apparent nod to the "I, Robot" science-fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, but also echoes Musk's insistence that Tesla "should be thought of as an AI robotics company" rather than an automaker.

Those attending included investors, stock analysts and Tesla fans.

"Everything looks cool, but not much in terms of time lines, I'm a shareholder and pretty disappointed. I think the market wanted more definitive time lines," said Dennis Dick, equity trader at Triple D Trading. "I don't think he said much about anything... He didn't give much info."

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