"I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year," Musk said in a pre-recorded message, as carried by Reuters.

"I'm extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly," Tesla's chief executive noted.

In April last year, Musk said at the Tesla Autonomy Investor Day "I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year."  

"Not in all jurisdictions, because we won't have regulatory approval everywhere, but I am confident we will have at least regulatory approval somewhere, literally next year," Musk said in 2019.

[ZH: Quite frankly, we will not be holding our breath for this - and we hope Musk can explain what "basic" fully-autonomous functionality means]

Then the reality in 2020 destroyed all projections for any car sales in any market, but Tesla's sales are growing now that the lockdowns have ended.

Last week, Tesla reported its second-quarter vehicle and production delivery numbers, which showed 82,000 vehicles produced and 90,650 vehicles delivered, easily beating analyst expectations for deliveries.