Do you ever look back on parts of your life that seem too strange and improbable to be real? I think all of us experienced such a seemingly drug-induced vision a few weeks back.
The event in question was a Tesla-sponsored debut of what Elon Musk purported to be the taxi of the future. If you’ve ever listened to your wife or a colleague at work describe some absurd dream they had last night, then you’ll feel right at home as I detail what played out on screen.
Elon Musk appears and hops into the open butterfly door of a waiting “cab,” a cab with only two doors. The roofline slopes sharply to a sleek fastback that would seem to negate any headroom for rear passengers, but the lack of a back seat means passengers were never a consideration. The nose is abruptly cut back where a frunk might reside, and the rear wheels are disproportionately larger than the fronts, with all four wearing tires skinnier than a nineties supermodel.
Was I imagining all of this? No, it was and is real, and according to Musk this “taxi” will be released by some impossibly near date. You don’t have to delve into the myriad issues of full self-driving to see that the basic concept appears a bit half-baked.
Even before the strange dog and pony show where Elon did his typically awkward pitch, rumors abounded that we should be underwhelmed by the cargo and people-carrying capacity of Musk’s cab concept. Further, we had already determined via spy shots that a cab capable of holding three times as many people could have been built in a vehicle with the same footprint, as seen below.
We’re really perplexed as to what Mr. Musk was thinking, but just because it seems to be a lousy cab is not a reason to throw the whole car out just yet.
Not A Crew Cab
Despite the criticism, something about the general shape of this new taxi is pleasing enough. You have to ask yourself: is the Cybercab a bad design, or is it a misplaced concept?
I tend to think it’s more of the latter. In 1981, some genius concert promoter had a guy open for the Rolling Stones on their concert tour who got booed off of the stage, after they were done throwing objects at him that is. Was this a particularly horrific artist that we’re referring to? Well, considering that this opening act for the Stones was one Prince Rogers Nelson, I would say unquestionably not; he just wasn’t a good fit for those who paid to hear Brown Sugar. That’s possibly the case with Cybercab as well.
Indeed, some critics quipped that this Tesla taxi looked more like a latter-day Datsun 240Z than a taxi. I’d agree with that, and such a resemblance to me seems akin to being told that you’re a doppelganger for Brad Pitt: it’s hardly a bad thing. So why, then, isn’t this thing a modern Z-car or futuristic EV pony car? Let’s lean into this.
Model Z (Car)?
Tesla is supposedly going to introduce a new sports car called the “Roadster”, though as expected the launch is being delayed thanks to delays in, well, all of their other delayed shit. The Roadster is naturally being hyped as having some absurd one-second-to-sixty acceleration time, but overall, the thing seems a bit disappointing.
Reported to cost in the $200,000 range, the speculative renderings show a rather clean-looking coupe, but it’s also rather lackluster in appearance when compared to the Italian (and British McClaren) offerings of similar price. Unless they pump in fake Ferrari sounds, this roadster is guaranteed to provide a rather soulless performance next to the competition. Also, does a lift-off roof panel really qualify a car as a “roadster”? Regardless, with only two seats the thing will pretty much be just a toy for most people, though it’s not like me or perhaps 95 percent of most Autopians could afford it anyway.
If Elon is a true innovator – or, at the very least, a person who brings old ideas to life – then he needs to give us something that we need and have missed. In my opinion, that’s a performance sport coupe. The Mustang is one of the few remaining semi-affordable 2+2 seater coupes out there, and Musk could create quite a stir by offering a sub-$100,000 semi-practical sports car with some luxury as well.
On one end of the spectrum, it’s disappointing that there are no longer GT coupes along the lines of a 2+2 Nissan Z car or the “real” Supras of the eighties and nineties:
At the same time, even higher-end sport coupes are thin on the ground today with BMW M4 being one of the few remaining examples with the recent discontinuation of Mercedes and Audi offerings.
Maybe Tesla could offer a two-door that’s something in between those two with a bit of Mustang thrown in for good measure. Certainly, the Cybercab sort of looks that part, or at least it will after some work. What if we came up with an alternate reality where Tesla gave us a cab that really looked and functioned like a cab, and turned this current taxi concept into a sort of “Musk-stang” coupe called the Model M?
The Change From C.A.B. To Z.E.D.
Spy shots of the Cybercab showed an oddly proportioned thing with a stubby nose and comically large diameter rear wheels which we thought were merely disguises to fool any observers that saw what they weren’t supposed to. We were wrong.
Exactly why this purported taxicab has the stance of a cartoon funny car dragster is not fully understood. That odd-looking roof that tapers down sharply from a high point just aft of the windshield. Actually, the current Nissan Z-Car has a similarly odd shape to the roofline and I don’t dig it on that car either.
What I’ve done first is bring that roof down slightly in front, and the whole upper section of that car has been laid back slightly to remove some of the meat above the rear wheels; you can see how that character line is now more horizontal.
Here’s a rough animation to show the changes.
That short, abruptly-cut nose gets lengthened slightly so that it matches the gentle character line running all the way to the back of the car. Compared to the original Cybercab, in this modified design the front, middle, and back sections all look like they came off of the same car as opposed to, say, a 1/24 scale model fused to a 1/28 scale toy.
Again, the animation makes it more obvious, You can see that the roofline above where the rear seat would be hasn’t dropped so there should still be headroom back there:
The rear wheel has been brought down in diameter to match the front ones, and the odd aero-looking covers replaced by deep-dish-styled wheels with black centers for a much more aggressive look. Cybercab has tires optimized for maximum economy, which we’ll throw in the recycling bin. We’ve got to add some thick rubber that’s staggered with wider rear shoes. At the rear, the tall tail has been shortened in height and painted black with larger “dual-bar” taillamps:
In the animation, you can also see that the license plate has been moved up and a lower diffuser replaces that rather clunky (Checker-cab like?) bumper on the Cybercab.
The outside now looks more like something ready to hit the Mustang and M4 market, but what about the inside?
Only 2+2, But That’s More Than 2
Currently, the Cybercab has a rather stark interior as one would expect for something that supposed to be a taxi, though honestly it doesn’t look that much more stripped down than Tesla’s current lower-level offerings. It appears to have a bench seat but no provision exist for someone to actually sit in the center, not to mention that those cupholders are going to be decidedly nasty looking after a few dozen trips as a cab.
The biggest change inside the Model M versus the Cybercab would be the addition of a rear seat. This space in the Model M won’t rival the back compartment of Maybach by any means, but at least you can take two more people than the Cybercab can dream of carrying. There will still be plenty of cargo area left under the giant hatchback. It’s always a pain to have to remove these or have them fold in order to fold down the seats fully flat without bumping into the front seatbacks, so oh what a feeling, I’ve attached the headrests to the ceiling.
Overhead controls behind the rearview mirror/screen include those for the LCD sun visors and rear glass shading (though you will notice that, unlike Cybercab, I do have a rear window on the Model M to keep the interior from becoming a dark cave).
There’s a steering wheel now, of course, and that bench seat of the Cybertaxi is split into bucket seats with side bolsters, separated by a console featuring fold-out cupholders and the gear lever.
Wait, why does an EV need a gear lever like that?
Sticking It To You
Elon Musk is usually hard to predict, and his choices are often befuddling. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking, and for the most part, I’m glad that I don’t. We do know that he sees cars as ultimately being fully self-driving, and that manual input is pointless. However, what if he had a change of opinion just to be controversial?
You see, based on Musk’s history of purchasing enthusiast cars after he first struck it rich, he must understand that some people actually DO want to drive for enjoyment. However, with most EVs the level of driver involvement is limited other than point-and-shoot. In my alternate reality with the Model M, Elon decides to surprise the world by fitting this new “Musk-stang” with “Tri Mode Driving.”
The first mode is the controversial, packed-with-problems full self-driving, while the second is conventional driving for locales that accept FSD as being pack-with-problems. What about the third mode? That’s where Musk does the unthinkable and gives enthusiasts a simulated manual transmission. Jason wrote about a driving school that made a similar system to teach students how to operate a manual, and Toyota has developed one as well:
If Musk can launch rockets bound for Mars he can certainly find a way to replicate and improve on this system.
In “conventional” driving mode, the gear stick is like a toggle to switch between park, reverse, neutral, and drive, moving in the center gate. Switch to manual mode and the dead pedal becomes a simulated clutch, while more gates upon up for the gear selector to give you five speeds and reverse.
I’m not sure if you’d be able to “stall” the car, but like those systems already out there the accelerator pedal could work in conjunction with a sort of fake “tachometer” to allow drivers to row through the gears with speed limiters for each simulated cog. The electric motor (or motors plural in the all-wheel-drive version) would be modulated to operate as much like an ICE motor insomuch as offering more lower-end torque in the bottom gears. I’d rather not do fake engine noise (why not just hear the stereo?) but the seat could vibrate to simulate a motor in a manner similar to the “Bodysonic” system that Nissan used on the Z car back in the eighties.
Is it a gimmick? Sure, you can call it that. Still, even the most ardent admirers of manual transmissions will reluctantly agree that automatics since around 2000 are a far cry from the three-speed slushboxes of the years before. Back in the day, an automatic-equipped car would lag behind a similar four- or five-speed stick equipped by a second or more on the run to sixty; fuel economy also suffered. Today, beyond the “fun” factor, there isn’t a compelling reason to buy a car with a clutch. Still, the whole point-and-shoot aspect of EVs without the need for gears makes it feel like something is missing. This looks like it might be fun for when you want to go all boy-racer, yet still offer the option to have let the car “shift” or possibly even drive itself when if you’re too tired, have had too much to drink, received a blow to the head, etc.
If Stellantis can make fake rumbling and noise in an EV, how much can we criticize a fake stick car?
Coupe D’Etat
Why call it Model M? The obvious reason is that this coupe will rival a BMW M-car, but there’s something else. If that boxy yellow Cybercab that I came up with were produced at the same time as this coupe and called the Model F, the Tesla line of cars that together would form S3XY MF. That’s the kind of giggling-12-year-old humor that Elon would be looking for.
Despite what Musk might think, we really don’t have an urgent need for commercial space travel or to bore holes in the ground to connect Las Vegas casinos. What we do need, though, is more sport coupes: fast, fun cars that can carry more than just two people and a box of sardines for less than $100,000. Elon seems to be the last person on earth to make such a product for us enthusiasts, which in typical Musk fashion means that he’d be the likely one to actually do it.
Here’s How I’d One-Up Tesla’s Taxi Of Tomorrow By Going 47 Years Back In Time – The Autopian
Hate The Pointed Pyramid Roof On The Tesla CyberTruck? Let’s Chop It Off – The Autopian
Hey, Koenigsegg already built that shifter! Though not for an EV – it’s even cooler.
That killer wheels with the black holes at the center will be known as Accretion Discs.