Tesla went big on its Cybercab announcement event on Thursday night. It’s been a long-awaited moment, as the EV automaker has been championing autonomous taxis as the ultimate goal of its self-driving technology for years now.
The company’s well-attended livestream finally gave us a real look at the vehicle that’s supposed to herald the future of transportation—in Tesla’s vision, at least. The company revealed a sleek, futuristic-looking vehicle, as you might expect—but with ultimately less daring aesthetics than the polarizing Cybertruck.
That’s not to say that Tesla gave us something conventional. Far from it, in fact. It’s a two-seater, a coupe, and it’s got scissor doors paired with a drastically-sloping roofline. It’s like no other cab you’ve ever hailed before.
Robotaxi & Robovan pic.twitter.com/pI2neyJBSL
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 11, 2024
They call it a Robotaxi in the Tweet? Sure. They called it a Cybercab everywhere else.
Tesla headlines the Cybercab as “faster” and “more affordable.” Why? Well, you won’t be paying a human driver to sit in the seat to haul you around. Beyond that, it notes that the design relies solely on cameras for its self-driving ability. Tesla has long eschewed the use of more expensive radar or LIDAR sensors in its autonomous driving program.
Tesla also states you’ll be able to “call it once” and keep the vehicle “as long as needed,” whether you’re taking short trips or using it all day. Contrast that to a contemporary rideshare or taxi, which is only yours for as long as your trip lasts.
Once again, Tesla has flirted with bold price claims. We’re told the Cybercab will be cost less than $30,000 for purchase, and that sales will be open to private individuals, not just fleet buyers. They’re selling the concept of a cheap robot car that hauls you hither and thither, with the added appeal of the aforementioned scissor doors.
The elephant in the room, of course, is a big one. At this stage, Tesla doesn’t have the technology for self-driving taxis that operate without human supervision. The livestream addressed this, with CEO Elon Musk stating he predicts non-supervised self-driving will be available “before 2027.” This would apply not just to the Cybercab, but to the rest of the Tesla fleet as well—Musk noted that the Model 3, Model Y, Cybertruck, et al, will all get Level 4 or Level 5 self-driving capability. Basically, that’s where the car can drive itself under the vast majority of situations without any human supervision or interaction. You know, what we all think self-driving means.
NEWS: Tesla has filed four patents related to a wireless charging mat for vehicles. This mat is something the car will drive over and it will automatically start charging. While it's not clear what Teslas will use this, presumably Tesla's upcoming Robotaxi will utilize this… https://t.co/jyr5RX0EmI pic.twitter.com/MSdqc9jCoT
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 7, 2024
Notably, the livestream mentioned that the Cybercab will have inductive charging capability. This comes as little surprise, as Tesla’s research activity in this area has been public knowledge for some time. As we reported last month, Tesla has filed four patents regarding wireless EV charging technology. Patent drawings and other graphics from the company suggest charging is achieved via a floor-mounted rectangular pad that sits beneath the vehicle. We’ve also seen that provisions appear to have been made on existing Tesla vehicle batteries for this purpose, with connectors for the technology already apparently included on some batteries.
This move makes sense. While it’s possible to build a robotic apparatus to plug in a wired charger to an EV, a wireless charger is altogether simpler to implement. One merely needs to drive the vehicle over the pad to start charging. This would be far simpler and easier for an autonomous vehicle, and require far less maintenance over time.
Autonomous cabs promise a multitude of benefits. Namely, there’s no need for a human driver to spend their time schlepping other humans around. This eliminates labor costs if you’re hiring a cab, for example, and also avoids issues like fatigue. Alternatively, if it’s your Cybercab you’re talking about, full autonomy avoids the issue of parking. You can have your vehicle drop you off at your destination, and then it can drive away and come pick you up later. There’s no need to find convenient parking near your destination. You can also work during your commute, which theoretically could let you spend more time at home with your loved ones, plus in theory you could rent out your car to someone without worrying about them driving like crazed loons.
That’s all very fun, of course, it’s just not real. Not quite yet, anyway. But Tesla still firmly believes that it can make it happen, and the Cybercab is the vehicle apparently optimized to operate in this way.
What’s weird is that Tesla’s prime autonomous cab would only have two seats and an obviously limited cargo capacity. On the one hand, a great many cab trips do carry just one or two people. On the other hand, it’s a pain enough today when you’re travelling with five friends and have to try and score yourself one of the big Ubers. It would be particularly annoying if this happened every time you were travelling as a trio. In any case, Tesla dodged around this to a degree by simultaneously announcing the Robovan, which apparently has 20 seats and far more space.
Ultimately, the Cybercab is kind of a surprise. That’s what Tesla does well, of course. A regular automaker might have showed us another pod concept with comfy chairs and lots of room inside, but that wouldn’t fit the Tesla aesthetic. What they showed us was something radical, shocking, and questionably practical. Given the way the Cybertruck lit up the discourse, both for better and worse, it seems the Cybercab is following a similar formula. Tesla is as Tesla does, that much is certain.
Image credits: Tesla
It’s all provocative and designed to get clicks, but the giant wad of boilerplate on the slide at the beginning of the presentation (designed to head off a future SEC investigation) means every single claim should be followed by “… or, y’know, not.”
That’s stupid, a sports coupe taxi, when every other specialized taxi vehicle is a boxy shape designed to seat 4 with luggage and many use sliding doors. Here we have 2 seat pod, and Adam Something has great takedowns of pods, with completely unnecessary scissor doors like a bloated Toyota Paseo.
Yes, because my biggest fear with using a taxi today is that the vehicle just isn’t sexy enough…
If I can make 30 grand a year robo-taxiing with a Tesla 3/Y as Musk promised years ago, why would I want one of these without the full drivable car functionality?
“You can also work during your commute, which theoretically could let you spend more time at home with your loved ones”
I think its far more likely that if this pie in the sky design did become the norm you would be expected to be working during your commute in addition to your regular work hours. Certainly, the easy reachability of the modern worker has done a lot to erase the boundary between on and off the clock thus far.
It looks like it’s designed for aerodynamics, not ease of use and comfort. Which is weird, considering 95% of it’s miles will be at speeds where good aero doesn’t really help much. Baffling.
The angles make it a bit hard to tell, but in a typical taxi location, maybe an airport dropoff area, don’t those doors seem like they will take up a huge amount of airspace or crash into something?
dum.
Just as Boring Company solved the SoCal traffic congestion problems, and Tesla Solar Roof dominates the house roofing market, the CyberCab will dominate the ride share business.
Proven track record of success*.
*Success is defined by making stock price go up, not producing actual value.
Any rube can fraud for a few years but frauding for decades is the mark of a true Master!
That does put him ahead of Fisker, who just keeps going bankrupt, but Musk seems to grab a good idea, and then use it as a springboard for bad ideas.
Looks like a VW XL1.
I’d hate to have this as my only car if I ever needed to evacuate due to a wildfire, hurricane, tornado, etc. Suppose they’ll come up with a “get me the hell out of here” mode?
What a dumb name. Is everything going to be Cyber____ now, like things were i____ (iRiver, iPod, iRobot…). They are both garbage names.
i thought the branding in musk’s imagineland was “x”:
tesla model “x”;
space-x;
“x”, the social media formerly known as prince;
x-wife;
etc….or should that be xcetera?
Coming soon: CyberXXX Robot
Elon and Autonomous vehicle shenanigans aside, I welcome a compact 2 door EV. We need more options like this.
Although to be honest the Cybercab should really be that big van scaled down to typical minivan size imo. Way better for ingress and egress and easier to accommodate people with disabilities and/or those holding a million groceries in one arm because they refuse to take two trips.
Canoo was the perfect cybercab
So it’s a not-terrible-looking sporty coupe, that you can’t drive yourself because it has no steering wheel, marketed as a cab, but it can’t really do that because it’s a sporty coupe. Just when you think Tesla couldn’t miss the point by any wider margin…
If it doesn’t need a steering wheel, why does it need a screen?
Advertising space.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the problem with this idea is that in a human driven cab, there’s someone there to notice when the passenger area has trash and other….substances in it. No such luck here. The ick factor will be a real issue depending on how long they expect these to be on the road at a time.
The part they don’t show is where the cab gasses passengers into unconsciousness and revives them on arrival thereby limiting the amount of damage humans can do during transit.
Um, tell me you find that a feature and not a flaw. Transportation and a nap.
I shudder to think about a future where if we want to get around we’ll all hail a Tesla. Hail Tesla, Hail Tesla! Has a certain ring to it.
Get over yourself.
cmon man, no need for that response to a joke
If I wanted that particular rhetoric in the comments I’d read Jalopnik.
For those who would benefit from a robo-taxi,(senior citizens, people with mobility issues), how the heck are they supposed to get in that thing? 1 person does not need a bus size contraption to take them to the doctor’s office or to Walmart.
Seems like its designed to be a driven car, but they are showing it in this format to support years old claims by Musk about autonomous taxis.
This is just part of the show that they need to do to keep investors thinking the real big thing is just over the horizon.
“Tesla also states you’ll be able to “call it once” and keep the vehicle “as long as needed,” whether you’re taking short trips or using it all day.”
Wouldn’t that be up to the owner? Or is Tesla planning its own nation-wide taxi company?
I think the cyber cab will have fusion power once the self driving becomes available since they both seem perpetually 2 years away.
Brake lights in the bumper? I thought Tesla was supposed to not do the stupid things GM does. I bet the reverse light go on when you unlock it too.
Tesla finally figured out how buses and general public transit work. Congrats techbros.
Having multiple friends and family members who enjoy one’s presence might be a foreign concept to Elon, but it’s a harsh reality for us unwashed masses who might need more than two seats
2 or 20, why would anyone need anything in between?
So going off of Musks track record with FSD/Autopilot, we’ll see it in 2040?
He’s going to send one to Mars where it will drive itself.
That would be safer for all of us.
I could buy the two-seater cab if it had the footprint of a smart, but taking up more space with less utility than an Uber Corolla seems ill-planned. Big taxi cities tend to have road space limitations, right?
Cybercab looks a little pinched. Moving along, ring me in a decade when it ‘might be’ approaching production with limited fsd.