Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla launches the long-awaited robotaxi, the ‘Cybercab’. The AI-powered vehicle has no pedals or steering wheels but consists of two gullwing doors signifying the upcoming trends in automated and AI-driven transport solutions.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils the much-anticipated automated robotaxi, Cybercab, at the ‘We, Robot’ event hosted at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. The billionaire, Musk reached the stage in the Cybercab wearing a black leather jacket, the typical Musk style.
According to the announced plans, the model 3 and model Y cars will be integrated into autonomous driving by next year and elsewhere in the US and the rest of the world later. The production tends to start in 2026 or before 2027 at least.
In addition to the car Musk arrived, there were 20 more Cybercabs at the event and 50 fully automated vehicles available for the audience to try out within the 20 acres of space set for the event.
The Cybercab will have no steering wheels or pedals and will have an inductive charging system rather than a plug. Musk claims that automated cars could be 10 times safer than human-driven cars and would run up to 10 times longer.
The vehicles will rely on artificial intelligence and cameras rather than the common hardware used in rival robo-vehicles, he added. He also expressed his confidence in the progress the company had made in autonomous driving over the past years.
Musk, known to be optimistic with time frames didn’t mention when would Tesla start the robotaxi production but added before 2027. Many analysts were skeptical whether Tesla would stay up to the promises since fully driven vehicles have been flagged for nine years and robotaxis for five years particularly to ensure safety and reliability.
According to the future vision of Musk, parking lots can be replaced by parks, and people can sleep or watch movies while traveling to their destinations. The estimated price would be below $30000, he added.
‘If they are eventually stepping into robotaxis, they first need to have success with the unsupervised FSD at the current limp, and tonight’s events show that they are ready to take that step forward’, said Seth Goldstein, an equity strategist at Morningstar Research.
The event started with a nearly one-hour delay due to some medical emergency that occurred by Musk, claimed by the attendee. The presentation lasted for less than half an hour and was watched by more than 4 million people through the social media platform X alone.
Apart from the Cybercab, Musk also revealed the progress of the humanoid robot, ‘Optimus’. He introduced the robots to the event hall telling the audience ‘Please be nice to the Optimus robots’. ‘They will walk among you and serve you drinks’, added Musk. At the end of the event, the Optimus robots were found dancing to Daft Punk’s Robot Rock.
Tesla’s advancement in autonomous driving is overshadowed by the lawsuit in the US from Tesla owners for claiming a false promise of full self-driving that has yet to be delivered.
In February 2023, Tesla was forced to take their full self-driving vehicles back by the US safety regulators since the system was detected violating traffic laws and speed limits, which was resolved with a software update from Tesla.
In April this year, safety regulators announced an investigation on full self-driving and autopilot systems to analyze whether the company was setting enough standards to ensure human drivers were paying attention, after reporting 20 crashes following autopilot earlier this year.
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