Image: Tesla
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has been clear with his goals to an autonomous electric vehicle transportation future. He now says that tens of millions of driverless Tesla’s are on the way to revolutionise transportation in our cities.
“There will ultimately be tens of millions of driverless Teslas throughout the world giving rides 24/7”, Musk says a post on X, which he owns.
To put that number in context, Tesla produced it’s 7-millionth vehicle in October after 16 years of producing electric cars.
The post on X came in response to a video of Musk getting inside Tesla’s own two-seater robotaxi, which the company calls the Cybercab, before it drives off.
That drive was on a test track at the We Robot event Tesla held at Warner Bros studios in California back in October.
Since then, multiple details about the vehicle have been revealed, particularly focusing on the design and operational capabilities of the vehicle.
We now also have an interior view of the vehicle thanks to Tesla Owners Club of Silicon Valley which was reshared by Musk himself.
In the video, we get a closer look at the interior and how much space there actually is inside. An adult with a height of 6 feet and 2 inches can fit in quite easily with adequate legroom as well as reasonable clearance above the head when seated.
Part of the reason is good use of space when steering wheel, pedals and most buttons are taken out of the interior which is whats found in most regular cars today.
There are also two cup holders in the centre console as well as two switches for the windows.
Aside from that, the interior features a light bar that runs from one end to the other, similar to thar seen in Tesla’s Model 3, the Cybertruck and likely in the upcoming Model Y refresh.
Of course in the centre is a large 21-inch screen which is used for route navigation, trip information as well as passenger entertainment.
In recent weeks, other key details of the $A45,000 Tesla Cybercab have also emerged. It includes wireless charging capabilities of up to 25 kW and a reduction in body parts of up to 50% when compared to a standard Tesla Model 3.
Other key details of the Cybercab include a strong focus on efficiency to ensure Tesla can get the most out of every single charge while reducing the cost of every trip down.
The Cybercab is expected to go into production in 2026 and will use Tesla’s full self driving (FSD) software when it finally hits the streets of US in under 24 months.
It still depends on regulatory approval, although the new Trump administration, of which Musk has emerged as a key player in his role as co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, has promised to sweep aside regulatory barriers to business.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.
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It's all green lights to the Musk Utopian future then. Except maybe a red light in jurisdictions that Trump can't control outside of the USA and possibly some States in the US.
It will be all red lights. As in Traffic lights jammed with vehicles traversing to their next customer.
No thanks Elon
We need less, not more, cars, driverless or not.
I wonder if having an option to call a car to fit your timetable will encourage getting-by with fewer personal cars? E.g. take me to the pub and then bring me home, take kids to dancing class or football training or collect grandma from the station?
Nope. Not how it works. Peak time is peak time, who owns the car and who (or what) is driving its irrelevant
The robotaxi removes either the return or outbound leg of pickups and dropoffs, reducing the number of cars on the road. They would also reduce the need for cars that spend most of the day parked, wasting space.
Where are the robotaxis 'waiting' to get a new trip? out of the city, so it takes 20 minutes to arrive? Or circling the busy inner city areas in order to maximise profitability?
None of this is going to work out the way you think it is.
deadheading (as in the vehicle travelling from one customer to another) will add to distance and time on roads.
Trouble is you have an empty vehicle driving from one customer to another adding to traffic rather than subtracting from it.
In what way is that different to the human drive taxi?
Fewer cars!
I agree, no matter what way this was intended.
Musk had better start building more Gigafactories if he wants to make tens of millions of cars.
oh piss off, American wankers.
You are carrying on like a .....oh wait
Interesting bet on two seat capacity. What do families do? Does a single parent with two or three kids entrust one or more unsupervised to a robot?
Or the disabled. No place for wheelchair users in this glorious future, apparently.
In Musk and Trumps dystopian future there is no place for the disabled. Leeches on the rich.
The disabled are untermensch in Musk's world. I'm sure he and Trump will come up with a final solution for such people.
Have you seen the size of the boot in this thing?
Tesla have other cars already in the market. Nothing for large families yet.
They are not looking to address every use case, they are looking to address the predominant one. There will be high occupancy autonomous vehicles but it will take time to build a business case and user base to justify niche market penetration.
Tesla creates each vehicle to be a category killer. Sedan… Mid size SUV… pickup truck, semi truck. Cybercab will be no different. Most ride hail trips are one or two people. If you need 3 seats… call and Uber… or an autonomous model 3 or Y.
Tesla research says that 82% of rideshare trips had 2 people or less per trip so they based the cybercab on that modelling.
An impractical design for a cab.
Q4 nonsense.
Mr Musk's other ventures need TSLA to stay inflated in order to keep his banks and others from demanding their liquidity back. Expect SpaceX float hype to keep the pumping going.
This concept would make more sense if they looked like stumpy buses. Then you could fit families, party groups, have ride sharing etc
Robovan…. 2027