Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has dropped a bombshell at the company’s Q1 2025 All-Hands meeting, revealing that the company’s upcoming Cybercab robotaxi will roll off the production line every 5 seconds.
At the meeting broadcast on X, Musk answered a question from a Tesla staff member about an update on the Cybercab by saying: “Cybercab is not only a revolutionary car design but it’s also a revolutionary manufacturing process,”.
Musk went on to say how the Cybercab’s production line design is inspired from high-tech consumer electronics production line rather than that seen in other car factories: “The design of the Cybercab line, it doesn’t look like a normal car manufacturing line, It looks like a really high-speed consumer electronics line,”.
“In fact, the line will move so fast, that people can’t even get close to it. I think it will be able to produce a car, ultimately less than 5 seconds.”
Musk further said that the casting technology Tesla already incorporates into the manufacturing of its cars has to happen faster if it’s to keep up with that production rate on the Cybercab line.
Production of a vehicle every 5 seconds is unheard of in the automotive industry and with the unique design of single-piece castings used for the Cybercab, it’s likely to be the only mass-produced vehicle to achieve this.
For comparison, Tesla’s Model Y, the world’s best-selling car for multiple years, achieves this every 35 seconds at Tesla’s Shanghai factory, which is the most productive car factory in the world.
This was recently shared in an interview Sandy Munro, a vehicle manufacturing expert, did with Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of engineering.
During the interview, Moravy said: “Shanghai, you know they are running two lines for the Model Y now, they’ve got to be closer to 35 seconds,”.
35 according to Lars pic.twitter.com/pmRHpHFTCp
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) March 21, 2025
Tesla unveiled the Cybercab at the We-Robot event in October 2024. At the event, alongside revealing the vehicle, Musk hinted that this two-seater model is expected to be in production by 2026 at a price point of around $US30,000 or under $A45,000.
These savings will come from parts reduction, manufacturing methods, automated production lines and materials technologies, which will help it get to that price point that’s cheaper than any Tesla model the company sells today.
On parts reduction, an engineer on the Cybercab program revealed that the total structural parts count in the Cybercab would stand at roughly 80 when compared to the Model Y, which has around 200 parts.
That would make the Cybercab have 60% fewer structural components than Model Y, helping create simplicity in assembly, leading to a goal of a car rolling off the high-tech production line every 5 seconds.
With production line design completed and the start of prototype testing outside Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin Texas, the company is looking on-track for producing it next year, adding to its fleet of Robotaxis which will begin operation in California and Texas by the second half of this year.
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.