After teasers and years of anticipation, Tesla finally unveiled its fully autonomous Robotaxi, a key milestone in the company’s quest to redefine the future of transportation. During Tesla’s ‘We Robot’ event in California, this car was announced by CEO Elon Musk as game-changing for bringing an all-new era of autonomy for Tesla.
Surprisingly, the Robotaxi has emerged as a sleek two-door coupe with some radical scissor doors. It’s fully driverless, with no wheel or pedals whatsoever, but it does feature a cavernous liftback for storing things. Musk consistently referred to it as the “Cybercab,” though that may not be an official name. Production starts in 2026, or as Musk put it, “Before 2027, let’s put it that way.” Of course, the billionaire mentioned he sometimes can be too aggressive when estimating timelines.
It will be made in high volume and Tesla hopes to sell the Robotaxi for less than US$30,000 (AU$45,000). “Yes, you’ll be able to buy one,” Musk said, stating the vehicle would also take Tesla’s autonomous driving software to the next level. The Robotaxi will move from supervised to unsupervised self-driving-meaning that in theory, passengers could fall asleep and expect to arrive safely at their destination.
The Robotaxi
He called Robotaxi a form of “personalised mass transit” that would be much less expensive to operate than public transportation. Operating a Cybercab would cost about 20 cents a mile, he estimated, and, with taxes, less than 30 to 40 cents a mile—well under the average $1 a mile cost of a city bus.
A big selling point, Musk said, is the Robotaxi would provide owners with the opportunity to make money from it by way of renting it out when they are not using it. “Cars are actually quite expensive once you consider insurance, payments, and storage,” he said, before adding for most of the week, cars sit idle with the average car getting only 10 hours of utilization. “But if they’re autonomous, they could be used five or even ten times more. The same car could have ten times the value,” Musk said. Add in the ability to recapture time lost to driving and the Robotaxi could prove a transformative purchase for many.
Musk also hinted at a cool possible business model, where a single operator might be able to manage a fleet of driverless cars “like a flock of cars.” He also suggested a clever reuse of each Cybercab’s powerful computer as a cloud computing device when the vehicle is not in service.
Another interesting development is that the Robotaxi will not have a plug for charging; it will instead use wireless induction charging, although Musk did not go into detail on how such infrastructure would be rolled out.
The big surprise unveiling of the event, though, was the Robovan. The retro-futuristic, high-density mini-bus will seat as many as 20 passengers and is promised to have operational costs as low as five cents per mile. Though details on the Robovan’s production and release were few and far between, Musk insisted the pronunciation is ‘ruh-bow-ven,’ not ‘row-bow-van.’
Musk added that before the Cybercab and Robovan hit the roads, consumers will first get to try the robotic taxi services when Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y programs are rolled out.
These cars are designed to carry unsupervised passengers on self-driving capacity once approved by U.S. regulators. However, the company has kept mum on how it would comply with road regulations around the world. Fully driverless cars are prohibited on public roads in Australia, as a matter of fact.
More information on both the Cybercab and Robovan will materialize through 2025 as Tesla refines its strategy on autonomous vehicles. Stay tuned for updates on these exciting pieces of news about autonomous transport. If you need Tesla repairs, Eblen Collision are Adelaide’s number 1 crash repairer.
