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Elon Musk Deploys Hollywood Smoke and Mirrors to Debut Tesla’s Cybercab Robotaxi

Appropriately, EV mogul Musk introduced the autonomous Cybercab at Warner Brothers’ imagination factory.

Dan Carney, Senior Editor

October 11, 2024

6 Min Read
Tesla's Cybercab promises to deliver autonomous ride-hailing in two years.
Tesla's Cybercab promises to deliver autonomous ride-hailing in two years. Or maybe three. Musk can't decide.Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

At a Glance

  • Cybercab is a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals for human control.
  • Musk says it will cost less than $30,000 when it arrives in 2026. Or maybe 2027. Do not question the great and powerful Oz.
  • Cybercab uses Tesla's new AI 5 artificial intelligence computer to provide its self-driving capability.

“Step right this way, folks, get your very own self-driving Tesla CyberCab for the low, low price of less than $30,000!” That was Elon Musk’s pitch in a product launch staged on a Hollywood lot in an event that included the anticipated robotaxi, numerous Optimus androids, and the unexpected debut of a sleek Art Deco-styled 20-passenger Robovan that looks like it came directly from the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.

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The costume department clad Musk in a shiny new black leather jacket for this production, echoing the black suit worn by the Wizard of Oz in the famous MGM film, but the impression of his projected exaggerated authority was similar after so many years of failing to deliver on bold promises of self-driving Teslas.

Musk’s show was characteristically full of ambitious claims and optimistic timetables but short on details or specifications. It was in many ways the opposite of the June presentation of the Verne robotaxi by Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac, which was marked by cautious forecasts and technical details about that company’s planned self-driving ride-hailing service.

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In contrast, Musk alternated between calling his self-driving vehicle Cybercab and Robotaxi (which is the name listed on the Tesla website), suggesting that he hasn’t settled on a name while claiming that the eventual product, which he says will be delivered in 2026, will have an operational cost of only $0.20 per mile. Even Musk doesn’t believe his own hype, so he hedged by conceding that the Cybercab might slip to 2027.

As a reminder, in 2017 Musk said that the Tesla Roadster would be delivered in 2020. That car still has not reached customers and looks unlikely to do so this year even though, unlike the Cybercab, it doesn’t depend on any breakthroughs in self-driving technology.

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Musk has been touting Tesla’s Full Self Driving driver assistance technology through an abundance of falsely confident predictions since 2016 and has yet to deliver a product that can drive on public roads without human supervision. Design News reported on Musk’s 2019 remarks in an ARK Invest podcast that Tesla would have full autonomy in 2020. Obviously, that did not happen.

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One area where Musk and Rimac agree is that artificial intelligence will be crucial for delivering fully autonomous vehicles that have no steering wheel or pedals for human control. “AI development is really progressing rapidly,” Rimac observed in an interview with Design News. “We see already that you can now in a very short time by using these new advancements come so far.”

“Most of the [self-driving] systems you see today are still based more on the previous development,” he continued. “I think now, in the next couple of years, we will see the next generation of systems that are developed less rule-based and more purely AI.”

Here, Musk provided a smidgen of technical detail, saying that the Cybercab will use Tesla’s AI 5 FSD hardware. That was renamed from Hardware 5 to AI 5 in June, illustrating the company’s shift in technical focus.

This same hardware is going into Tesla’s other models, which rely entirely on cameras to let the computer see the world around it. That fact, and images of the Cybercab that don’t appear to show visible radar or lidar units, suggests that Musk is sticking with his camera-only approach for his robotaxi product.

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This is in contrast to Verne, which employs nine lidars, five radars, and 13 cameras to ensure that the car’s computer has a complete picture of its surroundings. Current robotaxi ride-hailing services Waymo and Cruise both supplement camera imagery with lidar scans to maximize safety.

Musk has been consistently cavalier about the need for additional information, even while his cars have plowed into stopped objects like emergency response vehicles and overturned trucks because the computer couldn’t recognize the sight of those as objects of concern.

“Anyone relying on lidar is doomed,” Musk sniffed during a 2019 presentation on autonomous vehicles. “Doomed,” he emphasized. “Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. You’ll see.”

Indeed, we will. Five years later, the rest of the industry still disagrees with Musk’s view. “They’re all going to dump lidar,” Musk insisted in a 2021 presentation. “Mark my words.”

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Musk’s stage show included a thrill ride component when attendees were able to get rides around the movie studio’s street set in a Cybercab. Software security expert and Full Self Driving critic Dan O’Dowd wasn’t impressed. He posted on the former Twitter/now-X site, “After over 10 years of Full Self-Driving development, Tesla is limited to a 20-30 acre geofenced 5mph ride on a preprogrammed, pre-mapped and heavily rehearsed route with no traffic and no pedestrians. 1950s Disneyland guests would be unimpressed.”

O’Dowd pointed out that Musk has promised that Teslas would deliver the ability for drivers to sleep while their car delivers them to their destination since 2014, without yet delivering that capability. “Until Tesla robotaxis are transporting 100,000 paying customers a week around major American cities like Waymo does, Tesla robotaxi is nothing more than the latest work of fiction to come out of the Warner Bros. Studio,” he said.

While there were few technical details provided, some aspects of the Cybercab are visible in photos, so we can compare to Rimac’s Verne robotaxi. In the cabin, the Verne boasts an expansive 43-inch infotainment display to occupy passengers who are bathed in light through the car’s circular skylight. Tesla’s Cybercab has a more claustrophobic solid roof and the dashboard infotainment display looks to be about two-thirds the size of Verne’s.

Musk provided little detail about the Tesla Robovan, but Rimac explained why Verne chose not to pursue such a vehicle. “‘Toasters’ are great on Excel,” he said, describing rolling boxes like the Robovan. “They look like you can cram more people in it. And more people pay for the rides, therefore the economics are better. But people are not numbers in Excel. Do you want to drive [facing] the opposite direction? Do you want to sit sideways? Do you want to sit on a plastic bench with somebody next to you [who] you don’t know?”

The imperious Musk, in his slick leather jacket costume, seems an unlikely candidate for using a quasi-public shared conveyance like that. But Musk seems certain to tell us to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

About the Author

Dan Carney

Senior Editor, Design News

Dan’s coverage of the auto industry over three decades has taken him to the racetracks, automotive engineering centers, vehicle simulators, wind tunnels, and crash-test labs of the world.

A member of the North American Car, Truck, and Utility of the Year jury, Dan also contributes car reviews to Popular Science magazine, serves on the International Engine of the Year jury, and has judged the collegiate Formula SAE competition.

Dan is a winner of the International Motor Press Association's Ken Purdy Award for automotive writing, as well as the National Motorsports Press Association's award for magazine writing and the Washington Automotive Press Association's Golden Quill award.

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He has held a Sports Car Club of America racing license since 1991, is an SCCA National race winner, two-time SCCA Runoffs competitor in Formula F, and an Old Dominion Region Driver of the Year award winner. Co-drove a Ford Focus 1.0-liter EcoBoost to 16 Federation Internationale de l’Automobile-accredited world speed records over distances from just under 1km to over 4,104km at the CERAM test circuit in Mortefontaine, France.

He was also a longtime contributor to the Society of Automotive Engineers' Automotive Engineering International magazine.

He specializes in analyzing technical developments, particularly in the areas of motorsports, efficiency, and safety.

He has been published in The New York Times, NBC News, Motor Trend, Popular Mechanics, The Washington Post, Hagerty, AutoTrader.com, Maxim, RaceCar Engineering, AutoWeek, Virginia Living, and others.

Dan has authored books on the Honda S2000 and Dodge Viper sports cars and contributed automotive content to the consumer finance book, Fight For Your Money.

He is a member and past president of the Washington Automotive Press Association and is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers

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