Wrap: Elon Musk unveils the Tesla Cybercab and Robovan

Elon Musk has unveiled Tesla's fully autonomous Cybercab robotaxi in a showy event at Warner Brothers. He also debuted a 20-seat Robovan that's expected to follow, and sent a small fleet of Optimus humanoids out to party with the crowd.

8:18 pm PT: ...and that appears to be that?

Well, if we were expecting a highly technical, engineering-focused deep dive like we got at previous Battery Day and Autonomy Day events, this was not that.

We saw the Cybertaxi in action in a highly controlled and sandboxed movie set. We saw the Robovan travel a short distance and disgorge some passengers, looking wild on the outside but fairly public transport on the inside.

Musk raised the possibility that any time an autonomous Tesla isn't driving, it could be used as part of a distributed compute network thanks to its high-spec onboard AI computer and communications capabilities, so each Tesla could do a share of the work training the swarm - or the next Grok AI model, for that matter.

He also announced Tesla is getting into wireless charging: "It's really high time we did this. The robotaxi has no plug, it just goes over the inductive charger and charges. So yeah, that's kind of how it should be."

We learned the Robovan is the intended solution for cargo as well as large groups, with a target cost around 5-10 cents per mile, per passenger.

We learned that Musk hopes to get the Optimus humanoid into homes as a consumer product for US$20-30,000 once it achieves scale manufacturing, as a "personal R2D2 or C3P0" that can "do anything you want... So it can be a teacher, babysit your kids. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks, whatever you can think of, it'll do."

Tesla

Really, as far as the Cybercab goes, this event was a hardware reveal – but the hardware obviously isn't the difficult part here, and there really wasn't much here to address the software, which is the real issue. And "sometime before 2027" is hardly a date that's likely to impress investors – we'll see which way the share price moves tomorrow.

"Well before that," said Musk, "you'll experience a robotic taxi via the Model 3 and Model Y program... Model 3 and Y will achieve unsupervised, full self-driving with permission wherever regulators essentially approve it in the US, and then to follow outside the US."

So to wrap up, the new Cybercab looks pretty cool and seems like it'd be practical if it was allowed to drive autonomously. The new Robovan looks much more bizarre, but should also be practical if it's allowed to drive autonomously.

But they're not allowed to drive autonomously, and they won't be for at least another three and a half years, even according to Musk's famously optimistic timelines. So my read on this event is that it's been more sizzle than sausage, and I'm looking forward to next time we hear from the engineering team.

It does look like a fun party to be at, though, and it's great to see Optimus mixing it up with the public. And Tesla can be relieved that nothing went off the rails like things did at the Cybertruck launch in 2019.

8:15 pm PT: Optimus humanoid robot update

A small fleet of Optimus humanoids has been dispatched to mingle among the crowd, interact and serve drinks. It seems they'll also be entertaining as podium dancers. And now Musk is pitching it as a home helper, rather than an industrial robot:

"It's gonna be awesome," says Musk. "I think this'll be the biggest product ever, of any kind. Because I think everyone of the eight billion people on Earth, I think everyone's gonna want their Optimus buddy."

Well, humanoids are certainly progressing impressively quickly – but personally I can't see them being able to do "basically anything you want," safely, in a mass-market consumer offering for several years yet, at the very least.

They still have an awful lot to learn – but on the other hand, they don't have to deal with road traffic authorities the way the autonomous cars do...

8:12 pm PT: Robovan

Tesla

An autonomous transport pod for 20 people. Musk: "We're going to make this, and it's going to look like that... The future should look like the future."

Tesla

Tesla is letting attendees ride the available Cybercab fleet around an elaborate "set" at Warner Brothers.

Tesla

8:05 pm PT: Retelling the old story, plus prices and dates

Elon's breaking out the old rope. Cars are underutilized 99% of the time. Autonomous cars will be 10 times safer than a human. The task of driving will become something like the task of an elevator operator. Cars will be little lounges, like an individualized form of mass transit.

Musk: "You'll be able to buy one. And we expect the cost to be below US$30,000."

Musk: "We do expect to start fully unsupervised FSD in California and Texas next year. That's with the Model 3 and the Model Y. We expect to be in production with the Cybercab, highly optimized for autonomous transport... I do probably tend to be a little optimistic with time frames... But in 2026. Well, before 2027, let me put it that way."

7:55 pm PT: And here it is!

Tesla

Elon Musk: "As you can see, I just arrived in the Robotaxi, the Cybercab. There's 20 more where that came from. There's no steering wheel or pedals."

7:43 pm PT: 2.2 million people twiddling their thumbs

How are we all loving this hold music? You know what'd be cool though? A Tesla presentation instead.

Tesla

7:21 pm PT: Anticipation

The promise has always been intoxicating: a fleet of fully independent self-driving cars could revolutionize urban transport. Cheaper and theoretically much safer than human drivers, a proper robotaxi network could eventually replace car ownership.

Why own a car and fuss about parking and servicing it, when door-to-door A to B transport is available cheaply, on-demand, and capable of operating under swarm intelligence models that could eventually make it a lot faster as well?

Execution has been much tougher. Elon Musk has famously promised Tesla's big-data Autopilot system would be ready for full hands-off, eyes-off autonomy many times over the last 6-7 years, and each of these predicted dates has sailed past. "Full self-driving" Teslas still don't fully self-drive.

But the concept is key to Tesla's sky-high market valuation, so anticipation for today's event is very high. Given the notoriously difficult problem and obvious safety risks inherent in this challenge, the latest Autopilot systems do an absolutely incredible job where they're currently available, but they still require regular human intervention.

And there's a toll: upwards of 44 people have died to date in crashes where Autopilot was in full control of the vehicle, underscoring the gravity of this undertaking. Musk maintains that the cars are safer per mile than human drivers, but that's a difficult claim to confirm, since Tesla's data isn't public, and the system currently hands control back to human drivers when sh#t appears to be approaching the fan.

Other companies like Waymo have rolled out commercial driverless robotaxi services – indeed, they've been out there for four years now without human safety drivers on board. But they've done so in geofenced areas, with human operators ready to take over when the cars can't work out what to do.

It's unclear exactly what Tesla's plans are, but Musk has spoken at length about the idea that your 2022 Model Y should be able to go out and earn a living by itself while you're at work. And he's long promised that a Robotaxi without any steering wheel at all is key to Tesla's future plans.

As with many Tesla initiatives, there's a sense here that he's probably pushed the Robotaxi team to deliver the impossible, under a terrifyingly short timeline.

So let's see what the latest promises look like, keeping an appropriate degree of skepticism about any dates mentioned...

6:52 pm PT – Livestream link

The stream is set to go live in a few minutes, watch here! Refresh this page, as we'll be updating it throughout the presentation – and join the discussion in the comments below!

Source: Tesla