Billionaire says self-driving car expected ‘before 2027’ will have a price tag under $30,000, with a ‘Robovan’ capable of carrying 20 people to follow
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has unveiled the company’s robotaxi, Cybercab, promising it will cost less than $30,000. He also announced plans to bring autonomous driving to his Model 3 and Model Y cars in California and Texas next year.
During the highly anticipated We, Robot event at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, the billionaire arrived at the Cybercab in his signature black leather jacket, accompanied by a man dressed in a spacesuit. Humanoid robots mingled with the crowd, dancing and serving drinks to attendees for the party.
In the run-up to the announcement, analysts were skeptical that Tesla would deliver on its promise, since fully self-driving vehicles had been deprecated for nine years and robotaxis for five.
Musk said there were 20 more Cybercabs at the event, in addition to the one he arrived in, and 50 fully autonomous vehicles that visitors could try out on the 20 acres of space Tesla had secured for the event.
The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, Musk said, and will charge inductively instead of plugging in.
He added that Tesla had “overspecified” the computer in the vehicles in what he called an Amazon Web Services-style of computing — where it can be distributed across the network of cars.
Musk said Tesla expected the Cybercab to cost less than $30,000 (£22,980, A$44,500).
He said the Cybercab would go into production “in 2026”, but then paused and added: “before 2027”.
“I’m generally a little bit optimistic about timelines,” he said.
The future Musk envisions for autonomous vehicles is one where parking spaces could be replaced by parks, and people could fall asleep or watch a movie in a “comfortable little lounge” while being shuttled to their destination.
He said autonomous cars could be used as Uber-style taxis when not in use by their owners, and people could set up fleets of the vehicles to compete with taxi companies in what he described as a “herder with a herd of cars”.
“It’s going to be a glorious future.”.
Before then, Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y vehicles will transition from assisted -selfdriving to unassisted self-driving, starting in California and Texas next year, and elsewhere in the U.S. and around the world, depending on regulatory approval. He said the S and X models will also be autonomous, but he did not set a timetable.
“With autonomy, you get your time back. It will save lives, a lot of lives, and prevent injuries,” he said.
He said the cars would be safer than humans driving, since Tesla has collected driving data from millions of vehicles.
“With that amount of training data, it’s clearly going to be much better than a human, because you can’t live a million lives,” he said. “It doesn’t get tired and it doesn’t text. It’s going to be 10, 20, 30 times safer than a human.”
He also announced an autonomous delivery van, called Robovan, that can carry up to 20 people and cargo, but did not announce a price or when production would begin.
The billionaire said the company had “made a lot of progress” on Optimus, the humanoid robot that Tesla has developed. Musk introduced the robots in the event hall, telling attendees that they will “walk among you” and serve drinks.
“Please be nice to the Optimus robots,” he said.
At the end of the event, a group of robots stood on a neon-lit stage dancing to Daft Punk’s Robot Rock. He predicted that the Optimus robot would cost up to $30,000 “at scale.”
The showcase of Tesla’s progress in autonomous driving comes as the automaker is facing a class-action lawsuit in the United States from Tesla owners who were promised fully self-driving cars but have not yet received them.
In February last year, Tesla was pressured by US safety authorities to recall fully self-driving cars, because the system allowed speeding and other traffic violations. Tesla fixed the problem with a software update.
Regulators also announced an investigation into fully self-driving cars and autopilot systems and whether the company did enough to ensure human drivers were paying attention, after 20 accidents involving Autopilot were reported following the previous recall.