Musk launches $30,000 Tesla autonomous CyberCab and RoboVan

Despite a decade of unfulfilled promises about driverless vehicles Tesla CEO Elon Musk The company unveiled the CyberCab concept on Thursday night, showing off a low-slung, silver two-seater with no steering wheel or pedals.

Taking the CyberCab stage about an hour into the company's “We, Robot” event, Musk said the company has 21 such cars and a total of 50 “autonomous” vehicles at Warner facilities. Brothers Studio in Burbank, California, where Tesla held its invitation-only event.

Musk didn't give details on exactly where Tesla plans to build the cars, but said customers will be able to buy a Tesla CyberCab for less than $30,000. He said the company hopes to have CyberCab ready before 2027.

He also said he expects Tesla to introduce “unsupervised FSD” in Texas and California next year on the company's Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles.

FSD, which stands for Fully Self-Driving, is Tesla's premium driver assistance system, available today in a “supervised” version for Tesla electric cars. Currently, FSDs require a human driver at the steering wheel, ready to steer or brake at a moment's notice. Earlier this year, Tesla added “supervision” to its product name.

“It will be a glorious future,” Musk said Thursday night.

Musk also revealed plans to build an autonomous electric Robovan that could carry up to 20 people or be used to transport goods. He said this would “address high density,” for example by transporting a sports team.

He said Cybercab and Robovan will employ inductive charging, meaning these autonomous vehicles can arrive at a station to recharge, without needing to be plugged in.

Musk has spent years touting Tesla's work on self-driving cars and promising they would come to market. Along the way, he repeatedly weaves a fantastic vision for shareholders, setting and missing his own deadline.

In 2015, Musk told shareholders that Tesla cars would achieve “full autonomy” within three years. They didn't do that. In 2016, Musk said a Tesla car would be able to cross the country without the need for human intervention before the end of 2017. That never happened. And in 2019, on a call with institutional investors that would help him raise more than $2 billion, Musk said that by 2020 Tesla would have 1 million robotaxi-ready vehicles on the road, capable of completing 100 hours of driving per week. Money for their owners.

In April this year, Musk even told investors that autonomy was the company's future.

“If someone doesn't believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I don't think they should be an investor in the company,” he said. said on a call with analysts. “We will, and we are.”

At Thursday night's event, which he previously characterized as a “product launch,” Musk welcomed attendees to the “party” and said they could test autonomous vehicles in the closed environment of movie studios. . .

At the end of his nearly 23 minutes on stage, the CEO said Tesla wants to show off its now-in-development humanoid robot, dubbed Optimus, not just for “a canned video.”

“The Optimus robots will walk among you,” Musk said, then asked attendees to “be kind” to the robots, who will serve drinks at an on-site bar. The presentation ended with Musk saying “Let's party” and the live broadcast showed a group of Optimus robots dancing to the club's hit song.

The event was Tesla's first product launch since the company unveiled designs for its Cybertruck in 2019. The angular steel pickup began shipping to customers in late 2023 and has since been subject to five voluntary recalls in the United States.