STORY: Elon Musk made a big entrance late Thursday.
He rolled towards the stage at the Warner Bros studios near Los Angeles in a new two-door Tesla which he calls the ‘Cybercab’.
The vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals, and is meant to launch robotaxi services.
Musk says it will go into production in 2026, priced below $30,000.
And he says real self-driving will finally arrive:
“So, we’ll move from supervised full self-driving to unsupervised full self-driving, where the car… you could fall asleep and wake up at your destination.”
Musk also showcased a larger self-driving vehicle – the Robovan – which can carry up to 20 people.
The debuts are all part of his move to rebrand Tesla as a robotics firm, not a mass-market automaker.
The company’s humanoid Optimus robot was also on show to hammer home the point.
The event sparked huge enthusiasm among fans, with Musk promising thhat owners would be able to make money renting out their cars as cabs.
“Your average passenger car is only used about 10 hours a week out of 168 hours. So, the vast majority of the time, cars are just doing nothing. But if they’re autonomous, they could be used, I don’t know, five times more. Maybe 10 times more.”
Some observers were more skeptical, however.
One shareholder told Reuters he was disappointed by the lack of a clear timeframe for robotaxi services.
Other investors noted a lack of detail on how quickly Tesla can ramp up production, and how it can overcome regulatory worries about safety.
The Cybercabs rely on AI and cameras to get around, dispensing with the other sensors – like costly lidar – used by rivals like Alphabet’s Waymo.
Experts say that approach significantly cuts costs, but also poses huge technical challenges.
Musk also has a history of being overoptimistic on timing – and he said as much at Thursday’s event.
As early as 2019, he was promising to have robotaxis on the streets by the following year.
