Tesla‘s Cybercab is coming soon, perhaps as soon as August. But who’s getting to ride in it?
On Monday, The Information published a report saying the company is preparing for a public launch of the Cybercab in Austin, possibly this month.
Tesla’s official Robotaxi account on X seemingly confirmed the launch is coming soon, as it posted that folks who ride in a Robotaxi (which currently consists of Tesla Model Y cars) will get a chance to attend the Cybercab launch event. “More rides = better odds,” posted the account, without going into detail about the event itself.
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In a subsequent tweet, Tesla Robotaxi said that winners will be announced by 9 a.m. on Aug. 25, which could also be the day when we find more about the launch event.
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It’s an important milestone for Tesla, whose Cybercab is the only high-volume car the company currently has in its public roadmap. But the Cybercab is not just any car; it’s a robotaxi-first vehicle with two seats and no steering wheel, designed primarily to ferry passengers around autonomously.
Tesla’s idea, per The Information, is to start by offering rides to its own employees on Austin’s public roads, and have the Cybercabs join the public robotaxi service in the city soon thereafter. The problem is that regulators currently don’t allow a commercial robotaxi service to run with cars that don’t have steering wheels, though exemptions are possible; Amazon’s Zoox, for example, did get to deploy a small number of autonomous taxi vehicles with no steering wheels in Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Perhaps the bigger issue is whether Tesla has actually brought its autonomous driving software to a level where Cybercabs can start operating at a larger scale. Tesla uses its Full Self-Driving suite of autonomous driving features to power its robotaxis; while pretty advanced, the suite does have flaws. The company’s Robotaxi program is currently limited to some areas in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, Florida, as well as Austin, Dallas, and Houston, Texas.
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