Tesla To Begin Cybercab Production In April, Musk Claims

Tesla will statesman producing nan Cybercab, an autonomous electrical conveyance pinch nary pedals aliases steering wheel, this April astatine its mill successful Austin, Texas, CEO Elon Musk said during nan company’s shareholder gathering Thursday.

His comments connected Cybercab came conscionable moments aft shareholders overwhelmingly approved a compensation package for Musk that could beryllium worthy arsenic overmuch arsenic $1 trillion successful institution shares — nan largest successful firm history.

“We’ve sewage nan first car that is specifically built for unsupervised, afloat self-driving to beryllium a robotaxi called a Cybercab — it doesn’t moreover person pedals aliases steering wheel,” Musk said, adding location will beryllium nary broadside mirrors either. “It’s very overmuch optimized for nan lowest cost-per-mile successful an autonomous mode and accumulation is happening correct present successful this factory, and we’ll beryllium starting accumulation successful April adjacent year.”

Tesla has yet to show that its cars are tin of driving themselves astatine standard without a information monitor, contempt years of promises.

Musk’s comments look to conflict pinch Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm, who precocious told Bloomberg nan Cybercab would see a steering instrumentality and pedals arsenic a backup plan. Tesla erstwhile planned to make a type of nan Cybercab pinch a instrumentality and pedals, but Musk killed nan thought and opted instead to make very stripped-down versions of its cheapest cars.

Musk went connected tout really nan Cybercab would beryllium produced, claiming nan manufacturing statement would person a 10-second rhythm clip — a monolithic acceleration from nan one-minute rhythm clip to combine a Model Y. Musk said this could mean producing 2 to 3 cardinal Cybercabs successful a year.

“So these will beryllium everyplace successful nan future,” he said.

Tesla first revealed nan Cybercab successful October 2024 during its splashy “We, Robot” event astatine Warner Bros. Discovery studio in California pinch a committedness to yet waste nan vehicles for individual use.

Since then, Tesla has launched a very bare-bones robotaxi service, but not pinch nan projected Cybercab. The service, which launched successful June successful definite parts of Austin, uses Model Y SUVs equipped pinch what Musk has described arsenic a new, “unsupervised” type of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software. A Tesla worker sits successful nan rider spot connected these driverless rides.

Putting a Cybercab — aliases immoderate conveyance connected nan roadworthy without modular instrumentality for illustration a steering instrumentality — will require support from national regulators. Earlier this year, Amazon-backed Zoox managed to get an exemption and moreover past it has been only to demonstrate its custom-built robotaxis connected nationalist roads. Zoox is still seeking an exemption that would let it run a commercialized robotaxi service.

The regulatory process for those exemptions is simply a agelong and sticky one. General Motors tried and grounded to get support for a its custom-built Cruise Origin vehicle, for example. Waymo, nan ascendant robotaxi work supplier successful nan U.S., has stuck to its modified Jaguar I-Pace vehicles that still person accepted controls. Waymo is besides processing a conveyance pinch Zeekr.

Musk didn’t look phased by nan imaginable for regulators to thwart his plans and thanked Waymo for “paving nan path.”

“I deliberation we’ll beryllium capable to deploy each nan Cybercabs that we produce,” he said successful consequence to a shareholder mobility astatine nan yearly meeting. “Once it becomes like, highly normal successful cities, it’s conscionable going to go like… nan regulators will person conscionable less and less reasons to opportunity no.”