Sorry, Tesla, But The CyberCab Is 22 Years Old

2gethere Cybercab
Credit: 2getthere

Tesla is set to unveil its first Robotaxi in Burbank, Calif., on Thursday night, but the CyberCab is old news.

Tesla hasn’t confirmed what the vehicle will officially be called, although CyberCab has been bandied about as a follow up to the Cybertruck.

The name has been used before on a similar vehicle, however.

Netherlands-based autonomous transit system developer 2getthere built a shuttle system that debuted at the 2002 Floriade horticultural fair held in Haarlemmermeer near Amsterdam that utilized autonomous cabs. That’s a year before Tesla was founded.

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2getthere CyberCab
(2getthere)

The fully driverless electric vehicles had a top speed of 12.5 mph. They used built-in maps to follow a planned route a long a paved trail through the grounds that had magnets embedded at points along the way that the vehicles could use to calibrate their position, according to a a report from the University of Washington on the program.

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The company called it both the ParkShuttle and the CyberCab, although a representative from the ZF-owned company told American Cars And Racing that the latter was never registered as a trademark, which would apparently leave Tesla free to use it. Tesla’s CyberCab or Robotaxi or whatever it ends up being called is a more ambitious project that aims to provide autonomous ride hailing services anywhere without any infrastructure required to support it.

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The vehicle will leverage an advanced version of the Full Self-Driving system that is offered in all of Tesla’s vehicles, which is currently semi-automated and requires a human ready to take control supervising its operation. When it is fully developed and regulations allow, Tesla’s plan is for owners of its vehicles to be able to add them to the ride hailing service when they don’t need them. A firm timetable for when that will happen has not been announced and target dates have been pushed back several times over the years.

Read Also: HOW TO WATCH THE TESLA ROBOTAXI EVENT LIVE

CEO Elon Musk will be sharing the latest from the event that is being held on the Warner Bros. lot and will be streamed live on X starting at 7 p.m. PT.