What’s The Difference Between A Tesla Robotaxi And Cybercab? Elon Musk Finally Explains
Tesla is planning to launch a “robotaxi” ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, this June, but what exactly is a robotaxi?
Tesla unveiled an autonomous two-seat vehicle that’s meant to eventually be deployed in the service at an event last October, during which company CEO Elon Musk referred to it as both a robotaxi and a Cybercab.
Tesla’s press website lists it as the Cybercab, but the names appear to have been used interchangeably ever since. Adding to the confusion was the reveal of a 20-passenger “Robovan” at the same event.
Musk has finally cleared things up during Tesla’s first quarter earnings call.
“The team and I are laser focused on bringing robotaxi to Austin in June. Unsupervised autonomy will first be solved for the Model Y in Austin and then — actually you should parse out the terms robotic taxi or robotaxi and just generally like what’s the Cybercab because we’ve got a product called the Cybercab,” Musk explained.
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The Cybercab uses the same Full Self-Driving system that is installed in all of Tesla’s new vehicles, but doesn’t have a steering wheel or pedals.
“It’s very confusing. So the vast majority of the Tesla fleet that we’ve made is capable of being a robotaxi or robotic taxi,” he said.
The concept behind the service is that Tesla will operate some vehicles itself, but any Tesla with the hardware required to run the latest Full Self-Driving software will eventually be able to be added to it by its owner. Cars built after January 2023 have the required computing power, according to Tesla, while earlier models need to have theirs upgraded.
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Musk later made a point to “disambiguate” the terms robotaxi and Cybercab again and clarified that the Austin service would launch with Model Ys, while Cybercab production is slated to begin in early 2026.