Tesla’s Robotaxi: All You Need to Know

When Tesla unveiled its futuristic Cybercab this past October, the race to own the robotaxi market was well underway. Now it’s a game of catch-up – and time is not on Tesla’s side.

The first fleet of Tesla’s autonomous vehicles – Cybercabs and Cybervans – won’t see pavement until 2027 and will face stiff competition from the likes of Waymo and Apollo Go when they do.

The firm will also have to grapple with the sector’s punishing economics. Robotaxis can cost upwards of $100,000 and require expensive build-outs of road sensors, charging stations, radars, and lidars. Chinese opportunity beckons, but Beijing is nurturing an autonomous cab sector of its own.

Elon Musk’s robotaxi vision is to make robot-run driving an affordable ‘fully automated, go anywhere’ solution. There are twists and turns to negotiate before the Cybercab dream becomes reality.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Tesla's Robotaxi Plan: Better Late Than Never?
3. An Expensive Ride
4. How Cybercab Сould Win
5. Tesla's Robotaxi Vision: Can Musk Make It Work?
6. The Bottom Line
7. FAQs
8. References

Show Full Guide

Table of Contents

1. Key Takeaways
2. Tesla's Robotaxi Plan: Better Late Than Never?
3. An Expensive Ride
Show Full Guide
4. How Cybercab Сould Win
5. Tesla's Robotaxi Vision: Can Musk Make It Work?
6. The Bottom Line
7. FAQs
8. References

Tesla’s Robotaxi Plan: Better Late Than Never?

Tesla’s two-passenger Cybercab is a visual wonder: slick and futuristic, it has a seamless brushed-metal finish and is free of unsightly human encumbrances like steering wheels and pedals.

At the October 10 launch event in Hollywood, Musk said the golden-hued compacts should be street-legal by 2027 – though his timelines have sometimes been optimistic.

Tesla’s 20-seat Robovan also made an appearance, alongside the Optimus humanoid robot, which Musk pegged to become the ‘biggest product of any kind, ever.’

Despite the impressive boasts and visuals, markets were looking for more. Tesla’s share price dropped precipitously the next day.

More Cybercab testing video clips & images from Giga Texas. The trailing black Model 3 is equipped with a camera system mimicking the Cybercab & calibrating the data as they drive around pic.twitter.com/0vTL06VkzH

— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) November 27, 2024

Why are investors hesitant? Driverless cabs have been a thing for at least half a decade, particularly in the US. And though the sector is still nascent, it’s backed by big players.

Analysts like Frost & Sullivan’s Avishar Dutta say the industry is on the cusp of ‘explosive growth,’ set to expand at a CAGR of 75%. That would take it from just $84 million last year to $68.75 billion in 2035. By then, Dutta expects to see a global fleet of over 700,000 driverless cabs.

Safety will be on investors’ minds. Cruise had to suspend testing in San Francisco last year after one of its robocars struck and dragged a pedestrian. Then there are worries about EVs catching fire, a rare but devastating occurrence that tends to generate sensational (and meme-friendly) headlines when it happens.

Regulatory clarity is another risk. Teodora Kaneva, Head of Smart Infrastructure and Systems at techUK, told Techopedia that, while the UK’s 2024 Autonomous Vehicles Act set the stage for robotaxi growth, the devil is in the details.

“Enabling regulations are needed to provide a clear path to removing the driver and commercializing the technology,” she says. “The industry also needs a clearer sense of the evidence they need in order to obtain authorization under the Act once regulations are in place.”

An Expensive Ride

The capex and overheads embedded in the robotaxi business model force any new entrant to consider break-even a stretch goal—and ROI a distant dream.

First is the hardware, with Waymo reportedly spending around $180,000 per car, each of which needs expensive retrofits of onboard computers, cameras, and laser-triggered sensors to operate.

While analytics and software tweaks improve their ability to operate independently, human ‘safety drivers’ are still needed to patrol the streets and step in whenever a glitch occurs. All those cars need space for parking, charging, cleaning and maintenance. Real estate costs have to be accounted for.

If the US market shows resistance, China might be an option. But as in America, big entrenched players are already carving out territory. Baidu’s Apollo Go has been operational in Wuhan since 2022 and is now expanding to other cities. Didi, China’s answer to Uber, is running robotaxi trials in a number of big cities.

Bernstein, a US research and brokerage firm, has been downbeat about Tesla’s robotaxi prospects, noting that profitability remains elusive for every company in the space.

In a September report, analysts wrote that a business running a fully autonomous vehicle network will have to grapple with high fixed costs, raising “economic questions about upfront cost and utilization rates during non-peak hours.”

In other words, Tesla’s self-driving taxis will need passengers—lots of them. And depending on exactly where those passengers live, more issues could arise. Today’s robotaxi trials have been in historically new-ish cities in the US West and Southwest. They have good weather, grid-pattern road layouts, wide lanes, clear sightlines, and straight boulevards.

What happens when Cybercabs are weaving through the twisty/narrow streets of old Boston or Quebec City in heavy snow?

How Cybercab Сould Win

Despite the headwinds, Tesla is counting on at least three factors to keep it in the running.

Advantages of Tesla Robotaxis

1. Tesla Robotaxi Price

Tesla’s robotaxi might have a reduced hardware cost.

Cybercab is expected to have a base price of around $27,000, slightly less than the $28,000-$30,000 Waymo’s 6th-generation vehicle will reportedly fetch.

2. ‘Native’ Autonomous Car

Cybercab also has the advantage of being purpose-built for the task.

TechUK’s Kaneva notes that the industry has been waiting for ‘native’ driverless vehicles in order to really scale. She said:

“Right now, the industry is adapting conventional vehicles to drive themselves. That introduces cost and time to getting vehicles on the road.”

3. AI-Powered Navigation Tech

The Cybercab’s AI-powered navigation tech is another potential advantage.

Its Fleet Learning feature captures camera data and feeds it into Tesla’s ‘neural network,’ where it’s analyzed, compared, and cross-referenced with data collected from the billions of miles of driving metrics transmitted by Tesla’s already on the road.

However, big questions remain.

Who Will Own & Operate the Cybercab Fleet?

Waymo and Cruise have inked deals with Uber to let passengers in some locations book rides on its app. Uber also has a position in UK robotaxi startup Wayve.

Would Tesla try to muscle a deal of its own?

Also unresolved is the way regulators will react to the firm’s secretive use of neural network data to guide its driverless cabs.

Tesla’s autonomous cars have the tech, footprint, data, and resources to push their way onto the track, but can they really hope to overtake Waymo’s 14-year head start?

It will be at least 2027 before we get answers.

Tesla’s Robotaxi Vision: Can Musk Make It Work?

Look & Feel

The Cybercab definitely looks like a car but with a distinctly retro-futurist feel. You can see echoes of Back to The Future and any number of Sci-Fi films. Product experts at Yanko Design have labeled it ‘minimalism meets future-ready.’

Head and tail lights have been replaced by light strips extending from side to side on the front and rear. The roofline is sharply sloped like the Model 3 and Model Y, terminating onto a rectangular flat rear.

The wheels have a striking look, appearing oversized with slim rubber tires. The doors are gull-wing like those of an 80s-era DeLorean or 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300SL.

The model on display at the October launch event had a burnished gold finish with a matte or brushed effect.

Range & Charging

Since Cybercab is for-hire and self-driving, range shouldn’t be an issue. The average urban taxi trip is a few kilometers or tens of kilometers at most.

If a Cybercab runs low on power it will simply get itself to the nearest charging station. Where it gets interesting, however, is the car’s wireless inductive charging ports. It can be powered up like a smartphone, which will arguably simplify and reduce the cost of building out a charging infrastructure.

Fill-up speeds, connection specs, and battery capacity have yet to be announced.

Tesla Robotaxi Release Date

The first Cybercabs should be on the road “no later than 2027,” Musk says.

Will individuals be able to buy Cybercabs and start driverless car services of their own?

The answer appears to be yes. On actual release dates, it’s a case of wait-and-see. The Cybertruck arrived two years after its announced launch date and now fetches double the price predicted at Tesla’s big-reveal event in 2019.

The Bottom Line

The robotaxi market hasn’t yet demonstrated its viability to investors, but competition is already fierce. Tesla’s robotaxi news has come late. Still, would you count out Elon Musk?

He’s patient, driven, and willing to bear short-term fails for the sake of long-term objectives. All Musk’s recent successes, from siding with Trump on the campaign trail, co-heading the new DOGE federal waste watchdog, repatriating advertisers to X, and the risky but successful SpaceX Mechazilla trial would suggest his appetite for long bets is as robust as ever.

FAQs