- A check mule of Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi has allegedly been noticed in Los Angeles.
- The car will debut on the Warner Bros. Discovery film studio on October 10.
A check mule of what appears to be Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi has been noticed by a Reddit person who claims to work on the Warner Bros. studio in Los Angeles the place the reveal of the so-called “Cybercab” is slated to happen on October 10.
The intense yellow prototype within the photograph embedded beneath seems to be a closely camouflaged two-door with Mannequin 3-like headlights. In accordance with Boopitysmopp, the person who posted the picture, the automotive additionally has a full-width LED mild strip on the rear akin to that of the Cybertruck.
The entire thing seems like a life-size Matchbox automotive and it would become only a unhealthy joke, so we’re taking this with a grain of salt. However after throwing the situation, the form of the facet home windows and the car’s quick wheelbase in the identical bag, it leads us to imagine that this could possibly be Tesla’s long-awaited self-driving taxi.
Right here’s a side-by-side comparability of the mule and an InsideEVs rendering of what we imagine the completed product will appear to be, primarily based on patents and snippets extracted from numerous Tesla movies printed over time:
An illustration of the upcoming Tesla Cybercab was additionally printed in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk, as you possibly can see beneath:
In latest months, Musk has stopped referring to Tesla as being an all-electric car producer and has as an alternative steered the dialog towards synthetic intelligence and robotics and has lengthy hinted at the concept that Tesla EVs–each previous and new–might quickly be a part of a world community of autonomous automobiles that might exit and drive individuals on their very own to the good thing about their house owners.
In consequence, the upcoming Cybercab is an enormous deal for Tesla’s outspoken CEO. Will or not it’s the massive revolution that Musk has touted? We’re skeptical. The automaker’s so-called Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) options are nonetheless thought of Stage 2 methods on SAE’s autonomy chart. Moreover, the authorized framework at the moment in place nonetheless doesn’t enable for absolutely autonomous automobiles roaming the streets and highways of the USA, so there’s nonetheless some work to be accomplished.
That mentioned, Tesla needs to verify the whole lot goes as easily as attainable throughout subsequent month’s occasion. After slowing gross sales globally, the automaker–AI and robotics firm, sorry–has been gathering mapping information within the space the place the occasion will happen, in accordance with Enterprise Insider and famed Tesla hacker Inexperienced The Solely.
That is sensible from a efficiency standpoint, but it surely additionally goes in opposition to each one in every of Musk’s statements on self-driving vehicles, who criticized rival automakers and robotaxi operators for counting on beforehand collected map information to make their driverless vehicles work in sure geofenced areas.
We’ll see what occurs subsequent month through the Tesla Cybercab reveal. If it will likely be something just like the Cybertruck reveal in 2019, set your timer for no less than three years from now to test again on whether or not the car is prepared for prime time or not.
