Elon Musk presented this Thursday in Los Angeles the Cybercab, Tesla’s driverless taxi, which the businessman predicts will enter production in 2026 and at a price of less than $20,000. Musk assured that the Cybercab will revolutionize passenger transport because its cost per kilometer will be 20 cents, or a fifth of that of a public bus.
“It’s going to be amazing,” said the businessman who arrived at the vehicle’s presentation as a passenger in a Cybercab after cruising the streets of Warner Bros. Studios. from Los Angeles without a driver. Musk explained that the vehicle, a sleek silver two-door car whose batteries are recharged inductively instead of plugging into an outlet, has no steering wheel or accelerator or brake pedals.
“This will save many lives and prevent injuries,” he said to cries of approval from the public invited to the event. The businessman assured that autonomous vehicles will be 10 times safer than cars driven by humans.
He also insisted that the Cybercab robo-taxi would begin production by Tesla in 2026. “Let’s say before 2027,” he stressed, while acknowledging that in the past he had been “optimistic” about the marketing dates of its products. .
The event, titled “We, Robot” and which Musk described as “a party,” began nearly an hour late due to a medical emergency after one of the people at the presentation was fainted. Musk himself reported the reasons for the delay through the social network X, which he owns.
After the presentation, Tesla made 50 driverless vehicles available to the public, including Cybercab units and the cars Tesla already sells, like the Model 3 and Model Y, so they could test and feel them “at what the cities of the future will look like. » .
During the event, Tesla also presented the prototype of an autonomous bus capable of transporting 20 people as well as Optimusthe robot that Musk assures will be on sale in the short term at a price of between $20,000 and $30,000 per unit. “It will probably cost less than a car. “That’s my long-term prediction,” he said, adding that Optimus “will be able to do everything, be a teacher, babysit, mow the lawn, go shopping or just being your friend or making drinks.”
Out of all these skills, the only one Optimus’ units demonstrated during the event was making drinks while wearing cowboy hats. And dance in a cage to the rhythm of the event’s disco music.
