Tesla Cybercab First Look: No Steering Wheel! No Brake Pedal! No Problem?

In a 2014 interview in the Wall Street Journal , Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the technology for a fully autonomous car would be ready in "five or six years." That did not come to pass, as it would take fully 10 years for Tesla to announce Cybercab, its vision for a fully autonomous vehicle . And now, almost two years later, we got the golden ticket to the debut of Tesla's long-promised, production-ready, autonomous car. Behold Tesla Cybercab!

What the Heck Is It?

Tesla's Cybercab is a small, all-electric coupe designed to operate without a driver. It seats only two passengers, because Tesla claims that more than 80 percent of cab rides are by two passengers or less. Cybercab has butterfly doors, a large central touchscreen, no steering wheel or pedals (throttle or brake), and a large rear cargo area. It's meant to operate autonomously, driving itself around, picking up paying customers, hailed through Tesla's "RoboTaxi" smartphone app.

As we learned at the "Cybercab Launch Day" debut of the production Cybercab, Tesla had several priorities for its first mass-produced autonomous vehicle, including maximum efficiency, low-cost production, and ease of manufacturing.

Designed for Maximum Efficiency

Tesla claims a drag coefficient under 0.20 for the teardrop-shaped Cybercab. If this is true, it would make it one of the most aerodynamically efficient vehicles ever produced, rivaling the 0.19 drag coefficient of the GM EV1 and easily beating the Tesla Model 3's claimed 0.22.

According to documents filed with the Environmental Protection Agency, as surfaced by Electrek , the Cybercab is powered by a single, permanent-magnet electric motor that produces 219 horsepower and drives the front wheels. Tesla claims this motor is "18 percent smaller, 25 percent lighter, and more efficient than other top-performing electric vehicle drive units."

Per the EPA filing, the Cybercab has 48-kWh lithium-ion battery pack, comprised of Tesla's 4680 cylindrical cells.

Lowest Cost Production

Tesla's 4680 cylindrical cells are unique in that they are produced using a dry-cathode manufacturing technique, which Tesla claims eliminates the cathode solvent-drying step and can reduce factory size, energy use, and cost. The high nickel content 4680 cells are also shared with other Tesla products, including Cybertruck, Semi, select long range Model Y SUVs and the Optimus robot.

For the mass production of Cybercab, Tesla claims to have created a "revolutionary" new process it calls "unboxed manufacturing," which it says reduces the length of the manufacturing line by 50 percent while increasing the output of the line substantially.

Further reducing costs are the use of reinforced injection molding (RIM), a body panel manufacturing process that Tesla claims eliminates the need for a paint shop. What this means in plain English is that Cybercab's body panels are molded out of gold-colored plastic. Tesla claims it uses recycled materials in the RIM process of Cybercab body panels, but did not go into specifics.

No Painting Required

RIM is not new to manufacturing; it has long been used in marine, aerospace, and automotive applications where durable, long-lasting plastic parts are required; think fenders, doors, spoilers, and dashboards. After being made, these parts are usually painted and installed during final assembly. The Pontiac Fiero used reinforced reaction injection molded parts made of urethane for its body panels, and this was back in the mid-1980s. What's unique about Tesla's use of RIM in Cybercab is that the parts are apparently not going to be painted, like the stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck. This allows Tesla to eliminate the need for expensive, multi-step paint processes and dedicated paint shops.

"All of this what helps us create the lowest cost, most entertainingly beautiful product we've ever created," said Eric Earley, lead engineer for Cybercab.

How Does Cybercab Drive Itself?

There are no steering wheels or pedals anywhere inside the Cybercab, because there is no driver. This also eliminates the need for side mirrors (which likely helps with that super low drag coefficient). All that is inside the Cybercab are seats and seatbelts for two, a large touchscreen display, and mood lighting. So how does Cybercab get around? By way of an autonomous version of Tesla's controversial Full Self-Driving (Supervised) driver assistance system that is currently available as a $99 option for its steering wheel–equipped vehicles.

Unlike competing autonomous driving systems from Waymo and Zoox, which use lidar, radar, and other sensors to perceive and act upon driving conditions, Tesla only uses video cameras for FSD (Supervised) and the unsupervised autonomous driving system in Cybercab. On a Cybercab, cameras are positioned on the nose, front fenders, B-pillars, and at the rear.

Cybercab analyzes the real-time driving footage from these cameras, via very large pattern-recognition systems known as neural networks, that run on advanced computer chips inside the vehicle. These neural networks have been pre-trained on miles and miles of driving video accumulated by Tesla driver assistance systems over the years. How many miles?

"Our [computer] model has seen more than a 100,000 lifetimes of driving experience." said Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Autopilot / AI software at Tesla. Elluswamy also told the assembled audience that Tesla has "achieved one million miles of unsupervised robotaxi operation."

It's worth noting that although FSD (Supervised) can be used on city streets, highways, and paved and unpaved roads in many countries around the world, Cybercabs for now will be currently limited to only six cities within Texas and Florida, and are further constrained to specific areas of operation within those cities.

For this debut event, the "geographical fence" (geo-fence) for Cybercab rides contained most of downtown Austin, Texas—one of the cities Tesla has been testing Cybercab for many months. Waymo and Zoox also operate only in geofenced environments.

How to Catch a Cybercab?

Hailing a Cybercab is all done through Tesla's RoboTaxi smartphone app, which functions similarly to competitive services such as Uber, Lyft, Waymo, and Zoox. Tesla claims that upon approach, its Cybercab will configure the cabin to settings you have pre-selected in your app profile, including things like favorite seating position, air conditioning temperature, and audio/video entertainment. Because so much can be done through the mobile app, which will connect to the Cybercab via local area network, Tesla claims riders may not need to access the centrally mounted touchscreen tablet while lounging around in the vehicle.

When the vehicle arrives for pickup, Tesla claims you'll be able to recognize which Cybercab is yours based on the color displayed on the external lightbar, which will be communicated via the app. The butterfly doors on the Cybercab open and close automatically, and once you're inside, Tesla claims you'll be greeted by mood lighting and whatever music or videos you were streaming on your phone.

Tesla's Grok AI assistant is also on board, and can be hailed by simply saying, "Hey Grok" or via the mobile app or touchscreen.

"The way that we think about the Cybercab is a second living room. It's a place where you can go and relax, its also is very quiet, intimate space, just for you," said Silvio, Tesla's head of vehicle software.

How Much?

Tesla did not disclose how much Cybercab costs or provide any more detail on a private ownership model, preferring to discuss how the RoboTaxi service will grow over time via dynamic pricing, which is when the costs of a service are raised or lowered based on demand.

"We also use dynamic pricing to balance supply and demand. As we add more and more Cybercabs to our network, our average wait times are going to get lower and lower and lower, largely due to dynamic pricing. And our pricing is going to be very competitive," said Silvio.

We're one of the first media outlets to get the chance to ride in the Cybercab, so look for our First Ride review very soon.