Tesla Launches Cybercab Production Robotaxi in Austin, But Key Promises Still Unmet
APPSO · wechat · 2026-09-04
Tesla officially launched the production version of Cybercab in Austin, Texas, keeping the concept car's radical design: no steering wheel, no pedals, two seats, a 22-inch screen, and butterfly doors. EPA filings reveal a 163kW single-motor front drive, a 47.6kWh battery, and an estimated EPA range of around 470 km. The 572L trunk holds 100kg, fits a folded wheelchair, and features braille controls.
But most promises from two years ago remain unfulfilled: California still runs supervised FSD with safety drivers; pricing, the $0.20/mile operating cost, and private-car fleet details are undisclosed; and the "wireless charging only" car now has a charging port. Of 420 registered Tesla Robotaxis in Texas, only 45 are Cybercabs — the rest are Model Ys. Tesla also opened an interest form for individuals to buy Cybercabs or build mobility hubs.
The article flags concerns: at least two crashes occurred during remote operation; fleet size claims are vague (Reuters reporters struggled to get rides in Dallas/Houston); and competitors are more transparent — Waymo operates in 14 cities with 988 vehicles in Texas alone, while Baidu's Apollo Go, Pony.ai, and WeRide disclose growing fleets and revenue. The author likens autonomous driving's trust-building to the century-long automation of elevators: Musk needs far more cars and orders to make the dust storm real.
Related event: Tesla Opens Cybercab Driverless Rides to the Public in Austin(13 posts)→
More from Embodied
- Robotics startup launches Deployments to serve fine-tuned HF checkpoints to robots in real time — arnie_hacker · 2026-10-21
- Amazon FAR's FIBER uses action-aligned latent planning to let Unitree G1 open doors and carry boxes — ChongZzZhang · 2026-10-21
- Sentdex trains robots to go from lying down to a half kneel, eyeing a full stand — Sentdex · 2026-10-21
- NVIDIA open-sources MotionBricks: 350K motion skills at 15,000 FPS, 2ms latency — aftahi_ai · 2026-10-21
- NVIDIA Cosmos3-H-Dreams: Generative Simulation Brings Clinical Surgery to Life — Hugging Face Blog · 2026-10-21
- FLoTS-SLAM uses optical-flow residuals to hit 0.73 DM-IoU in dynamic monocular SLAM — zhenjun_zhao · 2026-10-21