You remember Tesla’s Cybercab, right? It’s the gold-colored Level 4 self-driving taxi that, stupidly, only seats two people. I still can’t get over that absurd design decision. Only two people? For a taxi? So a family of three would need two cabs? Ridiculous. But I guess the upside is that if something bad happens, only the smallest possible plural of people could be in danger. Which leads me to what I want to talk about now, the Tesla Robotaxi First Responder’s guides, which were released just recently.
These guides reveal a lot of interesting details about Tesla’s automated-driving ridesharing program, not the least of which is clarification about nomenclature: the overall automated service is called Robotaxi, and can use either Model Ys or Cybercabs, and Cybercab just refers to that one particular model itself. That helps clear that up!
So what can we learn from what’s in these First Responder guides? An awful lot, actually, so let’s take a look. First, we get this nice revealing block diagram of the Cybercab:
Block Diagram
There’s a lot to see here. The floor-mounted battery is the big orange rectangle, the high voltage lines are orange, and, interestingly, the low-voltage system is actually quite high voltage compared to most 12V low voltage systems: it’s 48 volts.
Perhaps most notably is the confirmation that this is, in fact, Tesla’s first FWD car. I mean, look:
Holy crap, that’s about as FWD as you can F a D, W-wise. This layout is also how the Cybercab can have such a colossal trunk:
I mean, I still think the body design and packaging on the Cybercab is uniquely and powerfully stupid; a taxi that only seats two just seems like an inane decision. Have a family of three? You’re hiring two cabs, champ. Why did they make this desision? Do they really need a station wagon’s worth of cargo space for two people who are presumably not using this to move their entire household?
Anyway, now we know the trunk opening process takes two steps: touch the OPEN TRUNK touchscreen button, then the button on the handle. I guess the touchscreen button is really an unlock button? You’d think it could pop the trunk open with just the touchscreen button, but I guess then ne’er-do-wells could grab your treasures out from there as you’re finishing making out with the other passenger.
Autonomous Behaviours And Indicators
There’s a lot of interesting information about how the Cybercab interacts with emergency workers and vehicles. The Cybercab operates as a Level 4 automated vehicle – complete autonomy in a restricted, geo-fenced area – but what I find most impressive is that Tesla seems to have trained the Cybercab how to read hand signals and understand paths delineated by cones (emphasis mine):
“Beyond the capabilities necessary for dynamic driving tasks, Cybercab Robotaxi exhibits these notable behaviors:
• When picking up passengers, the vehicle shifts to Park. Then, the front and rear lightbars pulse and the hazard lights flash at a normal rate until the vehicle shifts into Drive or Reverse.
• When dropping off passengers, the vehicle shifts to Park. Then, the hazard lights flash at a normal rate until the vehicle shifts into Drive or Reverse.
• Cybercab Robotaxi is designed to continue autonomous operation after the passengers have exited the vehicle, closed the doors, and retrieved any luggage.
• While waiting for a new ride booking, Cybercab Robotaxi roams its area of operation or proceeds to a charging station or parking lot.
• If the Battery charge level is too low to conduct another ride, Cybercab Robotaxi proceeds to a charging station before accepting new ride bookings.
• If Cybercab Robotaxi experiences connectivity or hardware issues, the hazard lights flash rapidly and the vehicle attempts to pull over at the nearest safe stopping location. Cybercab Robotaxi is also designed to respond to clearly visible hand signals from first responders and can follow pathways designated by cones.
Hazard Light Innovation
Those hazard lights are doing a lot of work, and Tesla seems to have developed an alternate hazard light behavior: the rapid flash. These flash the lights at about 2x the normal hazard light flash speed, and seem to indicate that autonomous modes have been disabled:
When Autonomous Mode is engaged, vehicle hazard lights flash at the standard rate for pick up and drop off. When Autonomous Mode is disabled, the vehicle hazard lights flash rapidly. Rapid flashing of the hazard lights is at approximately two times the speed of standard hazard light flashing. If the vehicle is being manually driven and no safety critical event has been triggered, Autonomous Mode is disengaged and the hazard lights flash at the standard rate, if activated by the driver. Hazard lights do not flash when Cybercab Robotaxi is charging.
Interesting. But this next bit I think is the biggest and most long-desired innovation:
It Actually Can Pull Over
One of my beefs with all the current Level 2 semi-automated systems is that when they encounter a fault that disables semi-self driving, all they do is turn on the hazard lights and slow down, coming to a stop in an active traffic lane. This is, I think, terrible. Happily, it seems like the Cybercab is capable of pulling off the road to a safe location:
Cybercab Robotaxi is designed to detect when a first responder vehicle is following Cybercab Robotaxi with lights and sirens on. When Cybercab Robotaxi detects that a first responder vehicle is following with lights and sirens active, the Cybercab Robotaxi vehicle pulls over and parks at the first safe location available. When pulling over, Cybercab Robotaxi attempts to avoid entering or blocking private driveways. If on the highway, after moving to the rightmost traffic lane, Cybercab Robotaxi might take some time to identify a safe location to pull over and stop.
Branding
The stupid, almost-illegible logo is on the doors and hatch of the car, so you’ll know what the hell you’re looking at.
Emergency Gold Dinner Tray Access
If you find yourself in desperate need of four large gold serving trays, this is how any Cybercab can provide a set of four. Basically, just grab and pull, all around the rim.
Where Is The Charger?
It’s way the hell down there, on the lower corner of the bumper! I suspect this location is designed to allow for automated plugging and unplugging of charging cables. Seems like a tripping hazard, so be careful out there.
It Sort Of Gets Treated Like An Animal
When in Autonomous Mode, the way the car is discussed feels a bit like wrangling an unpredictable animal. Like these warnings that, just because the car isn’t moving, it does not mean Autonomous mode is off:
To help mitigate the uncertain behavior, the guide suggests a few things:
Chocking wheels seems obvious, but more interesting is the “caging” process, where visual obstacles are placed within view of the car’s cameras so it feels like it’s “caged in.” If you’ll indulge me, I predicted something like this in my book back in 2019, but more in the context of things that kids who want to make trouble could do to “trap” automated vehicles. Same idea, though!
What Does It Do If Shit Goes Sideways
If the Cybercab detects a “safety critical event” (that’s a festive-sounding euphamism) then these are the actions the car will take:
Collisions and Safety Critical Events
Cybercab Robotaxi is designed to detect the occurrence of a safety critical event (such as a collision or airbag deployment). When detected, the vehicle is designed to stop, park, and disable Autonomous Mode where possible.
Cybercab Robotaxi then:
• Flashes the hazard lights rapidly.
• Unlocks the doors for easier egress.
• Rolls down the windows to vent the cabin if airbags deployed.
• Initiates two-way communication between the vehicle cabin and Tesla Robotaxi Support. Tesla Robotaxi Support can then contact 911 if necessary.
Those all seem like reasonable things to do; of course, reality is messy, so sometimes things don’t happen so neatly. That’s why there’s helpful diagrams showing, for example, where not to cut through the body/frame:
The drivetrain and battery areas are pretty self-evident, and the hatch has springs and gas struts – not sure about the windshield area zone, though.
How Does The Car Hear Sirens And Spoken Commands From Outside?
You know how: microphones! There’s two, on the B-pillars.
There’s No Hood Stay
If you want to open the hood, you can, but there’s no built-in way to keep it open. Which is probably fine, since no one is really tinkering on these. The main power cut loops are under there, as you can see above.
What’s The Inside Like?
Hope you like minimalism! Because they added a ton of that in here! They just slathered on that nothing, on every possible surface!
There really doesn’t seem to be any physical controls there, so if the power is compromised, it makes doing anything quite difficult.
Where Are The Emergency Door Release Handles?
Right there, on the leading edge of the armrest. Like other Tesla emergency door releases, this one can break the glass. Why, Tesla, why? There has to be a better way.
Oh, and when you get the door open, with some difficulty, be wary of this powered door strut. There’s preloaded springs in that thing! That’s a lot of stored energy; respect it.
Towing And Jump Starting
Want to tow a Cybercab? Maybe one that is trying to make a nest on your property, under your shed? To drag it out, you need the towing eye, which seems to be hidden under the front license plate mounting panel. It’s either a carabiner under there, or two straps. You should be able to get your ox hooked up to those to drag it away, for good.
Jump Starting
So this one is sort of deceptively tricky; there is a jump start connector, but you can’t just jump the low-voltage system with any car, because it’s a 48V system. Maybe you could wire four cars in series?
The Cybercab is definitely an interesting machine, but it does seem to offer a number of non-trivial challenges for First Responders. I’m most interested in its behaviors when interacting with emergency workers and vehicles; will it be predictable? Useful? Will it know when to get out of the way, what to avoid, and not make a nuisance of itself? Maybe. I hope so.
But with the vast entropy of the real world, who can say? I guess we’ll just have to see.
Many top quality engineers have done some remarkable things for Tesla and Space X. Elon is a lucky idiot at best, and the sooner Con Men are called out, the less damage will be suffered.
Great writing as always. Even my ox wouldn’t come within an acre of one of these.
“ The drivetrain and battery areas are pretty self-evident, and the hatch has springs and gas struts – not sure about the windshield area zone, though.”
It’s so you don’t cut through the explosive airbags in the A-pillar.
Why butterfly doors?
Because Elon’s Ego.
Same reason as the X – Musk thinks they are cool.
I was just thinking of the Cybercab this afternoon. I had eaten at a fast food joint today looked out the front window of my truck as I was preparing to leave and on the street in front of me was a Cybercab. It kind of stunned me so it took a sec for me to grab my phone, but I was able to snap a pic before it drove away.
This was in Kent, WA, there was no one in the car and there did not appear to be a chase vehicle. From where I was at I couldn’t tell if it was one of the models that had the steering wheel or one of the later ones w/o it. Apparently someone did see on on I5 in Seattle a couple of weeks ago.
As both Elon and Tesla have said many times, including during the initial reveal, but everyone seems to ignore is that (according to them) most taxi rides in the United States are only for 1 or 2 people, but if you need a ride for 3+ people then Model Ys are also part of the Robotaxi fleet. So the entire point is to not have a bigger heavier EV driving around all day carrying only 1 or 2 people.
Which makes me wonder what the point of the Cybercab is in the first place, other than something new and shiny for investors to slobber all over. The Model Y serves as a much better taxi in every way. Yet they went to all of the trouble to design a whole new vehicle that is worse at being a taxi.
Not that I hate the car itself, it’s just what they’re using it for. Put some controls in that thing and give it some power, and you’ve got a fun little sports car. It’s the best looking vehicle Tesla makes, and it could be the most affordable too.
Meh. This is so decontented I expect an additional seat or two would still be lighter than a Y.
I actually saw one of these on a roadtrip last week. Color falls more into a baby streak brown than a gold to me. Which may be some personal bias leaking through.
They’ve discovered what happens when you put LED hazard lights on a traditional (i.e. non-LED) flasher relay.
Hey, serendipity can yield neat outcomes. I was working on a visualization for our website and screwed something up so it was all wonky. The CEO happened to walk by and said “wow, that’s really cool” and we shipped it as new feature.
Among the many ills that “rideshare” “services” have unleashed on our society, the reduction of hazard lights to utter meaninglessness is maybe the most sneakily insidious. A whole generation of drivers now has no conception of four-way flashers as having any use other than enabling “watch out, these lights mean I can do whatever the f I want” antisocial behavior that has made urban driving so, so much worse than it already was.
They’re supposed to mean something is wrong with your car, not that you feel like illegally parking, dammit!
Dump your Tesla stocks now while the getting is- less horrible.
I don’t see the bottom dropping out as long as Elon is alive, Tesla’s shares have always been based more on the concept of buying a piece of Elon Musk’s personality cult than on the true value of the company
If he OD’s on something, yeah, they’ll crash through the floor into one of his silly tunnels
Unfortunately Index investors don’t have that option. The stock entered the S&P 500 as a meme stock and we are stuck with it.
I’ve always believed these cars are Elon Musk’s interpretation of a car, which is why they have so many questionable design choices.
He doesn’t know what a car is; he makes what he thinks a car or a taxi is.
same thing he did with the “truck”
Proof the Elon Musk is AI.
The “A” part, yes. It’s the “I” that gets more and more questionable.
The “A” in Elon’s case stands for something other than “artificial.”
AI Musk would have fewer hallucinations.
I don’t understand the question, and I won’t respond to it. – Elon probably when asked what a car is.
wait, the thing’s entire name is “Cybercab Robotaxi”?!
yo dog…
I take it back, the Cybertruck is no longer Tesla’s most idiotic product
The “Hold My Beer and Watch This” of cars.
Might be a nice power pack for FWD EV conversions
Feel like we should start taking bets on how long before Elon admits defeat on actual self driving that will allow these to function as cabs and he pivots (as Data suggests a few comments down) to selling these as sport coupes.
Changing the edgy “cybercab” logo to “cybercoupe” is a quick and easy job.
Who wants a FWD electric sport coupe?
Maybe the 12 Prelude buyers could be tempted, I suppose.
According to Autopian 80% of all trips are for 1 person. This cab has room for 200% more. Anyone doing a business evaluation would say 80% is enough especially considering taking trips for more than 3 takes longer requires more fuel . Autopian says pickup truck is unnecessary but thinks a cab should be capable of 6 people despite 80% of the trips being for 1 person. Can we bring the actual business person in to make rational decisions?
I saw one of these last week in Phoenix! It was going the other way and I was driving, so I was not able to snap a pic.
The two seat/massive trunk makes sense.You stick the kids in the trunk and if you’ve got a trad wife, it better be a big trunk. You don’t want them riding in the cabin with you or people will think you’re a pedo or something.
Elon doesn’t see the need for more than two seats in a taxi because unless he brings along a paid lackey, or that one kid he used as a human shield in his DOGE era, he’s always traveling alone.
Well he does always travel with a masseuse, and even offers them horses from time to time
Step1: Paint it a better color
Step2: Put some cool wheels on it
Step3: Put a rear window in
Step4: Add human controls (Steering wheel, pedals, stick shift)
Step5: Modern CRX
Step0: buy a Kia EV4
End
Small thing here Torch, but the Tesla instructions say “one of the following methods”, not both.
I assume the trunk button the touchscreen only works when parked? I’m sure one of the many touch-centric vehicles currently on sale has this feature, so I assume a random Autopian commenter will know.
I also assume the powered door struts are dual function, to allow the cab to self-close doors that passengers will absolutely leave open.
I als wonder, does the cab know you put something in the trunk? Will it drive off if you don’t get it out quick enough?
It’s just like self checkout at the grocery store: Did you bags in the bagging area?
The Frunk and Trunk release “switches” on a regular Tesla touchscreen don’t work when driving.
Edited for clarity.
This is Powell Motors The Homer levels of stupidity.
Nah, The Homer could at least seat a family.
I’ve spotted these driving around on i70 in Denver and they look… incredibly bad in person. I kinda think the idea of this vehicle is cool (2 seater coupe with a giant trunk? Neat! As an autonomous taxi? No.) but the proportions are completely off. It looks like a hot wheels car with donks on the back. It’s weirdly narrow and tall. And of course, it’s Trump Gold. Ugh
I read here that 80% of rides involved 1 person, this cab holds two people. Most job journeys are 1 person the Autopian told me so. But now against a cab that holds twice as many people as 80% of the trips. Things that make you go hmmmm
The 2 seater layout is of course stupid, as is the massive boot (how many times in a taxi do you need a boot capacity worth of a big estate car?).
But that is not the worst part. The worst part is why do you make those two people sit in a low-slung coupé-esque car? The body seems much more apt at a privately owned car rather than a public transport vehicle.
And why would you make a low slung, two seater coupe, with some decent performance specs and a comparatively low weight by modern EV standards, and then make it totally driverless?
I don’t think that Musk has any interest in driving or any concept of why people would enjoy it.
Exactly. It’s Elon’s idea of a 2-seat coupe. He doesn’t want to drive. He wants the tech to take him out for a ride.
The problem is that Elon believes that everyone will want to do things just like he does. So the car makes no sense to the rest of us.