Tesla Cybercab Robotaxi First Ride: Future or Fever Dream?

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company's new Robotaxi, or Cybercab, this week.
• This self-driving vehicle could be a big deal for the future of autonomous transportation.
• At this week's event, Tesla provided ride-alongs in driverless vehicles, so we hopped in.

Another Tesla event is in the books, and for the most part it was business as usual. Lots of promises about the future, and not very many specifics on how to get there. I attended Thursday's "We, Robot" event in Los Angeles and got to see the new Tesla Robotaxi, or "Cybercab," up close, as well as the company's new Robovan. Here’s what I learned.

What is a Robotaxi?

Great question. The Tesla Robotaxi is, among many things, a driverless form of transportation that will aim to get people from A to B without any human intervention. This is all according to Mr. Overpromise himself, Elon Musk. So take all of this with an enormous grain of salt. Tesla's CEO claims that the Robotaxi should go into production sometime before 2027 and could cost less than $30,000.

The car itself has no steering wheel and no pedals. It’s roughly the size of a small hatchback, and if you ask me, has a striking resemblance to the Volkswagen XL1. Musk provided no details on the powertrain other than mentioning that the Robotaxi can charge inductively. If that charging tech rolls its way into other Tesla products, that could be a real game changer.

A quick ride around the block

Let me start by saying that my total ride time in the driverless Tesla was roughly 2 minutes start to finish, and on a completely closed course set up by Tesla. There were Robotaxis driving alongside driverless Model Ys on a route that wound through part of the Warner Bros. Studios lot where Tesla had the event.

The autonomous vehicles were driving roughly 5 mph — nothing too crazy — but did have to avoid occasional pedestrian traffic and, well, each other. I watched as the cars patiently waited for people to cross the street and even use their blinkers when making turns. Tesla's infamous Full Self-Driving tech can occasionally misbehave, but here in this little mostly closed-circuit world, everything went smoothly.

During the ride, there were no mishaps to report. The car turned smoothly with every opportunity and kept its composure throughout the several turns on the route. Unlike a current production Tesla using FSD, this car was running what appeared to be demo software specific to the event. It showed my starting point and how long it would take to reach my end destination. These are features that I imagine will make their way into a potential production version.

What's it all mean?

On one hand, this could be an undeniable game changer in the world of mobility with huge upside. On the other hand, everything Elon talks about on stage tends to have some level of fiction, at least initially. Regardless, if even a portion of what I witnessed makes its way into the real world, our roads will be a very different place in the future.