Tesla’s Cybercab is now rolling off the production line and on to the streets of Austin, Texas. While the flashy gold exterior and lambo-style doors will turn heads, it’s the inside that gets my attention.
Living on the other side of the world to Tesla, there’s some very obvious differences (read: challenges) between shipping cars in the US compared to Australia, chiefly the hundreds of parts that are different between left-hand drive and right-hand drive vehicles.
Until now, every vehicle has effectively had 2 variants to accommodate international markets, but not the Cybercab, it’s a perfect mirror image, thanks to the elimination of a steering wheel, steering column, pedals, the hole through the firewall, and Tesla didn’t stop there, it’s also deleted the mirrors because they’re for humans.
Tesla actually started this work years ago when they very purposefully designed a software-first vehicle and made major changes to the interior design of vehicles, now spread across the industry. By removing physical buttons and moving those to the touchscreen, it make shipping to RHD markets as much simpler, with far more components reusable across both variants.
Removing the driver’s instrument cluster in the Model 3 and placing the speed, vent control, volume and everything to the touchscreen is really where this journey started. Now many, many years on, we see the launch of the Cybercab which has none of the traditional differences.
The two seats inside the cybercab are separated by the largest display Tesla has put in any vehicle, a massive 22″ this is now the future interface to interact the the vehicle as passenger, with all the driving done for you, thanks to FSD.
Following the Cybercab official launch last week in the US, today we have some exciting news on our side of the world. Tesla has officially taken the Cybercab on an international road trip.
The first stop on the tour is Japan, notably also a RHD market like Australia. This isn’t the first roadshow we’ve seen from Tesla products, with the Cybertruck and the Optimus prototypes also finding their way across the ocean.
Ken Maeda was at the launch to capture some stunning shots of the Cybercab in an uncharacteristically elaborate display from Tesla. The stage was a full setup, featuring outdoor stage lighting for press, located in Aoyama, a neighbourhood in Tokyo, Japan.
The official Tesla Japan account also shared news of the event. The Cybercab will tour four venues across Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. Dates range from now through September 28th.
This makes Tesla fans wonder if Japan is really just the first stop on a longer Asia Pacific journey and.. turns out that looks very likely indeed..
Earlier today, Arnie Ghose posted a photo in the Tesla Owners Australia FB group that looks awfully like the silhouette of a Tesla Cybercab under a cover at a Sydney Service Center. This was pretty quickly recognised as Alexandria.
Tesla added dedicated robotaxi page to their website in the US when cybercab launched, and while that isn’t available on the AU page, the We-robot event page certainly is. This all adds up to Tesla showing a keen interest to progress their autonomous driverless taxi service internationally.
Currently Tesla wouldn’t be able to offer a robotaxi service in Australia, chiefly because our regulators have been dragging their feet.
I’ve covered this topic for years and in 2022, I wrote “If we don’t accelerate this timeline, the rest of the developed world will leave us behind.”
Turns out I was right. Australia is still working on updating regulation to permit Autonomous Vehicles and its now expected some time in 2027. The hardware and now software is ready to deliver rides safely, cheaply and our regulators have let us down.
More info at https://www.tesla.com/robotaxi
