Will Tesla (finally) revolutionize autonomous driving? The American brand organizes an event called “We, Robot” this Thursday, October 10 from the Warner studios in Los Angeles.
After a failure last summer, the presentation will finally take place in the middle of the night for France (4 hours). However, you can follow it here.
A two-seater autonomous taxi and bus?
What should we expect then? According to Bloomberg, this robotaxi will be called “Cybercab,” which could be translated as “Cyber taxi.” Enough to potentially offer a competitor to the models currently operated by Cruise and Google subsidiary Waymo for these autonomous taxi services offered in certain cities such as San Francisco in the United States.
This car could carry two passengers with gullwing doors. Although Elon Musk has always rejected Lidar integration as too expensive for his Autopilot, this Cybercab would only have cameras and image analysis using artificial intelligence to drive in complete safety.
Also according to Bloomberg, Elon Musk could also present a second model, the “Robovan”, which would be capable of transporting about ten people or guaranteeing deliveries.
In 2018, Elon Musk shared a video where we could see a public transport module sinking underground to reach a tunnel of another of his companies “The Boring Company”. Let’s see if the Robovan takes up this concept or simply the design of this intersection between bus and metro.
Finally, rumors mention the integration of FSD (“Full self-driving”, which can be presented as the most advanced version of Autopilot for the United States) in its 100% electric heavy vehicle, the Tesla Semi.
There is no a priori evolution for current models.
On the other hand, other Tesla models currently on the market would not be affected by these announcements. However, the Model 3 and Model Y have a small camera inside, which has already been presented as a future surveillance tool for carsharing uses. In this way, owners could leave their vehicles for rent when they are not using them, as a brand like Lynk&Co intends to offer.
During a presentation in 2019, Elon Musk mentioned this possibility of transforming a good part of the Teslas in circulation into 100% autonomous cars, even spreading an image of a Model 3 without a steering wheel or pedals.
Elon Musk then predicted a sharp increase in the price of his vehicles with these potential income for owners:
“To be clear, consumers will still be able to buy a Tesla, but the price will have increased significantly, and a fully autonomous car that can function as a robotaxi will be much more valuable than a non-autonomous car,” he explained.
Suffice it to say that none of this has happened since then. Like this Tesla that would cross the United States from New York to Los Angeles in 2018 without anyone on board, also promised by Elon Musk.
Source: BFM TV
