Getting out of a taxi shouldn’t be a shameful experience. Yet I find myself feeling particularly embarrassed while exiting a Tesla Cybercab as it partially blocks a narrow road outside a popular Austin swimming hole. As a cadre of annoyed, sweaty Texan parking spot hunters pile up around it, the gold-painted two-seater just sits there […]
The Tesla Cybercab is notable for what it lacks, namely a steering wheel and pedal. By design, there is no way for this vehicle to be manually controlled – or so we thought. Less than a week after the Cybercab was officially launched in Austin, Texas, some riders have discovered the Cybercab’s secret manual controls […]
It’s Bullitt meets Christine meets Waymo. A new short film imagines a San Francisco car chase where the other driver isn’t human – and the car may be trying to kill you. That a robotaxi can now be cast as the villain with almost no explanation says something about the present moment. Autonomous cars have […]
Elon Musk’s gilded robot car barely made it on public roads before federal regulators launched an investigation into the vehicle’s lack of traditional features – many of which are required by law. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was opening an audit query (AQ) into the Tesla Cybercab “to examine the process and […]
At a private, closed-door event in Austin, Texas today, Tesla officially launched its gilded car of the future: the Cybercab. It’s a huge milestone for Elon Musk, who has been hyping the imminent arrival of driverless cars for years and has bet the future of his company on AI, autonomous vehicles, and humanoid robots. It […]
Uber beat out Waymo in launching a commercial robotaxi service in London, the city’s first. The vehicles use autonomous driving tech developed by Wayve, a UK-based startup, and will initially feature safety drivers behind the wheel. The launch is a milestone for Uber, which has been plotting a UK launch with Wayve for several years. […]
Believe it or not, the Tesla Cybercab is coming. Nearly two years after Elon Musk first unveiled the gold-tinted, gull-wing-door sporting, steering-wheel-free, two-seaters as the future of Tesla’s autonomy efforts, the company is finally putting them into operation as part of its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Public rides are here, and as Musk fans […]
Automakers keep shoving more tech into their cars, despite evidence that consumers are increasingly fed up with huge screens and glitchy software. In fact, the features that car owners appreciate the most happen to be the ones they barely notice, according to the latest tech survey from JD Power. The consumer research firm surveyed 68,084 […]
As Tesla gears up for the official launch of its steering wheel and pedal-less Cybercabs, Waymo is issuing a stark warning about Elon Musk’s approach autonomous driving. Srikanth Thirumalai, Waymo’s VP of Onboard Software, doesn’t specifically call out Musk or Tesla in a blog post, published Wednesday, entitled “10 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million […]
Robotaxis are expanding. So is the fight over the rules governing them. In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul withdrew a proposal earlier this year that would have opened the door to driverless robotaxis outside New York City after taxi drivers, unions, and state lawmakers opposed it. Six months later, commercial driverless service remains illegal in […]