// THE VERGE — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
The unusually muted Tesla Cybercab launch
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Tesla has 45 Cybercabs registered in Texas, though it’s unclear how many of them will be doing passenger trips.
Tesla has 45 Cybercabs registered in Texas, though it’s unclear how many of them will be doing passenger trips.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
At a private, closed-door event in Austin, Texas today, Tesla officially launched its gilded car of the future. 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 was an unusually muted event: with no livestream, pro-Tesla accounts on X.com were left streaming the webpage that tracks the number of Tesla robotaxis in Texas. Like last year’s robotaxi launch, the invite list was mostly pro-Tesla influencers, so as to blunt any possible criticism of its new products. Invitee Chuck Cook said the company had him sign an NDA and agreed to an embargo requiring to wait to post content until after the event was over. On X, pro-Tesla accounts who weren’t invited grumbled aboutthe decision; Not a Tesla App accused the company of “dropping the ball.”
As of this week, Tesla has 45 Cybercab vehicles registered with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles — though its not clear how many will be put into commercial service right away. Several vehicles were made available to Tesla influencers in Austin for content creation; the company has been testing them in various cities for months now. Tesla also launched a new website for its Robotaxi service, which includes the rules for riding in the new vehicle. For example, children under the age of 13 are currently banned from riding in the Cybercab. Several videos were posted, highlighting the interior, crash test worthiness, and accessibility. (The accessibility video was especially befuddling, showing a wheelchair user getting up to fold and stow his own wheelchair.)