TECH NEWS – The head of Twitter, Tesla and SpaceX wants our cars to drive away without us… as if Musk was inspired by what he saw in Cyberpunk 2077!
Elon Musk spoke at a We, Robot event hosted by Tesla at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, USA. Here he wanted to outline the company’s vision for its vehicles. He talked not only about robots like Detroit: Become Human, but also the Cybercab (robot taxi) and the Robovan, which can carry more passengers, as the company also wants to get into the taxi business.
“How many hours a week are the cars used? About 10 hours a week, out of 168 hours. So the vast majority of the time, cars are just doing nothing. But if they’re autonomous, they could be used, I don’t know, five times more? Maybe 10 times more? We have 50 fully autonomous cars here tonight. […] All driverless. You’ll be able to take a ride in the Cybercab. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals… so I hope this goes well! With autonomy, you get your time back. This is a very big deal – it will save lives, many lives, and prevent injuries,” Musk said.
Let’s take a closer look: The Verge has already reported that Tesla has invested in an Uber-like app to request a ride. The Cybercab will be available for $30,000 when it goes into production in 2026. You can use the vehicle to pick up passengers when we’re not using it. But there was an accident in 2018 when a Tesla Model X using the Autopilot feature crashed into a highway barrier, which led to a lawsuit against Tesla (which was settled earlier this year), and in 2023, a student got off a school bus and was hit by a Tesla Model Y “at highway speeds” while in Autopilot mode. So Tesla’s safety record is not spotless.
But it begs the question: if someone buys a Cybercab, for example, and it causes a fatal accident while the owner is, say, asleep, should the owner or Tesla be held liable?
