An Opinionated Design Analysis
Yesterday (last week by the time this publishes) Tesla held their We, Robot event in Hollywood.
I didn't watch the event because I like to sleep, but caught up with the news this morning as I do most mornings. In many ways the event was about what I would have expected; the same promises we've heard time and again. Cheap, fully autonomous cars produced at massive scale that somehow also appreciate in value. A revolution in mobility.
If it's not obvious by the choice of location for the event, Musk's claims are as much fiction now as they has been for the last ten years. A rich white guy living out his boyhood fantasies.
Nevertheless, the moment I saw the thumbnail of the Cybercab, it immediately made me think of a Tesla, even without knowing it was. There's something fascinating about that, so I thought I'd do something new this week.
A design analysis.
The Cybercab
Musk has been talking about the Robotaxi since at least 2022, when he said it would be in production in 2024. Other than a leak of the concept more than a year ago (that I completely missed), this is the first time we see the hardware. Now that the concept has been unveiled in 2024, and it's definitely a concept, the production date is now set for some time before 2027.
In almost every way the Cybercab is just a rehash of the Robotaxi concept. Buy a car, let it drive around autonomously making you (and Tesla) money. Use it yourself occasionally. It follows the same basic layout as the previously leaked concept; a small two-door, two-seat electric car with zero driver controls.
Styling
On a whole I quite like the design.
It's a refreshing change to see cleaner, simpler surfaces again instead of the heavily creased and confusing lines of a lot of modern car design (Toyota, I'm looking at you). There's a distinct lack of fakery in the styling; no fake vents, no fake power bulges, no fake wheel flares. It's also great to see Tesla continue to wave the sedan/hatch flag when everything else has inexplicably become an SUV.
Straight off the bat though I thought the design was either the work of a student Industrial Designer, or a Midjourney output. In either case the design brief/prompt being "make a cross between a Model 3 and a Cybertruck". To contribute to this sense there is a certain level of the simplistic, rather than simplicity, in the design. I will admit that's still a significant improvement over the Cybertruck.
2023 Model 3
Cybertruck, of course.
It's a sporty looking little car, in an inoffensive and otherwise unremarkable kind of way. It has that overall vibe of being spritely, without trying to look muscular. It does wear an enormous set of 21" wheels though, even if you ignore the 'gold-walls'.
As I mentioned at the top, the styling is still distinctly Tesla. Especially the front end which maintains the low, grill-less, nose but manages to shake the frog-like look of the 2022 Model 3. The heavily raked (don't know if this is the right term, I work in medical devices) waistline from the low front to the higher rear quarter-panel is also very Model-3-esque. Likewise is the uptick at the rear side windows. The rear itself is also very Model 3, which is not in any way unique to Tesla. That fastback-style, aero design has been seen on EVs going all the way back to the 1999 Honda Insight (the 2014 VW XL1 is another good example).
2022 Frog-faced Model 3
1999 Honda Insight
There are a few little surface details I like too. The subtle vertical creases in the front corners that mark the transition from the front of the car to the sides of the car are delicate, but help define the shape of the car where there are otherwise few features. This gives off hints too of the chamfers at the front corners of the Cybertruck.
I also quite like how the seam between the rear panel and the rear quarter-panel is more creased at the top intersection with what I assume is the hatch, but becomes more tangent as it moves down towards the side skirt. Again, reminiscent of the Cybertruck, without its anti-personnel edges and corners.
The headlight and taillight bars are of course carbon copies of the Cybertruck's.
Interior
The interior is an exercise in austerity. That's even ignoring the complete lack of physical controls. The dashboard is entirely featureless with the massive screen floating right in the middle. The screen completely dominates the forward field of view, which to me is a shame given the large amount of glass and low bonnet height that would otherwise provide great forward vision. While this shouldn't be a problem if you're not driving, I know most passengers like to look out the front windscreen either to brace against turning forces, and/or to reduce motion sickness.
The seating is where things are most interesting. Obviously there's only the two seats, but they look thin and flat, and lack any kind lumbar or side support. The armrests on the doors and in the centre look equally thin and hard. None of this makes sense when you think that Musk expects people to sleep in these things in transit. But hey, at least they look futuristic.
The CMF (colour, material, finish) on the inside is otherwise table-stakes for modern cars. Black plastic, some metallic finishes, and some textiles to soften the feel. I would also expect the metallic-finish seats to look very second-hand in no time if they were to be used for their intended purpose.
I'm ambivalent to the gullwing doors. Having not used many, it's hard for me to say if they're harder or easier to operate. Or make ingress and egress easier.
Functionality
Ok, ignoring the entire Robotaxi concept, this is where I think we really leave reality behind. And it has nothing to do with the car itself, but rather as the solution to the problem it proposes to solve.
For starters, it's a only a two-seater. I get it that you don't need the driver as you would in a traditional taxi, but given most cars are five or even seven seats (they are SUVs remember), this obliterates a huge amount of the market. Given that most taxi are used for shuttling people, rather than things, this just seems like leaving money on the table. Other than so it can look cool, I don't understand why.
To add to that, the Cybercab takes up a lot of road space for a two seater. And if as many people buy these things as Musk thinks, then the roads will become more congested than they already are. You will need to be able to sleep in these things because you'll have to spend half your sleeping hours queued in traffic. This doesn't solve urban mobility by reducing travel times, only makes it easier to spend more time in your car. A revolution in mobility indeed.
Actually, I take back what I said about being designed by a student designer. If a student was given the brief to create a vision for the future of individualised urban mobility, they would almost certainly have given some actual thought for the urban context. Take the 2021 Renault EZ-1 as an example.
2021 Renault EZ-1 Concept
With an extra pair of doors the Cybercab would make a lot more sense as a Model 3 replacement. The Model 3 is, after all, almost an eight year old car at this point. Unless there's some kind of pivot of the platform to replace the Model 3 when the Robotaxi fails to materialise, the Cybercab makes little sense as an actual taxi.
Back to Reality
I think at this stage everyone but the most ardent sycophants know that the Robotaxi concept isn't three years away. My guess is real, reliable FSD is at least 10 years away, if at all. By that time I would hope instead that at least in the rest of the developed world urban mobility has evolved away from a reliance on cars, making such a concept largely redundant.
What that means for the Cybercab, I guess we'll see. If the hardware has been developed and the FSD never catches up, it will be interesting to see if the Cybercab goes on ice like the Tesla Semi (which Cybercab would have been a better name for). Or, do we see a steering wheel get shoehorned in so they can replace one of the other aging models and recoup some of the tooling costs.
Even Johhny Cab had a joystick.
Also read: Wallpaper's opinion piece on the Cybercab
