For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about whether our Electrek readers believed the new Cybercab would be a transformative new technology, or – not. After nearly 2,700 responses, here’s what you told us.
In case you missed the survey, the question read, “I was chatting with someone this week who said, ‘Cybercab is going to be one of the most prolific vehicles on the road. And the most transformative for society ever.’ What do you guys think: will Tesla’s Cybercab transform the way we get around, or will it be just another car?”
The survey coincided with the re-unveiling of the Tesla Cybercab this week in Austin, Texas, where a limited number of invitation-only Tesla influencers were allowed to have the car take them for a spin (with varying degrees of success). As such, it shouldn’t be surprising that there were a lot of responses – what was surprising, however, was the pessimism.
By the numbers
To be clear, the question that got nearly two thirds of the votes was not subtle. It read, “It (Tesla’s Cybercab) won’t even be ‘just another car,’ if no one can drive it – and Tesla hasn’t yet proven its AI can drive it.”
Negative press poured in during the week that followed. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into the Cybercab’s safety, Tesla’s own data confirmed that Autopilot/FSD was active in both a crash that killed a motorcyclist and a separate crash that killed a mother of five, and Tesla settled a fatal Autopilot vs. fire truck lawsuit, avoiding a jury trial and more public discovery.
Still, it didn’t seem like this week’s news was what was driving that sentiment. “The car company that isn’t a car company wants to sell you a car you don’t need because of all these cabs they’re making,” wrote OliveAirBalloon on 30AUG. “Oh, by the way, you will be able to put your own car out there to be used as a cab and compete with the company cabs. Yep. Any day now.”
Several other commenters also referenced Elon’s previous claims that Tesla owners would be able to make money while they slept by putting their Full Self Driving EVs to work as Robotaxis:
Wait, I thought your Tesla was going to make you money, while you were sleeping or working? Sounds like, Elon is keeping that pie for himself, if he succeeds.
Others had similar responses, including regular commenter Mrvc. “The same people have been saying it will be transformative for years,” he said. “It looks like just a other autonomous taxi you can’t own. I don’t see how will it be any different (than) anything else.”
Still, that’s not to say that everyone had a skeptical take on the likelihood of Cybercab having a transformative impact on transportation. Some were optimistic, but practical …
I think they’ll probably get it working a some sort of scale. They’ll capture a reasonable percentage of the ride-share market and for that effort they will make pennies. Investors will move onto the next thing Tesla will “revolutionize”.
… and …
It’s going to be huge in places where you barely need a car (think Manhattan, SF, DC, mostly that’s it). It won’t matter anywhere else. The reason is that it will be cheaper to operate than cabs / ubers, so it will basically replace them, and the lower cost will make it easier to use it MORE than a cab, so not owning your own car pencils out a bit more on the margins. But for places that are more spread out, where you need to drive to live a normal life, it won’t matter, because you would need an unlikely saturation of a massive area for it to be available when you need it. I CAN see it reducing public transit use a little if it is cheap enough.
… but, if I absolutely had to hang a lantern on the one thing that’s most surprising about these responses and these comments, it’s the fact that the die-hard true-believer Tesla fans that usually fill up the comments section of any post or podcast that references the brand’s forward-looking products were nowhere to be found this time.
Have the broken promises and shifting timelines finally eroded their trust, or do they just not read Electrek in enough numbers to sway the polls? You guys are smarter than I am (those of you who get the inside jokes, anyway), let me know what you think the significance of that is in the comments.
Original content from Electrek.
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