Cybercab engineering: what is shipped, and what is still a claim
Discussions about the Cybercab tend to blur what Tesla has demonstrated with what it has projected. Pulling those apart is worth doing.
Shipped and observable:
- No steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors. Camera-only perception, no radar or lidar.
- Two seats, butterfly doors, a 22-inch screen.
- A drive motor that uses no rare-earth metals.
- The "unboxed" assembly process, which Tesla says roughly halves the line.
- 300+ vehicles carrying passengers in Austin as of 10 October.
Numbers about the vehicle itself:
- Step-in height 16.5 inches, ground clearance 5.8 inches
- Head room 38.3 inches, leg room 43.4 inches
- Rear trunk 20.2 cubic feet
- Drive units leaving the line every 10 seconds, per Tesla
Claims still to be tested:
- "The most efficient EV ever certified." Not verifiable without the certification data, and I have not seen independent confirmation published anywhere.
- The 2 to 4 million vehicles a year ambition. Stated capacity is 125,000. An ambition is not a factory.
- "Several times more Cybercabs per year than all our other vehicles combined." Same problem.
- Whether the cost structure really lands under $30,000 at volume. No price announced.
The interesting argument is not whether the claims are impressive. It is which ones are load-bearing. If the unboxed process and the rare-earth-free motor are what make the economics work, then the cost target depends on manufacturing rather than on autonomy - and that is something you can actually argue about with evidence.
What have I got wrong, or what am I missing?