Tesla Cybercab, Robovan revealed: Tesla criticised for uncertain timelines

Experts are criticising Tesla's 'We Robot' event that it focused more on a flamboyant show of futuristic vehicles
An undated image of a Tesla model Y. — Pexels

An undated image of a Tesla model Y. — Pexels

This highly modernised era seems to be of container rather than content, for those uninitiated with the aforementioned phrase, Tesla's recently held, much-hyped event is an example of it.

Prominent observers and industry experts are criticising Tesla's We Robot event, claiming that it focused more on a flamboyant show of futuristic vehicles rather than actually equipping them with the true elements of fully autonomous cars.

Tesla We Robot event in hot waters

Held on October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Discovery Studios in Burbank, the “We Robot” event was streamed live on the electric vehicle's (EV) official accounts on social network X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.

Read more: Tesla Robotaxi event likely to reveal Tesla Model 2, Cybervan, and Cybercab

The Tesla event brandished prototypes of a new “Cybercab” autonomous car with no steering wheel or gas and brake pedals, along with a “Robovan” with a seating compartment big enough to accommodate 20 passengers.

As part of one of the most disappointing occurrences at the Tesla event was featuring its in-progress humanoid Optimus robots interacting with attendees, which was even deployed to serve drinks at a bar.

While some attendees considered the robots to be fully autonomous, reports brought to light that they were teleoperated — meaning a human was controlling them remotely.

“Not wholly AI? Not at all AI,” remarked venture capitalist Josh Wolfe who is also a co-founder of Lux Capital on Musk’s social network X, according to Venture Beat.

“Totally worthy to celebrate low latency remote control but totally dishonest to demo these as autonomous robots—call it the parlour trick it is.”