What is the Tesla Robovan? Elon Musk unveils driverless taxis, shuttles and droids at We, Robot event

Everyone was expecting Tesla to uncover a driverless taxi connected Thursday night, but Elon Musk besides had a astonishment up his sleeve.

After rocking up to his firm’s We, Robot lawsuit successful the cybercab, the tech billionaire took the wraps disconnected different caller vehicle: a “Robovan”.

This being Tesla, it didn’t lucifer your emblematic lorry.

With its sleek curves and horizontal lines, the Robovan looks similar it’s been plucked consecutive from a sci-fi flick – deliberation Streamline Moderne meets Minority Report. Or, the font carriage of a futuristic train, the benignant you would ideate President Snow arriving successful for the Hunger Games.

The bus-like conveyance volition beryllium susceptible of driving autonomously, which was ostensibly the taxable of the nighttime (and Tesla’s broader extremity for its cars, a lofty imaginativeness present much than a decennary successful the making). 

Mr Musk said the van tin transportation up to 20 passengers, making it cleanable for “high-density” trips – whether you're transporting a sports squad oregon heading to Heathrow with a large cohort of enactment colleagues.

It would astir apt origin pile-ups if it showed up connected the M25 tomorrow, truthful it’s conscionable arsenic good it won’t deed roads for a portion yet.

Like astir of the worldly Mr Musk revealed astatine the eccentric event, including dancing humanoid robots, the Robovan is inactive successful the conception stage. This means it’s designed to get tongues wagging, but is obscurity adjacent acceptable for wide production.

Given Mr Musk’s self-declared penchant for overpromising connected Tesla's autonomous capabilities, and each the regulatory red-tape successful its way, the Robovan could beryllium respective years away. 

In the past, Mr Musk has stated that Tesla cars would execute afloat autonomy wrong a fewer years, but this hasn’t happened yet. He besides predicted a cross-country thrust without quality intervention, which has not travel to fruition. Additionally, Mr Musk antecedently shared plans for 1 cardinal robotaxis, which are inactive successful development.

That’s not to accidental that Tesla hasn’t made gains successful its autonomous-driving goals. At the event, Musk revealed that helium expects Tesla to rotation retired "unsupervised FSD" successful Texas and California adjacent year, disposable successful the Model 3 and Model Y electrical vehicles. 

FSD, oregon Full Self-Driving, is Tesla's precocious driver-assistance system, which presently operates successful a "supervised" mode. This means a quality operator indispensable stay down the wheel, acceptable to instrumentality power astatine immoderate moment. 

Earlier this year, Tesla added the word "supervised" to the FSD branding to clarify its existent limitations.

Despite Mr Musk’s daze announcement of the Robovan, the headliner connected the nighttime was Tesla’s caller self-driving EV.

Forget ordering an Uber, Mr Musk wants you to thrust astir successful a car without a steering wheel, pedals, oregon adjacent a driver. 

“You could autumn dormant and aftermath up astatine your destination,” the tech billionaire declared astatine the event.

If you similar the sleek look of the two-seater, implicit with its butterfly doors and flowing design, you’ll beryllium blessed to larn that it volition beryllium disposable to buy, too.

It’s expected to outgo nether $30,000 and volition spell into accumulation earlier 2027, Mr Musk said.

Unlike different autonomous cars, some the Robotaxi and Robovan are being built to run utilizing artificial intelligence and cameras alternatively of Lidar sensors and inbuilt mapping software.