Tesla Unveils Its Cybercab Self-Driving Car: Is This the ‘ChatGPT Moment for Robotaxis’?

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Elon Musk presented Tesla’s new car: A self-driving car called Cybercab. The tech mogul showed off a prototype “robotaxi” that It has no steering wheel or pedals. – Thursday at the Warner Bros. film studio. in California, on public roads.

“This is a very important thing,” Musk said, adding that self-driving cars are expected to be 10–20 times safer than human driven vehicles. “This will save lives, many lives, and prevent injuries.”

The Cybercab is expected to cost less than $30,000 (€27,000), and Musk has estimated the average cost of operating the vehicle at just $0.20 (€0.18) per mile. He also said that Cybercab would go into production “in 2026,” before pausing and rephrasing the sentence: “Until 2027”.

What kind of technology is this?

The car uses “computer vision” and artificial intelligence (AI) technology called end-to-end machine learning, which translates images into decisions.

“I think that with this launch We are close to a “ChatGPT moment” for robotaxiswhen they truly become part of our overall transport environment,” Crean Bouwman, co-founder and CEO of Rocsys, a company developing hands-free electric vehicle charging solutions based in the Netherlands, told Euronews Next.

Tesla is not the only company introducing self-driving technology. Your competitors Waymo, Cruise, Zook from Amazon and other Chinese companies use technologies similar to Tesla’s, but also use other sensors such as radars and other sophisticated mapping technologies.

Without these extras Tesla Do you want your car be simpler and much cheaper. “The robotaxi battle will be won or lost by Tesla or one of the other operators depending on who achieves operational excellence,” Bauman says.

“Robotaxi don’t make money unless they’re on the road, so operators have to Maximize uptime and eliminate the factors that prevent them from getting on the road,” he added. The big bottleneck will be loading, which can be slow, expensive and labor-intensive.

“I think operators can overcome this problem by implementing autonomous recharging, dispersed across cities in decentralized microcentres. “This will give them the edge they need to win the robotaxi race,” Bauman says.

It is very important to count with the right technology. Robotaxi development has been rocky, including 13 fatal crashes involving Tesla drivers on Autopilot, according to U.S. regulators.

Tesla also faces in a class action lawsuit in the US from Tesla owners who were promised full autonomous driving but have yet to deliver. The lawsuit comes after U.S. regulators pressured the company last year to remove self-driving cars from the market.

The robotaxi sector has also witnessed numerous incidents of traffic jams and road accidents. blocked vehicles. Some US states have passed laws legalizing the use of self-driving cars, but each has its own requirements. Until now, only level 3 autonomous driving has been allowed, meaning there must be a person in the driver’s seat who can take over control if necessary.

Europe is left behind

European countries have autonomous driving regulations. stricter. Last year, the European Commission announced it would speed up European regulation of autonomous driving. UNECE Regulation on Driver Assistance Systems (DCAS)“.

For now, only Phase 1 has been approved, which simply allows for autonomous driving. “We are seeing widespread adoption of robotaxis in the US and China, but Europe is falling further and further behind. Europe is well positioned to one day lead this sector as it has the best technology talent,” says Bauman.

“But Europe needs to quickly accept new measures which allow it to compete with the United States and China, especially because this technology will be important remain competitive in the general transport market,” he added.