Saw my first cyber cab in Houston. I live outside the service area but this one was sitting parked on a residential street in my neighborhood with a dude in the front seat. Can you hail a ride in the service area and have it drive you out or was this guy testing or driving himself?
those are people mapping roads. Not in service. My wife and I did the Robotaxi last weekend from Meyerland to River Oaks district. It was a Model Y. Haven't seen a cybercab in service yet Houston.
Not a Tesla fanboy but I find it interesting to see some of the choices they made since it is an extremely purpose built vehicle. The rear tires are truck tires. 33" and high load rating so they won't need to be replaced as frequently. And I believe the track is narrower in the rear than the front.
The wheel covers actually extend onto the rubber of the tires and they themselves have a flexible edge so as to not damage the sidewall. Air management around the wheels is big for aero efficiency I guess.
I rode in the Cybercab mulitple times in Austin and they were all just fine. The design choices of these really optimizes rideshare riders since the vast majority of riders are only 1 to 2 people. You should watch this engineering breakdown video on the Cybercab where a respectable automotive engineering firm company talks directly to the head designer and various system engineers at Tesla. Things like unboxed vehicle architecture, electronic brake-by-wire system, 48V low-voltage system, no paint process, individual battery module severability, and replacing wire harnesses and looms with wireless communication are all items I found very interesting that really differentiate the Cybercab from any other car including Tesla's own vehicles like the Model 3 and Y.
Because the ultimate goal with all of this is to produce a mass market fully autonomous EV by making it cheap enough that the lower-middle class can afford..... even while still being designed and built in America.
