Tesla’s Cybercab has been deployed, and it’s already under investigation

The fuck… It’s for two people?

I mean, there’s no problem here. In fact, I think it’s super sensible to make this a 2 seater.

Clearly their plan is ultimately for this robotaxi service to be something you can run on any Tesla car. Meaning that the majority of cars on the service will be 5 seaters.

On the other hand, I’d bet anything that the vast majority of rides requested are for a single rider. So if you’re going to make a vehicle specifically to be the optimal car for this purpose, it should definitely be a 2 seater. Smaller, lighter, better mileage, cheaper. If you need to order a ride for more people, a different car can do that and there are more of those available anyway.

The only gripe i have, is that this really could have been a 3 seater. Generally cars have adjustable front seats because the driver needs to be able to reach the pedals comfortably. But since that isn’t an issue here, it would have made a lot of sense to make it a bench seat just like most cars have in the back. Then again, the car does look quite small, so perhaps making it a 2 seater helped them constrain the size a little bit more.

Edit: Oh yeah, don’t refute the post, just down vote it, that’s a sane and well adjusted thing to do. I mean, I’m not even saying anything controversial…

I have significant doubts about this “any Tesla as robotaxi” idea at least if you’re referring to Musk’s empty promises about how you could make money off your own Tesla while not using it.

The simple explanation is indeed that they’ve noticed 2 seats is enough for most taxi usage and IIRC I’ve seen some articles say the data supports that. They’ve optimized the Cybercab to be their taxi in this and other ways. Clearly they’ve also made efforts to maximize its range and chosen an interior that is easy to clean, removed the glass roof and even the rear window that would possibly not last so long in heavy use etc.

If there’s ever going to be a bigger taxi from them I’d expect it to be another purpose-built vehicle.