Elon Musk presented a prototype of the “Robovan” at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in Los Angeles on Thursday evening. The electric, autonomous vehicle the size of a bus should be able to transport up to 20 people and is intended for use in densely populated areas.
The Robovan features a retro-futuristic design with metallic silver sides, black details and light strips along the body. The doors slide open in the middle and inside there are seats and standing room behind tinted windows. As an autonomous vehicle, it does not require a steering wheel.
However, stayed Musk Concrete details owed: Neither price, production details nor an exact start date were mentioned. This fits into a familiar pattern: Musk has often made grandiose announcements in the past, which then not implemented or only partially implemented became. Examples of this are the one that has been postponed several times Cybertruck, the never realized Model 2 for $25,000, the promised robotaxi fleet by 2020 and the full self-driving capability of Tesla vehicles.
The ambitious goal of increasing production to 20 million vehicles per year by 2030 (a fifteen-fold increase compared to 2022) appears particularly questionable against this background. No specific production plans or factory expansions were presented for the newly introduced Cybercab and Robovan vehicles. Only for the Cybercab was a vague start of production planned for 2026 or 2027.