During Monday’s episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen revealed that Tesla’s purpose-built autonomous car, which has no steering wheel or pedals, will spearhead the company’s crucial robotaxi pilot program in Austin.

“Starting in June, we’ll have Cybercabs rolling around in Texas,” he told the former late-night comedian, who owns an extensive collection of cars.

The Cybercab utilizes a next-generation vehicle architecture that features a completely new production strategy Tesla calls the “unboxed” method. (A good explanation can be found here.)

Traditional factories feature a long, winding assembly line broken down into a series of dedicated workstations, each one adding anything from a dashboard to the car seats.

Tesla believes it can slash up to 50% of the costs by deconstructing this chain so that the various elements of the car can be worked on in parallel. 

Tesla has stated that the vehicle will enter volume production next year, but that is fairly vague guidance.

The company is notorious for its rosy, unrealistic forecasts, even in an industry where launch dates are subject to considerable uncertainty.

For example, the Cybertruck launched two years behind schedule, and it was wildly off the promised price and specifications. 

Until now, there has been little reason to believe the Cybercab would be any different, especially given that it‘s a revolutionary product that Musk believes will account for at least 2 million unit sales annually—more than the record 1.8 million vehicles Tesla delivered to customers in 2023.

Like traveling on a plane or train 

The problem is that the demand for two-seater cars like the Cybercab is tiny compared with a conventional car that can transport five people.

Typically either these are sporty coupes or cabrios like the Chevrolet Corvette and 718 Porsche Boxster, or they’re minicars that aren’t even sold in the U.S. market, such as the Smart ForTwo.

In fact, the unveiling of the Cybercab seemed like nothing more than a calculated gamble by Musk to stave off a collapse in Tesla’s share price. The CEO announced the date of the unveiling within hours of Reuters reporting in April of last year that the “unboxed” entry car on the next-gen platform had been canceled, sending the stock into a tailspin.

Tesla went on to postpone the original August unveil date by two months.

The company has also been quietly telling analysts not to factor much volume from the robotaxi model into their valuation models until around 2027.

That’s in part because there is precious little in the way of regulations permitting the wide-scale use of vehicles that lack any option for manual operation.

Even if Musk can wield his newfound influence with President Trump to have federal legislation, that would only help him in the United States.

However, Tesla believes its technology is ready for primetime despite continued crashes, which suggests that its accident rate is far too high for fully automated driving.

Even Leno, a fan of Tesla, seemed skeptical at the idea of removing the steering wheel entirely.

Engineering chief Lars Moravy sought to allay his concerns, likening it to other forms of modern transportation.

“You get in a plane or train, you have no control, you just get to your destination. It will be similar to that feeling,” he said.