Cybercab goes on tour in the Asia-Pacific region

Tesla’s Cybercab is now rolling off the production line onto the streets of Austin, Texas. While the bright gold exterior and Lambo-style doors are eye-catching, it’s the interior that gets my attention.

Living on the other side of the world from Tesla, there are some very obvious differences (read: challenges) between shipping cars to the US versus Australia, mainly the hundreds of parts that differ between left-hand drive and right-hand drive cars.

Until now, every car actually had two variants for international markets, but not the Cybercab, it is a perfect mirror image, thanks to the elimination of the steering wheel, steering column, pedals, hole in the firewall, and Tesla didn’t stop there, it also removed the mirrors because they are meant for people.

Tesla actually started this work many years ago when they purposefully developed a software-centric car and made major changes to car interior design that are now common throughout the industry. By removing the physical buttons and moving them to the touchscreen, delivery to right-hand drive markets becomes much easier, and many more components can be reused in both options.

This journey began with removing the driver’s instrument cluster in the Model 3 and placing speed, ventilation controls, volume and everything else on the touchscreen. Now, many, many years later, we see the launch of Cybercab, which has none of the traditional differences.

The two seats inside the CyberCock are separated by the largest display Tesla has installed in any vehicle, a huge 22-inch screen. This is now the future interface for interacting with the car as a passenger and all the driving will be done for you thanks to FSD.

Following the official launch of Cybercab last week in the US, today we have some exciting news about our part of the world. Tesla has officially taken the Cybercab on an international road trip.

The first stop on the tour will be Japan, as well as a right-hand drive market such as Australia. This isn’t Tesla’s first product roadshow: Cybertruck and Optimus prototypes are also crossing the ocean.

Ken Maeda was on hand to take some stunning shots of the Cybercab in Tesla’s unusually complex display. The stage was fully equipped with outdoor press lighting and located in Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.

The official account of Tesla Japan also shared news about this event. Cybercab will tour four sites in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Dates range from today until September 28th.

This has Tesla fans wondering if Japan is really just the first stop on a longer journey through the Asia-Pacific region, and… it turns out it does look quite likely…

Earlier today, Arnie Gose posted a photo on the Tesla Owners Australia Facebook group that looks an awful lot like the silhouette of a Tesla Cybercab under a canopy at a service center in Sydney. It was quickly recognized as Alexandria.

Tesla added a dedicated robotaxi page to its US website when Cybertaxi launched, and while it’s not available on the Australia page, the We-robot event page certainly is. All this leads to Tesla showing great interest in developing its autonomous self-driving taxi service internationally.

At this time, Tesla will not be able to offer robotaxi services in Australia, mainly because our regulators are dragging their feet.

I’ve been covering this topic for years and in 2022 I wrote: “If we don’t accelerate this timeline, the rest of the developed world will leave us behind.”

It turns out I was right. Australia is still working on updating the rules to allow autonomous vehicles, with this now expected to happen sometime in 2027. The hardware and software are ready to provide safe and cheap travel, and our regulators have failed us.

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