October 10, 2025 • 15 mins
A covered vehicle at Tesla’s Palo Alto HQ appears to match the shape of the upcoming robotaxi, signaling that the company has begun building Cybercab hardware
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey everybody, welcome. Back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical.
Crossroads that shape. SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring
Company and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
Tesla's upcoming cyber cab just moved from concept to physical
form, and the clues are sitting in plain sight at the company's
(00:24):
Palo Alto headquarters. A newly spotted vehicle draped
in a tight black cover appears to match the low profile shape
of Tesla's driverless robotaxi prototype, which Elon Musk
teased earlier this year. Has Tesla actually begun
building the first functional cyber cabs now?
(00:44):
The shape of the cover vehicle lines up with Musk's April
reveal, where he briefly flasheda shadowed render of the Robo
Taxi during the company's Robo Taxi Day announcement.
And the design doesn't resemble any existing Tesla model.
It's smaller and flatter than a Model 3, and it lacks the
visible roof line of the Model YSize, angle, and placement of
(01:05):
the roof bump seen under the cover match the earlier concept
image. A Tesla parked vehicle outside
its 15 O one page Mill Rd. office, which is a location
closely tied to its Autopilot and Full Self Driving teams.
This isn't the kind of site where prototype hardware usually
gets left unattainted, though. Tesla tends to keep early
(01:27):
vehicles out of public view unless the goal is to send a
message or to test public reaction.
Parking this vehicle so openly right after Musk confirmed and
August 8th unveiling for the Cyber Cab looks intentional.
Now Tesla hasn't commented on the vehicle, but the location
and timing both point toward this being a pre production
(01:48):
prototype of the robotaxi. That matters because it means
Tesla could already be testing cybercap hardware internally and
up until now, that robotaxi was a promise which was hyped.
It was announced, but nobody knew when they were actually
going to start developing this thing or building this thing.
It's the first real evidence of Tesla physically building
(02:10):
something tied to this project. Now, the low profile and tight
footprint of the prototype suggests that the Cyber Cab
isn't based on a modified Model 3.
Or why Tesla appears to be following through on his claim.
The robotaxi will use an all newplatform.
That platform will reportedly beshared with Tesla's next
generation compact vehicle, which is expected to be built at
(02:32):
both Giga Texas and Giga Mexico.The $25,000 Tesla maybe, and
we'll see now the cyber cab is designed as a driver of this
vehicle from the start so Tesla can strip away components like
the steering wheel and pedals and future iterations.
That reduces interior complexityand cost, which Musk had
previously said. We'll bring the right price
(02:52):
below bus fare. But to reach that goal, Tesla
still needs to prove that FSD, the full self driving system,
can safely handle real world conditions without human
supervision. Musk said the robo taxi would
look futuristic and the covered prototype supports that claim
the short hood, high beltline and bubble like cabin match
(03:12):
vehicle built primarily for autonomy, not driving in the
shape of maximizes internal volume while minimizing surface
area, which this is an efficientdesign choice for an urban
transport pod of the timing of this sighting add some pressure.
Tesla is set to unveil some morevehicles in the near future.
(03:34):
They just released a $37,000 or basically a $40,000 model and a
35,000 ish dollar model. And those were OK.
They didn't really do much. Stock went down after the
announcement, but it went back up the next day.
You know, Tesla could be preparing to show a working
(03:56):
vehicle with early hardware, which would signal that
production is closer than presumably, you know, assumed by
others out there. Now, this is competitive.
Waymo and Cruise are the enemieshere.
Both companies have logged millions of miles with
driverless cars, but the vehicles rely on modified
(04:18):
passenger cars and rely heavily on Lidar and HD mapping.
Tesla is betting on a pure vision based system, no lidar or
radar, which requires stronger neural Nets and a more advanced
AI model to match the safety level of the competitors.
And if Tesla pulls this off, thecompany could skip the
(04:38):
incremental rollout that other robotaxi firms rely on.
Instead of geofence launches, Tesla could try for a more
global release once regulators approve.
Of course, that would reshape the right handling market.
Bye bye Uber drivers. Bye bye Lyft drivers.
You can have a robotaxi and pay,pay about the same amount of
(05:00):
money and get a, a robot to do the driving for you.
Let's get in, do your thing, getout.
It's like Disney. Disney has something similar to
this. You can have a basically a robo
cab. They have set routes, but
there's no driver and you can get in them and you can go
someplace, you know, but this isreal world, you know, this is
(05:23):
Disney. They have pre approved routes,
they have geofencing, they only go certain amount of speed and
they know exactly what's going to be on the roadways.
Now. This would reshape the whole
ride hailing market and push legacy players to rethink their
autonomous strategies. Somebody like Uber is going to
be working with other companies,ride sharing companies out there
(05:47):
who have vehicles. They're going to push all the
drivers that are in driver positions right now.
They're going to push them out of the business and they're
going to have robo taxis, not the Elon and Tesla robotaxi, but
they will have autonomous vehicles that will be driving
people around. They're already doing it with
(06:08):
Waymo. If you want a Waymo, get an
Uber. You know, hop on an Uber and get
it. But there goes the the economy
for ride sharing for drivers. Look man, I'm going to be honest
with you. In the hard times, I drive Uber
or I drove Uber in the hard times and it pays OK.
(06:31):
If you drive all day, you can make decent amount of money, but
you got to drive sometimes 12 hours stay in order to make a
good amount of money. And even then you got to really
rely on tips from people. And some people are just cheap.
So you never know how much moneyyou're going to make that day,
but you can bring in, you know, if you do it right, couple $1000
(06:53):
a week and that alone is enough money for rent, child care,
whatever, if you need the money.But that's all going away.
I don't think it's going to go away right away though.
This stuff takes time, right? Cyber cab isn't going to just
hit the ground running and regulators are going to take
(07:13):
their sweet time because what happens if there's an accident?
Who's liable? What happens?
One of these things gets pulled over by a police officer.
What happens then? Does the person just kind of
like get out and who do you ticket for these kind of things
like say what if these one of these robotaxi or cyber cabs
(07:36):
goes down one way Rd. the wrong way, a cop pulls up behind him,
pulls him over and there's no driver.
So who do you ticket? You must ticket Tesla.
There's got to be so there's gotto be regulations around this.
And before they actually roll these things out.
So it's going to be a while. People these, you know,
(07:56):
rideshare apps are still going to be around for a while.
Taxis are going to be around fora while.
Limousines are going to be around for a while.
People dislike people, you know,they, they want people around
sometimes. Sometimes you don't.
And that's when you hail a driverless cab like a cyber cab.
But the presence of this prototype is pretty big and Elon
(08:19):
and Tesla are very secretive about their hardware.
So having this outside where people can see Rick see it clear
as day is not just a render anymore.
It's a real thing. They're they appear to be
building the hardware, need to support the robotaxi, the cyber
cab, All that stuff is going to be happening very soon.
(08:44):
So if you're in one of those areas like Austin, grab 1, you
know, grab a, grab a Tesla, an automated Tesla and scoot
around, see what it feels like and, you know, get to your
destination. But you don't even need to talk
to somebody. You can pick your own music too,
which is great. All right, so that's about it
for today's episode, everybody. But I want to ask you a
(09:06):
question. One quick question before we go.
This is important. If you've been here for a while,
I'm going to ask you for a favor.
Please take a second out of yourday and do a five star review
for the show. That's all I'm asking you.
It'll literally take you 30 seconds after the show's done.
Like just do it right now. It's all done.
(09:26):
Thank you for that. It really helps the show out and
whatever podcast platform you'reon, it really does help,
especially Spotify. If you're on Spotify right now
and you're listening, I appreciate you and please give
it some stars, some good stars, good amount of stars, four or
five stars because they use algorithms similar to YouTube.
Those kind of things really matter.
(09:47):
Leave a comment. Any sort of interaction with the
show really helps out. And I have over 1100 episodes.
I've been doing it for about 6 years.
I could not do without you. So I really do appreciate you
and I really do appreciate all the comments that I've been
getting recently because it really matters.
I'd like to talk to people aboutElon.
(10:07):
I want to talk to him about Tesla.
I want to talk to him about SpaceX and there are some
comments that just recently, I'mgoing to read a few of them.
I read some yesterday. I might read the same ones
today. And you know, some of the some
of the older comments on older videos or on older podcasts,
(10:29):
Miss Moon said Banger, banger. Somebody said conspiracy
theories really. Lol.
That was about, I don't know which episode that was about.
Let's see. Former open AI and anthropic
staff accuse Elon Musk about something.
(10:52):
So I was just reporting the news.
They thought their conspiracy theories OK.
And somebody said, and you know,you can, you can think whatever
you want. I'd like to hear your opinions.
Somebody said, dude, why the 180turn on Elon?
I've never turned on Elon. You know, Elon has done some
(11:14):
silly stuff in his life and you got to call the guy out
sometimes bogged in thanks for that comment.
They said they originally subscribed to this to learn of
Elon's achievements. I'm I'm not here to defend him.
You're too biased. I'm not really biased.
I'll tell you how it is man. You got a really take things for
(11:36):
what they are. If you see something, say
something, right? And this one is open, AI funded
$40 billion, quite close to SpaceX.
And then it says Cody said hi about that episode.
(11:58):
Hey, Cody, how's it going? And then on this episode which
is Elon caught deleting this after a huge blowback.
So let me get this straight fromNathan says SpaceX just pull off
an engineering marvel re rescuing 2 astronauts for the
space station. Instead of covering that you're
(12:20):
ranting about Elon supposed lovefor dictators.
The mental gymnastics are breathtaking.
Maybe step outside your propaganda bubble for a second.
His achievements, including withDoge or Undeniable if they do
not fit your narrative, I don't have a narrative.
That's all I'm saying. Nathan, I appreciate your
(12:42):
comments. I like to read both.
I like to read positive comments.
I like to read comments that disagree with me.
I'm OK with that. Oh man, this Nathan had a spat
here. But there are a few of them that
(13:03):
I'm like, thank you for this like chatter, Hammond said.
This dude is awesome, Thank you.And then there was another one
about direct warning to Elon Musk, not from me, but it says
(13:24):
we are not here to place as politician.
And then somebody wrote bring it.
So any comment really helps. Anything helps to be honest with
you. So just leave a rocket emoji
like Sting Ding did in one of his comments.
So I really do appreciate everybody out there leaving
(13:44):
comments, leaving five star reviews.
The reviews are going up. The five star reviews are going
up. They're not to a place that I
want them to be yet, mainly because I never asked for
anything. Sometimes I ask you to comment,
sometimes I ask you to review, but it really is like I forget
to do it too. All these podcasts that I listen
(14:05):
to everyday, like how I built this with Guy Raz, I don't think
I've ever given it a five star review.
I love that show. I listen to it everyday and it
was just something that's sort of off there somewhere.
Now there are some things comingup.
I'm going to be covering Starship Flight 11 in the next
few days, so if you're interested in that, make sure to
(14:27):
hit the subscribe button or the follow button on whatever
podcast platform you're on rightnow, Leave a comment and also
leave a five star review becausethat's going to help us out
tremendously. That's it everybody.
Thank you so much. Hey, thank you so much for
listening today. I really.
Do appreciate your. Support, if you could take a
second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever
(14:47):
podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I
greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show
tremendously and you'll never miss an episode and each.
Episode is about. 10 minutes or less.
To get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
support the show even more, go to patreon.com slash.
Stage 0. And please take care of
(15:08):
yourselves and each other, and I'll see you tomorrow.
Hey everybody, welcome. Back to the Elon Musk Podcast.
This is a show where we discuss the critical.
Crossroads that shape. SpaceX, Tesla X, The Boring
Company and Neurolink. I'm your host, Will Walden.
Tesla's upcoming cyber cab just moved from concept to physical
form, and the clues are sitting in plain sight at the company's
(00:24):
Palo Alto headquarters. A newly spotted vehicle draped
in a tight black cover appears to match the low profile shape
of Tesla's driverless robotaxi prototype, which Elon Musk
teased earlier this year. Has Tesla actually begun
building the first functional cyber cabs now?
(00:44):
The shape of the cover vehicle lines up with Musk's April
reveal, where he briefly flasheda shadowed render of the Robo
Taxi during the company's Robo Taxi Day announcement.
And the design doesn't resemble any existing Tesla model.
It's smaller and flatter than a Model 3, and it lacks the
visible roof line of the Model YSize, angle, and placement of
(01:05):
the roof bump seen under the cover match the earlier concept
image. A Tesla parked vehicle outside
its 15 O one page Mill Rd. office, which is a location
closely tied to its Autopilot and Full Self Driving teams.
This isn't the kind of site where prototype hardware usually
gets left unattainted, though. Tesla tends to keep early
(01:27):
vehicles out of public view unless the goal is to send a
message or to test public reaction.
Parking this vehicle so openly right after Musk confirmed and
August 8th unveiling for the Cyber Cab looks intentional.
Now Tesla hasn't commented on the vehicle, but the location
and timing both point toward this being a pre production
(01:48):
prototype of the robotaxi. That matters because it means
Tesla could already be testing cybercap hardware internally and
up until now, that robotaxi was a promise which was hyped.
It was announced, but nobody knew when they were actually
going to start developing this thing or building this thing.
It's the first real evidence of Tesla physically building
(02:10):
something tied to this project. Now, the low profile and tight
footprint of the prototype suggests that the Cyber Cab
isn't based on a modified Model 3.
Or why Tesla appears to be following through on his claim.
The robotaxi will use an all newplatform.
That platform will reportedly beshared with Tesla's next
generation compact vehicle, which is expected to be built at
(02:32):
both Giga Texas and Giga Mexico.The $25,000 Tesla maybe, and
we'll see now the cyber cab is designed as a driver of this
vehicle from the start so Tesla can strip away components like
the steering wheel and pedals and future iterations.
That reduces interior complexityand cost, which Musk had
previously said. We'll bring the right price
(02:52):
below bus fare. But to reach that goal, Tesla
still needs to prove that FSD, the full self driving system,
can safely handle real world conditions without human
supervision. Musk said the robo taxi would
look futuristic and the covered prototype supports that claim
the short hood, high beltline and bubble like cabin match
(03:12):
vehicle built primarily for autonomy, not driving in the
shape of maximizes internal volume while minimizing surface
area, which this is an efficientdesign choice for an urban
transport pod of the timing of this sighting add some pressure.
Tesla is set to unveil some morevehicles in the near future.
(03:34):
They just released a $37,000 or basically a $40,000 model and a
35,000 ish dollar model. And those were OK.
They didn't really do much. Stock went down after the
announcement, but it went back up the next day.
You know, Tesla could be preparing to show a working
(03:56):
vehicle with early hardware, which would signal that
production is closer than presumably, you know, assumed by
others out there. Now, this is competitive.
Waymo and Cruise are the enemieshere.
Both companies have logged millions of miles with
driverless cars, but the vehicles rely on modified
(04:18):
passenger cars and rely heavily on Lidar and HD mapping.
Tesla is betting on a pure vision based system, no lidar or
radar, which requires stronger neural Nets and a more advanced
AI model to match the safety level of the competitors.
And if Tesla pulls this off, thecompany could skip the
(04:38):
incremental rollout that other robotaxi firms rely on.
Instead of geofence launches, Tesla could try for a more
global release once regulators approve.
Of course, that would reshape the right handling market.
Bye bye Uber drivers. Bye bye Lyft drivers.
You can have a robotaxi and pay,pay about the same amount of
(05:00):
money and get a, a robot to do the driving for you.
Let's get in, do your thing, getout.
It's like Disney. Disney has something similar to
this. You can have a basically a robo
cab. They have set routes, but
there's no driver and you can get in them and you can go
someplace, you know, but this isreal world, you know, this is
(05:23):
Disney. They have pre approved routes,
they have geofencing, they only go certain amount of speed and
they know exactly what's going to be on the roadways.
Now. This would reshape the whole
ride hailing market and push legacy players to rethink their
autonomous strategies. Somebody like Uber is going to
be working with other companies,ride sharing companies out there
(05:47):
who have vehicles. They're going to push all the
drivers that are in driver positions right now.
They're going to push them out of the business and they're
going to have robo taxis, not the Elon and Tesla robotaxi, but
they will have autonomous vehicles that will be driving
people around. They're already doing it with
(06:08):
Waymo. If you want a Waymo, get an
Uber. You know, hop on an Uber and get
it. But there goes the the economy
for ride sharing for drivers. Look man, I'm going to be honest
with you. In the hard times, I drive Uber
or I drove Uber in the hard times and it pays OK.
(06:31):
If you drive all day, you can make decent amount of money, but
you got to drive sometimes 12 hours stay in order to make a
good amount of money. And even then you got to really
rely on tips from people. And some people are just cheap.
So you never know how much moneyyou're going to make that day,
but you can bring in, you know, if you do it right, couple $1000
(06:53):
a week and that alone is enough money for rent, child care,
whatever, if you need the money.But that's all going away.
I don't think it's going to go away right away though.
This stuff takes time, right? Cyber cab isn't going to just
hit the ground running and regulators are going to take
(07:13):
their sweet time because what happens if there's an accident?
Who's liable? What happens?
One of these things gets pulled over by a police officer.
What happens then? Does the person just kind of
like get out and who do you ticket for these kind of things
like say what if these one of these robotaxi or cyber cabs
(07:36):
goes down one way Rd. the wrong way, a cop pulls up behind him,
pulls him over and there's no driver.
So who do you ticket? You must ticket Tesla.
There's got to be so there's gotto be regulations around this.
And before they actually roll these things out.
So it's going to be a while. People these, you know,
(07:56):
rideshare apps are still going to be around for a while.
Taxis are going to be around fora while.
Limousines are going to be around for a while.
People dislike people, you know,they, they want people around
sometimes. Sometimes you don't.
And that's when you hail a driverless cab like a cyber cab.
But the presence of this prototype is pretty big and Elon
(08:19):
and Tesla are very secretive about their hardware.
So having this outside where people can see Rick see it clear
as day is not just a render anymore.
It's a real thing. They're they appear to be
building the hardware, need to support the robotaxi, the cyber
cab, All that stuff is going to be happening very soon.
(08:44):
So if you're in one of those areas like Austin, grab 1, you
know, grab a, grab a Tesla, an automated Tesla and scoot
around, see what it feels like and, you know, get to your
destination. But you don't even need to talk
to somebody. You can pick your own music too,
which is great. All right, so that's about it
for today's episode, everybody. But I want to ask you a
(09:06):
question. One quick question before we go.
This is important. If you've been here for a while,
I'm going to ask you for a favor.
Please take a second out of yourday and do a five star review
for the show. That's all I'm asking you.
It'll literally take you 30 seconds after the show's done.
Like just do it right now. It's all done.
(09:26):
Thank you for that. It really helps the show out and
whatever podcast platform you'reon, it really does help,
especially Spotify. If you're on Spotify right now
and you're listening, I appreciate you and please give
it some stars, some good stars, good amount of stars, four or
five stars because they use algorithms similar to YouTube.
Those kind of things really matter.
(09:47):
Leave a comment. Any sort of interaction with the
show really helps out. And I have over 1100 episodes.
I've been doing it for about 6 years.
I could not do without you. So I really do appreciate you
and I really do appreciate all the comments that I've been
getting recently because it really matters.
I'd like to talk to people aboutElon.
(10:07):
I want to talk to him about Tesla.
I want to talk to him about SpaceX and there are some
comments that just recently, I'mgoing to read a few of them.
I read some yesterday. I might read the same ones
today. And you know, some of the some
of the older comments on older videos or on older podcasts,
(10:29):
Miss Moon said Banger, banger. Somebody said conspiracy
theories really. Lol.
That was about, I don't know which episode that was about.
Let's see. Former open AI and anthropic
staff accuse Elon Musk about something.
(10:52):
So I was just reporting the news.
They thought their conspiracy theories OK.
And somebody said, and you know,you can, you can think whatever
you want. I'd like to hear your opinions.
Somebody said, dude, why the 180turn on Elon?
I've never turned on Elon. You know, Elon has done some
(11:14):
silly stuff in his life and you got to call the guy out
sometimes bogged in thanks for that comment.
They said they originally subscribed to this to learn of
Elon's achievements. I'm I'm not here to defend him.
You're too biased. I'm not really biased.
I'll tell you how it is man. You got a really take things for
(11:36):
what they are. If you see something, say
something, right? And this one is open, AI funded
$40 billion, quite close to SpaceX.
And then it says Cody said hi about that episode.
(11:58):
Hey, Cody, how's it going? And then on this episode which
is Elon caught deleting this after a huge blowback.
So let me get this straight fromNathan says SpaceX just pull off
an engineering marvel re rescuing 2 astronauts for the
space station. Instead of covering that you're
(12:20):
ranting about Elon supposed lovefor dictators.
The mental gymnastics are breathtaking.
Maybe step outside your propaganda bubble for a second.
His achievements, including withDoge or Undeniable if they do
not fit your narrative, I don't have a narrative.
That's all I'm saying. Nathan, I appreciate your
(12:42):
comments. I like to read both.
I like to read positive comments.
I like to read comments that disagree with me.
I'm OK with that. Oh man, this Nathan had a spat
here. But there are a few of them that
(13:03):
I'm like, thank you for this like chatter, Hammond said.
This dude is awesome, Thank you.And then there was another one
about direct warning to Elon Musk, not from me, but it says
(13:24):
we are not here to place as politician.
And then somebody wrote bring it.
So any comment really helps. Anything helps to be honest with
you. So just leave a rocket emoji
like Sting Ding did in one of his comments.
So I really do appreciate everybody out there leaving
(13:44):
comments, leaving five star reviews.
The reviews are going up. The five star reviews are going
up. They're not to a place that I
want them to be yet, mainly because I never asked for
anything. Sometimes I ask you to comment,
sometimes I ask you to review, but it really is like I forget
to do it too. All these podcasts that I listen
(14:05):
to everyday, like how I built this with Guy Raz, I don't think
I've ever given it a five star review.
I love that show. I listen to it everyday and it
was just something that's sort of off there somewhere.
Now there are some things comingup.
I'm going to be covering Starship Flight 11 in the next
few days, so if you're interested in that, make sure to
(14:27):
hit the subscribe button or the follow button on whatever
podcast platform you're on rightnow, Leave a comment and also
leave a five star review becausethat's going to help us out
tremendously. That's it everybody.
Thank you so much. Hey, thank you so much for
listening today. I really.
Do appreciate your. Support, if you could take a
second and hit the subscribe or the follow button on whatever
(14:47):
podcast platform that you're listening on right now, I
greatly appreciate it. It helps out the show
tremendously and you'll never miss an episode and each.
Episode is about. 10 minutes or less.
To get you caught up quickly. And please, if you want to
support the show even more, go to patreon.com slash.
Stage 0. And please take care of
(15:08):
yourselves and each other, and I'll see you tomorrow.
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