Tesla We, Robot event: Everything Elon Musk just showed, including the Cybercab, Robovan, and more

Anthony Levandowski, the engineer who co-founded Google’s self-driving car program (AKA Waymo) and has gone on to start an , hopped on the phone with me after Tesla’s big robotaxi reveal to share his thoughts. And he is bullish on Elon Musk’s vision for Tesla’s and the world’s future, but he’s not without his, albeit small, reservations.

“I think the issue isn’t building the car without a steering wheel, it’s making the software work,” Levandowski told TechCrunch. “There’s a lot of gap between driving around on a track at an amusement park and driving around in Los Angeles traffic. The optimism is there. The realism is what’s coming next, and that will be where the hard part is.”

The engineer agreed with Musk’s vision-only approach to self-driving, rather than using “expensive sensors,” and said full self-driving appears to be in reach. He noted that while Waymo already has fully operational driverless robotaxis in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, it’s a “much more engineer-heavy and sensory-heavy approach.”

“But to scale that out to the masses, you need something that’s affordable,” he said. Levandowski noted that he was really looking for Tesla to announce breakthroughs in its FSD software, which it will need if it wants to get to unsupervised FSD by next year. 

When it comes to the business model, Levandowski said he loved the idea of the Cybercabs being available for sale eventually. 

“You’re putting the power back into the people’s hands, where a small business owner could have, you know, a fleet of 10 cars or 20 cars that they run themselves as their business. It’s a great model for the future where it’s lots of mom and pops, rather than one mega corp that does that.”

The engineer said he agrees with Tesla’s vision of the future overall, but doesn’t expect it to come anytime soon, and certainly not within the timelines Musk sets. 

“If you can’t start a webcast on time, maybe your prediction for 2026 is a little ambitious,” Levandowski said, referencing Musk’s stated timeline that the Cybercab would start production in 2026. (Also, the event apparently started late because a guest had a medical emergency, but Musk’s timelines are famously too optimistic.)

Levandowski also said he was bullish on the Optimus robots, which were mingling with guests at the event Thursday. 

“But it’s a longer term bullish,” he said. “It’s not bullish this year. It’s a bullish over time…Robots in general are going to be the biggest product. They’re gonna be way bigger than Tesla cars, but they’re much further away than full self-driving cars.”

After waiting for nearly an hour for the event to start, it lasted just under 20 minutes. Musk showed off the Cybercab, the Robovan, and several Optimus robots. 

Musk did not give many clear cut timelines for the products shown tonight. The Cybercab will supposedly be here before 2027 for less than $30,000, and autonomous FSD is supposed to be available in California and Texas in 2025. But that’s about it. (And we’ve heard promises like this before.) 

Outside of that, Musk gave his usual lofty speeches about how these technologies will change the future. Autonomous Robovans will “turn parking lots into parks,” according to Musk. Everyone will allegedly have a personal Optimus robot to watch their kids and do the dishes, the Tesla CEO said. But we don’t know when this future will come, or how much it will cost.

Roughly a dozen Optimus bots (not people in suits) walked out on stage. Musk made his usual claims that these will cost around $20k to $30k.

He mentioned the robots will walk among the humans tonight. Musk said the Optimus robots will serve drinks at the bar during the event and guests will be able to “walk right up to them.”

Then, a bunch of Optimus robots seemed to have a disco dance party in the middle of the event.

“The future should look like the future,” Musk said at the event after unveiling a surprise prototype – the Robovan, which he says is part of a larger mission to “change the look of the roads.”

Musk said the Robovan can carry up to 20 people and also transport goods, and that it will solve for high density. 

“So if you want to take a sports team somewhere or you’re looking to really get the cost of travel down to, I don’t know, $0.05 to $0.10 cents per mile, then you can use the Robovan.”

“Now, can you imagine going down the streets and you see this coming toward you? That’d be sick.”

A little before 8pm — nearly an hour after the event was supposed to start — Elon Musk walked out with what looked like a person in an Optimus robot costume and hopped in a Cybercab, which drove him up to the stage. So far, he’s said these Cybercabs will be on sale before 2027 for less than $30,000. It looks a little like a smaller Cybertruck with more rounded edges.

Here’s another picture from a partygoer of the Cybercab with the gullwing doors up.

Elon Musk likely taken from the “We, Robot” robotaxi reveal event, a good 24 minutes after it was meant to have started. 

The image is a take on a movie poster nodding to the 1985 film “Back to the Future” – the Delorean in that film is one of the inspirations for Tesla’s Cybertruck. The poster shows what is likely a representation of Tesla’s upcoming Cybercab flying through space, its wheels turned sideways for some reason and a colorful 80’s style font beneath with the words: “Master Plan IV.”