Do you ever look back on parts of your life that seem too strange and improbable to be real? I think all of us experienced such a seemingly drug-induced vision a few weeks back.
The event in question was a Tesla-sponsored debut of what Elon Musk purported to be the taxi of the future. If you’ve ever listened to your wife or a colleague at work describe some absurd dream they had last night, then you’ll feel right at home as I detail what played out on screen.
Elon Musk appears and hops into the open butterfly door of a waiting “cab,” a cab with only two doors. The roofline slopes sharply to a sleek fastback that would seem to negate any headroom for rear passengers, but the lack of a back seat means passengers were never a consideration. The nose is abruptly cut back where a frunk might reside, and the rear wheels are disproportionately larger than the fronts, with all four wearing tires skinnier than a nineties supermodel.
Was I imagining all of this? No, it was and is real, and according to Musk this “taxi” will be released by some impossibly near date. You don’t have to delve into the myriad issues of full self-driving to see that the basic concept appears a bit half-baked.
Even before the strange dog and pony show where Elon did his typically awkward pitch, rumors abounded that we should be underwhelmed by the cargo and people-carrying capacity of Musk’s cab concept. Further, we had already determined via spy shots that a cab capable of holding three times as many people could have been built in a vehicle with the same footprint, as seen below.
We’re really perplexed as to what Mr. Musk was thinking, but just because it seems to be a lousy cab is not a reason to throw the whole car out just yet.
Not A Crew Cab
Despite the criticism, something about the general shape of this new taxi is pleasing enough. You have to ask yourself: is the Cybercab a bad design, or is it a misplaced concept?
I tend to think it’s more of the latter. In 1981, some genius concert promoter had a guy open for the Rolling Stones on their concert tour who got booed off of the stage, after they were done throwing objects at him that is. Was this a particularly horrific artist that we’re referring to? Well, considering that this opening act for the Stones was one Prince Rogers Nelson, I would say unquestionably not; he just wasn’t a good fit for those who paid to hear Brown Sugar. That’s possibly the case with Cybercab as well.
Indeed, some critics quipped that this Tesla taxi looked more like a latter-day Datsun 240Z than a taxi. I’d agree with that, and such a resemblance to me seems akin to being told that you’re a doppelganger for Brad Pitt: it’s hardly a bad thing. So why, then, isn’t this thing a modern Z-car or futuristic EV pony car? Let’s lean into this.
Model Z (Car)?
Tesla is supposedly going to introduce a new sports car called the “Roadster”, though as expected the launch is being delayed thanks to delays in, well, all of their other delayed shit. The Roadster is naturally being hyped as having some absurd one-second-to-sixty acceleration time, but overall, the thing seems a bit disappointing.
Reported to cost in the $200,000 range, the speculative renderings show a rather clean-looking coupe, but it’s also rather lackluster in appearance when compared to the Italian (and British McClaren) offerings of similar price. Unless they pump in fake Ferrari sounds, this roadster is guaranteed to provide a rather soulless performance next to the competition. Also, does a lift-off roof panel really qualify a car as a “roadster”? Regardless, with only two seats the thing will pretty much be just a toy for most people, though it’s not like me or perhaps 95 percent of most Autopians could afford it anyway.
If Elon is a true innovator – or, at the very least, a person who brings old ideas to life – then he needs to give us something that we need and have missed. In my opinion, that’s a performance sport coupe. The Mustang is one of the few remaining semi-affordable 2+2 seater coupes out there, and Musk could create quite a stir by offering a sub-$100,000 semi-practical sports car with some luxury as well.
On one end of the spectrum, it’s disappointing that there are no longer GT coupes along the lines of a 2+2 Nissan Z car or the “real” Supras of the eighties and nineties:
At the same time, even higher-end sport coupes are thin on the ground today with BMW M4 being one of the few remaining examples with the recent discontinuation of Mercedes and Audi offerings.
Maybe Tesla could offer a two-door that’s something in between those two with a bit of Mustang thrown in for good measure. Certainly, the Cybercab sort of looks that part, or at least it will after some work. What if we came up with an alternate reality where Tesla gave us a cab that really looked and functioned like a cab, and turned this current taxi concept into a sort of “Musk-stang” coupe called the Model M?
The Change From C.A.B. To Z.E.D.
Spy shots of the Cybercab showed an oddly proportioned thing with a stubby nose and comically large diameter rear wheels which we thought were merely disguises to fool any observers that saw what they weren’t supposed to. We were wrong.
Exactly why this purported taxicab has the stance of a cartoon funny car dragster is not fully understood. That odd-looking roof that tapers down sharply from a high point just aft of the windshield. Actually, the current Nissan Z-Car has a similarly odd shape to the roofline and I don’t dig it on that car either.
What I’ve done first is bring that roof down slightly in front, and the whole upper section of that car has been laid back slightly to remove some of the meat above the rear wheels; you can see how that character line is now more horizontal.
Here’s a rough animation to show the changes.
That short, abruptly-cut nose gets lengthened slightly so that it matches the gentle character line running all the way to the back of the car. Compared to the original Cybercab, in this modified design the front, middle, and back sections all look like they came off of the same car as opposed to, say, a 1/24 scale model fused to a 1/28 scale toy.
Again, the animation makes it more obvious, You can see that the roofline above where the rear seat would be hasn’t dropped so there should still be headroom back there:
The rear wheel has been brought down in diameter to match the front ones, and the odd aero-looking covers replaced by deep-dish-styled wheels with black centers for a much more aggressive look. Cybercab has tires optimized for maximum economy, which we’ll throw in the recycling bin. We’ve got to add some thick rubber that’s staggered with wider rear shoes. At the rear, the tall tail has been shortened in height and painted black with larger “dual-bar” taillamps:
In the animation, you can also see that the license plate has been moved up and a lower diffuser replaces that rather clunky (Checker-cab like?) bumper on the Cybercab.
The outside now looks more like something ready to hit the Mustang and M4 market, but what about the inside?
Only 2+2, But That’s More Than 2
Currently, the Cybercab has a rather stark interior as one would expect for something that supposed to be a taxi, though honestly it doesn’t look that much more stripped down than Tesla’s current lower-level offerings. It appears to have a bench seat but no provision exist for someone to actually sit in the center, not to mention that those cupholders are going to be decidedly nasty looking after a few dozen trips as a cab.
The biggest change inside the Model M versus the Cybercab would be the addition of a rear seat. This space in the Model M won’t rival the back compartment of Maybach by any means, but at least you can take two more people than the Cybercab can dream of carrying. There will still be plenty of cargo area left under the giant hatchback. It’s always a pain to have to remove these or have them fold in order to fold down the seats fully flat without bumping into the front seatbacks, so oh what a feeling, I’ve attached the headrests to the ceiling.
Overhead controls behind the rearview mirror/screen include those for the LCD sun visors and rear glass shading (though you will notice that, unlike Cybercab, I do have a rear window on the Model M to keep the interior from becoming a dark cave).
There’s a steering wheel now, of course, and that bench seat of the Cybertaxi is split into bucket seats with side bolsters, separated by a console featuring fold-out cupholders and the gear lever.
Wait, why does an EV need a gear lever like that?
Sticking It To You
Elon Musk is usually hard to predict, and his choices are often befuddling. It’s hard to know what he’s thinking, and for the most part, I’m glad that I don’t. We do know that he sees cars as ultimately being fully self-driving, and that manual input is pointless. However, what if he had a change of opinion just to be controversial?
You see, based on Musk’s history of purchasing enthusiast cars after he first struck it rich, he must understand that some people actually DO want to drive for enjoyment. However, with most EVs the level of driver involvement is limited other than point-and-shoot. In my alternate reality with the Model M, Elon decides to surprise the world by fitting this new “Musk-stang” with “Tri Mode Driving.”
The first mode is the controversial, packed-with-problems full self-driving, while the second is conventional driving for locales that accept FSD as being pack-with-problems. What about the third mode? That’s where Musk does the unthinkable and gives enthusiasts a simulated manual transmission. Jason wrote about a driving school that made a similar system to teach students how to operate a manual, and Toyota has developed one as well:
If Musk can launch rockets bound for Mars he can certainly find a way to replicate and improve on this system.
In “conventional” driving mode, the gear stick is like a toggle to switch between park, reverse, neutral, and drive, moving in the center gate. Switch to manual mode and the dead pedal becomes a simulated clutch, while more gates upon up for the gear selector to give you five speeds and reverse.
I’m not sure if you’d be able to “stall” the car, but like those systems already out there the accelerator pedal could work in conjunction with a sort of fake “tachometer” to allow drivers to row through the gears with speed limiters for each simulated cog. The electric motor (or motors plural in the all-wheel-drive version) would be modulated to operate as much like an ICE motor insomuch as offering more lower-end torque in the bottom gears. I’d rather not do fake engine noise (why not just hear the stereo?) but the seat could vibrate to simulate a motor in a manner similar to the “Bodysonic” system that Nissan used on the Z car back in the eighties.
Is it a gimmick? Sure, you can call it that. Still, even the most ardent admirers of manual transmissions will reluctantly agree that automatics since around 2000 are a far cry from the three-speed slushboxes of the years before. Back in the day, an automatic-equipped car would lag behind a similar four- or five-speed stick equipped by a second or more on the run to sixty; fuel economy also suffered. Today, beyond the “fun” factor, there isn’t a compelling reason to buy a car with a clutch. Still, the whole point-and-shoot aspect of EVs without the need for gears makes it feel like something is missing. This looks like it might be fun for when you want to go all boy-racer, yet still offer the option to have let the car “shift” or possibly even drive itself when if you’re too tired, have had too much to drink, received a blow to the head, etc.
If Stellantis can make fake rumbling and noise in an EV, how much can we criticize a fake stick car?
Coupe D’Etat
Why call it Model M? The obvious reason is that this coupe will rival a BMW M-car, but there’s something else. If that boxy yellow Cybercab that I came up with were produced at the same time as this coupe and called the Model F, the Tesla line of cars that together would form S3XY MF. That’s the kind of giggling-12-year-old humor that Elon would be looking for.
Despite what Musk might think, we really don’t have an urgent need for commercial space travel or to bore holes in the ground to connect Las Vegas casinos. What we do need, though, is more sport coupes: fast, fun cars that can carry more than just two people and a box of sardines for less than $100,000. Elon seems to be the last person on earth to make such a product for us enthusiasts, which in typical Musk fashion means that he’d be the likely one to actually do it.
Here’s How I’d One-Up Tesla’s Taxi Of Tomorrow By Going 47 Years Back In Time – The Autopian
Hate The Pointed Pyramid Roof On The Tesla CyberTruck? Let’s Chop It Off – The Autopian
120,000-mile 2007 e93 owner with minimal replacement options chiming in: yes, we’ll take all the 2+2 models we can get. Please offer a convertible variation.
Might be dumb, but couldn’t you just remove the ice engine and insert a high torque low rpm electric motor in it’s place? Then you could keep your manual transmission. Just need to figure out where to put the batteries.
We do need bore holes under Las Vegas, preferably connecting the airport to the strip. The stupid part was the vehicle they put in the holes.
My feeling is that cab drivers will band together to be sure that never happens.
Also, try taking the Monorail back from the convention center at 4:30PM. Good luck.
You are right.
They have done so for decades.
They killed light rail 20 years ago,
They killed the original monorail that would have gone to the airport.
Am I the only one who is getting the impression that Tesla is not even really trying anymore?
Tesla’s CEO isn’t really trying anymore, he’s bored with the car and EV charging businesses and wants to focus on rockets, robots, AI, and brain implants, and he’s taking it out on everyone by wilfully neglecting the parts of the business that he’s mentally “done” with (eg, basically all the parts of it that actually make money)
Don’t forget the breeding farms
two doors, subcompact, sloping roofline, large cargo area, two real seats with either pointless/lacking a back seat, electric motor helping drive the wheels, and a manual?
Isn’t that just a Honda CR-Z?
Or, lacking the manual, a Volkswagen XL1 Sport?
Its’ bigger than either of those two cars, but if it WERE one of those two I’d have no problem with that at all. It’s been nearly a decade since both of those disappeared, right?
A cab is a utility vehicle. Look at Checker or the London Black Cab for the template – the London Black Cab is not quick or powerful because it’s made for urban environments and will likely never exceed 45 mph. It’s tall and boxy because air resistance at low speed is negligible, it was designed with a narrow engine so the wheels could turn sharply to navigate tight city centers, and the interior was spacious with the ability to carry 5 passengers or three plus their luggage loaded through the wide-opening doors.
The Cybercab is none of these things, it’s form over function rather than letting the form be dictated by the job it’s doing. The wheels make no sense, now you have to stock two different oddball sizes instead of just one, doubling your logistical nightmare. If you and two or three friends want to go out to a bar, you have to order two cabs instead of piling into one.
Who is this vehicle supposed to serve and in what environment? I can tell you a 1982 Checker is largely the same as one from the 1960s, this simplifies logistics and ensures long time fleet support. A Black Cab’s function is obvious by its form, anyone can look at that vehicle and understand where it fits. Look at the TeslaCab and it just makes no sense; the movie prop designers of the Johnny Cab in Total Recall (1990) made far more sense as an autonomous taxi than this does.
“…the dead pedal becomes a simulated clutch”
Nope, shut it down. No value here.
I’m not sure why you’re trying to polish a fascist turd, but it’s not going to work.
Look at those wheels! I know you did some massaging of the overall shape to make it look sleek, but honestly, my favorite part of your take has to be those wheels. I imagine that the centers painted in BLK 3.0 would look appropriately futuristic and give a great floating effect to the wheels.
All I see is a pointless logistical problem. Two sized tires on a utility vehicle and neither one of them is a standard stocked size. This means ordering and stocking two sizes and both have to come from a specialty OE supplier; if one of these gets a flat you are not going to pop over to your local tire shop for a replacement.
First thing I did was change the front and back wheels to the same diameter (was suggesting staggered size but could just as easily be identical).
Yeah – I’m pretty sure that double-H shiftgate has already been done…
….try making it a swastika – That would really get Ms Elmo jumping for joy.
I think the cybertaxi was actually a repurposed two-seater design that should have been the low cost Tesla Elon has now discounted.
You’re the second person that’s mentioned that here in the comments and I think you might be right. Elon couldn’t turn it into a $20,000 car so his idea is to let random people vomit in it and do, well, other stuff inside when you aren’t driving it to cover the payments. Right.
S3XY MF
“Slow clap”
The Bishop is way more into Elon’s head than he wants to admit.
I think the design tweaks do make it look a lot better.
I don’t think there’s a need to force rear seats into it, though. Let it be a fun commuter car with a decent hatchback. It doesn’t seem like it’s adequate space for it and just adds extra weight for something that wouldn’t likely get used.
Rear seats would be useless for kids under around ten, but up until a little while ago mine were both that age and could have fit.
I wanna car with 2 doors, a hatch back, and lots of speed. I’ll take a Model M Performance please.
If it wasn’t for Ford they could call it the Model A, as then you can spell S3XY C(ybertruck) A R(oadster).
I do think there’s a spot for some semblance of a manual in EVs, no clutch, but with regen you get engine braking, and different sport modes remap the throttle. Like my Bolt has a return to center shifter, with D and L, L is one pedal driving, but if the sport button that makes throttle response quicker was also mapped to that then I could ‘downshift’ and get faster acceleration and harder engine braking. I used to actually do this in my Volt some too as it didn’t have 1 pedal driving, just more regen in it’s L, so shift to L for around town, on the open road shift up to D, that had a more normal shifter.
Not something I think the minimalists at Tesla would go for, but definitely something that’d be cool to see in like the Charger Daytona.
I get the impression that the “taxi” was originally intended to be Tesla’s long promised under $30k model which Musk quashed when he realized he couldn’t build one and sell it for that without losing money on every car. So it was morphed into the taxi for two reasons, the first being sunk cost on the design. The second goes back to his odd insistence that ordinary people are going to want their car moonlighting as a taxi while they’re not engaged with it. That being the case, this odd little “taxi” is a far more palatable design for parking in front of your house, than a more utilitarian (and sensible) taxi concept. I think, if Elon would spend more time communicating with normal people instead of trying to share his cyberspunk with the women of this world, he might realize this is not a great idea. But that’s not going to happen, unless somebody passes a really stupid law that compels everyone to buy one of these. No politician is that dense, right? As usual, I commend The Bishop for his rescue attempts.
Calling it a “taxi” could also [theoretically] lead to volume sales to fleet customers, rather than relying on a fickle public to buy them individually.
$10 says Tesla has no plans to sell this to fleet customers and plans to operate and fleets themselves, pushing out ride-share drivers and traditional taxi companies. Musk loves his vertical integration, he’s not giving it up by selling these to Yellow Cab.
I’ve had the same idea since I saw this thing. It seems inappropriate for purpose unless it is a hasty rework job.
Oh dear… Gordon Murray is going to get you for misspelling that.
Gordan Murry surely.
I’m curious about the whole simulated manual EV thing, interested to try on, but no stalling please, I don’t think anyone actually wants that and it would just freak people out who might be willing to try it otherwise.
As long as it doesn’t roll backwards, but I think virtually all manuals now have the Studebaker/Subaru “Hill Holder” feature so the fake manual could simulate that.
Good point! Although my BRZ supposedly has this but it isn’t on and it takes a crazy pedal/button dance to turn it on and I have not been able to do so, very annoying.
You make an interesting theoretical point I think. To me, the potential for stalling is a big part of the manual experience, that there are consequences for not fully executing the skill of operating the transmission.
But that’s an ICE transmission thing, so what will become the skill part for an EV that offers this? Or is this a skeuomorphic (Torchword!) action to slowly get us to transition to a new type of driving?
Clearly I over spoke when I said no one wants that, haha. I guess for me stalling has always just been an annoyance, the things I enjoy about driving manual are picking my own gear all the time and practicing my rev matching and such. I’m also biased because my wife refuses to drive manual, even though she’s actually fine at it I taught her and she did I well, but she is just so afraid of stalling.
To be sure, the stalling is the worst part b/c it’s so damn jarring. I just like that it’s there (along with things like having to watch the revs on the downshift) to help promote my full engagement in the process, that’s really it.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many manuals today (of the few that exist) have rev matching software and such so they’re already adding enhancements to the experience that aren’t real. So, in some ways, an EV with a fake manual is just approaching it from a different direction.
Full disclosure- if I had one of these Tesla Model Ms I’d likely do the same as paddle shifters or manumatics, which is use it once or twice after I bought it and never use it again for my time with the car.
That’s a good point. I’m sure there’s a purist out there (Vin Diesel maybe?) who’d scoff at my wimpy synchros.
Vin always double clutches through all 19 of his gears thank you very much!!!
This is what kept me in a real manual rather than even a good auto with manual mode, it feels a bit silly/ineffective around town so next thing you know you stop bothering to put it in that mode at all.
I have an electric conversion of a 1969 Triumph GT6. I retained the manual transmission and have an added 5th gear. I can start in any gear at 0 rpm. It does not stall. In top gear, putting the go-pedal to the floor when the red light turns green still means you lose traction and chew up your tires until you let off the go-pedal. It needs a limited slip differential. You need a strong clutch for something like this. I haven’t destroyed my clutch, but it would be trivially easy to do so. My Prestolite MTC4001 series-wound DC motor and Soliton 1 controller are a bit too much for this clutch to handle, and this setup has nothing on a Tesla drive system as far as horsepower/torque capability goes…
Nice! My fantasy car is a electric conversion Porsche 914 with a manual.
This is what EV technology of 20 years ago allowed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPBREn3ibgI
Used a 240V pack of Exide Orbital XCD30 batteries, twin ADC 8″ series-wound DC motors, and a Cafe Electric Zilla 2k controller. The controller’s designer built this car to test the controller.
That looks much better. Still not sold on simulated manuals. Generally, I don’t like that kind of thing, but I’m occasionally surprised, so I suppose I’d have to drive one to say for sure.
While the new automatics are better, as a driving experience, I prefer the old 3 speed automatics. The new ones hunt all the f’n time and require too many downshifts when they feel like obeying a manual shift command that has more lag than trying to download “high” res photos off the internet in the ’90s on a dial up modem. Old 3 speeds didn’t have much choice but to be in the preferred gear or it was a kickdown away. I even prefer the driving experience of a decently sorted CVT to these too-many-speed automatics.
I think it was my dad that said if you need that many gears what you really need is more power
Mark Donahue said you have enough power only when you are traction limited in every gear.
Hard agree. Gated manual with a foot-activated mechanical clutch, or GTFO.
Now that The Bishop has let the Genie out of the bottle, I’m wondering if one could slide a C8 Corvette chassis under Elon’s Latest….
Or perhaps slide Elon beneath a C8 Corvette?
Finally, a great call for an aftermarket splitter!
I like it. Far superior to whatever nonsense was driving the taxi design. Many decisions made on that vehicle don’t seem to have any really good reasons.
What if they also add a joystick mode? As in you drive using the joystick for both steering and movement.
Elon’s saving that for the CyberTank.
Sounds like a good case for using the Volvo spaceball shifter.
Or that Subaru manual shifter with the red button on top that put it into 4WD instead of firing at aliens on the CRT
This is a good design.
I’d get rid of the self driving and touch screens and make it a mostly-analogue EV with a single-speed direct drive.
The manual transmission would be for an optional inline-6 or V8 ICE version. Keeping the CdA value under 0.4 m^2 and curb weight around 2,500 lbs in this guise would yield a car that gets 40+ mpg highway and upper 20s/low 30s mpg city. With a BIG engine powering it.
Your animation is exactly how they went from the Model 3 to the Model Y, just in reverse.
Sort of! Actually, that’s kind of what they did with the Model S and every other product that followed other than Cybertruck. Sadly, the old S is the one that has everything right.
Yeah, this sounds like what I’ve thought for a long time. They designed the S well, then each car after that was shoehorning the S language on to another shape. And it looks like it. None of them work for me visually.
It was drug-induced, just on the production side, rather than the receiving side.
Musk-stang? Please, please don’t give him any ideas.
Then you’re gonna hate the Lotus Elon
Noooooooo!
The force is strong with this one.
+1 for getting the correct “Noooooo!”
Or the brand DOdGE