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Too Fast To Run Daily: Tesla Says Its Cybercab Line Is Outpacing The Robotaxi Rollout

In a factory walkthrough with Munro Live, Tesla engineering chief Lars Moravy said the Cybercab line builds cars so quickly that it now sits idle on some days while deployments catch up.

Jordan Hale, Production

Published · 2 min read

Gold Tesla Cybercabs with their doors raised moving along an automated production line
Photo via Munro Live / X

AUSTIN - Tesla has a problem most carmakers would envy. Its Cybercab production line can build the driverless two-seater faster than the company can put the cars to work.

"We actually don't run the line every day because the line can run so fast it's currently outpacing our robotaxi deployments," Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, said in a factory walkthrough with the engineering teardown firm Munro Live. "So it's a bit of a race right now to see who can go faster."

Lars Moravy on the Cybercab production floor during the Munro Live walkthrough. Image via @SawyerMerritt / X
Lars Moravy on the Cybercab production floor during the Munro Live walkthrough. Image via @SawyerMerritt / X

Munro Live posted the full video on YouTube on Monday, thanking Mr. Moravy and the Tesla team for walking its crew through the engineering, design and technology behind the Cybercab.

The tour put numbers on the speed. According to a summary of the walkthrough by the Tesla commentator Nic Cruz Patane, final assembly runs through about 25 fully automated stations, roughly five to ten times fewer than a Model Y line, and the line as a whole is close to 80 percent automated. Tesla's "unboxed" method, which builds the car in large sections that come together at the end, uses about half the floor space per car.

There is also no paint shop on the Cybercab line, which Mr. Moravy said saves Tesla a few hundred million dollars.

The car is built for a long working life. Tesla says the Cybercab is designed to last about 500,000 miles. Its 4680 battery cells sit in separate sealed modules, so a failed module can be swapped without replacing the whole pack, inside a steel enclosure that is a first for Tesla and leaves room for cheaper LFP cells later. The car drives its front wheels through a simple 11:1 gear, since a city robotaxi has no need for a high top speed.

The bottleneck now sits on the road side of the business. State records list 970 Tesla robotaxis registered in Texas, 463 of them Cybercabs, and on Monday the company grew its Houston service area roughly tenfold. Tesla has said Cybercab rides start in Dallas next month.

If the line keeps waiting on deployments, every new city and every bigger map turns straight into more Cybercabs on the street.

It's a bit of a race right now to see who can go faster.

About the Author

Jordan Hale

Jordan Hale reports on production, factory operations, and vehicle manufacturing for Cybercab News.

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