“Step right this way, folks, get your very own self-driving Tesla CyberCab for the low, low price of less than $30,000!” That was Elon Musk’s pitch in a product launch staged on a Hollywood lot in an event that included the anticipated robotaxi, numerous Optimus androids, and the unexpected debut of a sleek Art Deco-styled 20-passenger Robovan that looks like it came directly from the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis.

The Tesla Robovan carries as many as 20 people, if they don't mind rubbing elbows and stepping on each other's feet in the center-facing seats. TESLA

The costume department clad Musk in a shiny new black leather jacket for this production, echoing the black suit worn by the Wizard of Oz in the famous MGM film, but the impression of his projected exaggerated authority was similar after so many years of failing to deliver on bold promises of self-driving Teslas.

Musk’s show was characteristically full of ambitious claims and optimistic timetables but short on details or specifications. It was in many ways the opposite of the June presentation of the Verne robotaxi by Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac, which was marked by cautious forecasts and technical details about that company’s planned self-driving ride-hailing service.

Like Rimac's Verne robotaxi, Tesla's Cybercab is a two-seater, which provides enough space for most trips while larger groups can simply hail additional cabs when needed. TESLA

In contrast, Musk alternated between calling his self-driving vehicle Cybercab and Robotaxi (which is the name listed on the Tesla website), suggesting that he hasn’t settled on a name while claiming that the eventual product, which he says will be delivered in 2026, will have an operational cost of only $0.20 per mile. Even Musk doesn’t believe his own hype, so he hedged by conceding that the Cybercab might slip to 2027.

Related:Tesla Will Have Full Autonomy in 2020, Elon Musk Says

As a reminder, in 2017 Musk said that the Tesla Roadster would be delivered in 2020. That car still has not reached customers and looks unlikely to do so this year even though, unlike the Cybercab, it doesn’t depend on any breakthroughs in self-driving technology.

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Musk has been touting Tesla’s Full Self Driving driver assistance technology through an abundance of falsely confident predictions since 2016 and has yet to deliver a product that can drive on public roads without human supervision. Design News reported on Musk’s 2019 remarks in an ARK Invest podcast that Tesla would have full autonomy in 2020. Obviously, that did not happen.

The Cybercab has no skylight in the roof and the infotainment display is distinctly smaller than that of Verne's robotaxi. TESLA

One area where Musk and Rimac agree is that artificial intelligence will be crucial for delivering fully autonomous vehicles that have no steering wheel or pedals for human control. “AI development is really progressing rapidly,” Rimac observed in an interview with Design News. “We see already that you can now in a very short time by using these new advancements come so far.”

Related:Croatian EV Maker Rimac Launches Verne to Revolutionize Autonomous Ride Share

“Most of the [self-driving] systems you see today are still based more on the previous development,” he continued. “I think now, in the next couple of years, we will see the next generation of systems that are developed less rule-based and more purely AI.”

Here, Musk provided a smidgen of technical detail, saying that the Cybercab will use Tesla’s AI 5 FSD hardware. That was renamed from Hardware 5 to AI 5 in June, illustrating the company’s shift in technical focus.

This same hardware is going into Tesla’s other models, which rely entirely on cameras to let the computer see the world around it. That fact, and images of the Cybercab that don’t appear to show visible radar or lidar units, suggests that Musk is sticking with his camera-only approach for his robotaxi product.

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This is in contrast to Verne, which employs nine lidars, five radars, and 13 cameras to ensure that the car’s computer has a complete picture of its surroundings. Current robotaxi ride-hailing services Waymo and Cruise both supplement camera imagery with lidar scans to maximize safety.

Musk has been consistently cavalier about the need for additional information, even while his cars have plowed into stopped objects like emergency response vehicles and overturned trucks because the computer couldn’t recognize the sight of those as objects of concern.

Related:Q&A with Rimac Electric Hypercar and Verne Autonomous Vehicle Visionary Mate Rimac

“Anyone relying on lidar is doomed,” Musk sniffed during a 2019 presentation on autonomous vehicles. “Doomed,” he emphasized. “Expensive sensors that are unnecessary. It’s like having a whole bunch of expensive appendices. You’ll see.”

Indeed, we will. Five years later, the rest of the industry still disagrees with Musk’s view. “They’re all going to dump lidar,” Musk insisted in a 2021 presentation. “Mark my words.”

The Robovan's cabin exemplifies the chummy seating that Verne founder Mate Rimac criticized in what he calls "toaster" vehicle designs. TESLA

Musk’s stage show included a thrill ride component when attendees were able to get rides around the movie studio’s street set in a Cybercab. Software security expert and Full Self Driving critic Dan O’Dowd wasn’t impressed. He posted on the former Twitter/now-X site, “After over 10 years of Full Self-Driving development, Tesla is limited to a 20-30 acre geofenced 5mph ride on a preprogrammed, pre-mapped and heavily rehearsed route with no traffic and no pedestrians. 1950s Disneyland guests would be unimpressed.”

O’Dowd pointed out that Musk has promised that Teslas would deliver the ability for drivers to sleep while their car delivers them to their destination since 2014, without yet delivering that capability. “Until Tesla robotaxis are transporting 100,000 paying customers a week around major American cities like Waymo does, Tesla robotaxi is nothing more than the latest work of fiction to come out of the Warner Bros. Studio,” he said.

While there were few technical details provided, some aspects of the Cybercab are visible in photos, so we can compare to Rimac’s Verne robotaxi. In the cabin, the Verne boasts an expansive 43-inch infotainment display to occupy passengers who are bathed in light through the car’s circular skylight. Tesla’s Cybercab has a more claustrophobic solid roof and the dashboard infotainment display looks to be about two-thirds the size of Verne’s.

Musk provided little detail about the Tesla Robovan, but Rimac explained why Verne chose not to pursue such a vehicle. “‘Toasters’ are great on Excel,” he said, describing rolling boxes like the Robovan. “They look like you can cram more people in it. And more people pay for the rides, therefore the economics are better. But people are not numbers in Excel. Do you want to drive [facing] the opposite direction? Do you want to sit sideways? Do you want to sit on a plastic bench with somebody next to you [who] you don’t know?”

The imperious Musk, in his slick leather jacket costume, seems an unlikely candidate for using a quasi-public shared conveyance like that. But Musk seems certain to tell us to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.