Tesla promises a robotaxi and the Cybertruck gets a delivery date

Tesla's Cyber Rodeo took place on Thursday evening to open the new Giga Texas factory just outside Austin, which is now also the global headquarters for the company. Among the kind of theatrics you'd expect from a Tesla event, CEO Elon Musk took to the stage in a black cowboy hat and delivered his presentation to a room full of Tesla fans. 

The star of the show though was the updated prototype of the Cybertruck that was last seen back in January by the Tesla Owners Club. This latest version doesn't have door handles. According to Musk, it "just knows that it needs to open the doors," suggesting that it has a proximity detection tied to the key fob or app. 

The delivery date for the Cybertruck was originally planned for 2022, but mentions of that were removed from the website earlier this year. Now though it appears that production will start in 2023. The new Giga Texas factory is currently building Model Y, with deliveries "starting now," according to Tesla but next year it will also start to produce the Cybertrucks. The Tesla Semi truck and new Roadster are also now expected to go into production in 2023. 

Looking at what's next for Tesla, Musk talked of massive scale, full self-driving and a dedicated robotaxi that will look 'quite futuristic.' Quite futuristic by Tesla's terms could mean anything and there wasn't any images shown. Musk also once again mentioned the Tesla robot Optimus, that will do anything that humans don't want to do. Though, he did promise to make sure it's safe, "no Terminator stuff." This will apparently transform the world, even more than Tesla cars and could be coming (hopefully) next year. 

In terms of timing, with Tesla I'll believe it when I see it but the company has at least proved it can deliver great products. The robotaxi is perhaps the most interesting of the announcements made and was the only one that was completely new. Though Musk's The Boring Company has its own design for a self-driving vehicle for use in the tunnels, the robot taxi is likely to be a little wilder. Hopefully, we'll see at least some concepts of this later this year.