Tesla holds its Cybercab launch event in Austin on September 3, and it’s being sold as a milestone. Here’s my prediction: it’s going to look a lot like the last time Tesla launched this car, back in October 2024.

Expect a big robotaxi fleet number as the headline, a steering wheel and safety monitor finally coming out, and almost nothing that touches the one thing actually holding the program back.

Tesla first unveiled the Cybercab at its “We, Robot” event in October 2024, the two-seater with no steering wheel, no pedals, butterfly doors, and a promised sub-$30,000 price. That was nearly two years ago. Now Tesla is going to stand on a stage and launch it again.

That tells you something about where Tesla is right now. The product roadmap is thin. There’s no new mass-market car shipping, the affordable model turned into a stripped-down Model Y, and the next-generation Roadster keeps sliding. So Tesla is doing an event for a vehicle it revealed in 2024, and shareholders are somehow fine treating a relaunch as fresh news because Tesla has virtually killed all its other vehicle programs.

The concrete announcement will be that the Cybercab is now live in Tesla’s existing Robotaxi service. That means Austin first, and almost certainly the Florida markets, where Tesla switched on Robotaxi in Tampa and Orlando in July, plus Dallas and Houston.

Tesla might also use the stage to name a new city or two. It’s done this before every earnings call.

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