Was Tesla’s “We Robot” Presentation Just Hot Air?

Elon got off lightly.

Last Friday, Tesla shares reportedly lost 8 percent of their value after the company’s much-hyped “We Robot” presentation left analysts and investors scratching their heads. Yet, given what we’ve seen and what the event says about the company’s direction, I’m surprised it wasn’t 80 percent.

Mind you, I know that Tesla isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Last year, the company sold more than 1.8 million cars, and even here in Italy where I live, a country truly lagging in terms of EV adoption, Model 3s and Model Ys are a common enough sight that nobody bats an eyelid when one passes by.

Tesla still enjoys a commanding lead in the EV space in Western markets, thanks in no small part to the world’s legacy automakers. Dragged kicking and screaming into making EVs by Tesla’s success and overambitious government mandates, most brands fumbled their first steps into this new territory and have yet to fully catch up.

But, as we’re now all too aware, things look very different on the other side of the Great Wall. The Chinese embraced the future and went all in on EVs, with results so spectacular that Musk himself went on record saying that without trade barriers, they’ll “pretty much demolish” most competitors. This doesn’t look like the best moment to take your eyes off the ball, yet it seems precisely what Tesla is doing.

The seminal Model S, arguably the most important car launched in the last 25 years, is now 12 years old. The Model 3 debuted back in 2017. Sure, both have been constantly updated and are still very competitive, but you get my point: Tesla’s lineup is getting old, fast.

Yet last Friday’s event brought us nothing but vaporware. Besides a couple of underwhelming, conceptually flawed designs for the Cybercab and Robovan, all we got were a host of bold promises of technological breakthroughs that will gobble up billions in R&D and aren’t likely to materialize anywhere near the timeframe indicated by Musk, if at all.

Still, let’s put these reservations aside for a moment and ignore some rather pesky details—like the fact that, as things stand now, a vehicle without pedals, a steering wheel, or mirrors isn’t compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards—and instead look at the Cybercab and Robovan purely from a design perspective.

The Cybercab is a dainty little two-seater coupe that wouldn’t look out of place in a Playmobil toy catalog. That toy-like appearance comes from its proportions but is further emphasized by the large, color-coded wheel covers hiding the tires and the largely featureless front-end design.

Quite a few knowledgeable observers have noticed a certain similarity between the Cybercab and the 2014 VW XL1, and I can see why.

The two cars have similar proportions, as both are cab-forward designs with a stubby front-end and a long fastback tail. Neither has a rear window, and the DLO graphic (an acronym for Daylight Opening) is indeed remarkably similar. The same can be said for the overall design language, as both vehicles sport large, sheer, and unbroken surfaces connected by sharp, clean edges.

However, that’s where the similarities between the VW and the Cybercab end. The former is a genuine teardrop design, while the Tesla has a square stance and a much more pronounced positive wedge (that’s when a car’s rear end is taller than the front). But, most importantly, for how weird the VW may look, you never doubt that what you’re looking at is an actual vehicle. Instead, the Cybercab looks, well . . . unfinished.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for clean, simple, and unadorned designs. But the more I look at the Cybercab, the more I feel that Franz Von Holzausen’s team dropped their pencils a tad too early. The whole design exudes a certain lack of finesse, from how the surfaces are modeled to details like the front and rear valances, which look like a first draft no one put much thought into. This contributes to the toy-like appearance I mentioned above and makes me wonder how much nicer the Cybercab would look, had its design been given just a little more love.

Last, but definitely not least, there’s the issue of the vehicle’s format itself. Why exactly is the Cybercab a swoopy little two-seater coupe? I like those a lot, but given the Cybercab is not meant to be driven, where’s the point of giving it such an old-fashioned form factor? Why does its cabin layout have to reflect that of a regular car with its controls removed? Elon Musk is adamant that “the future should look like the future,” yet I feel that Tesla here missed an opportunity to really show us what an autonomous future would look like, because this sure isn’t it. Nor is the Robovan, for that matter.

The Robovan is, in essence, a concept for an autonomous minibus. It’s not the first one we’ve seen over the last few years, and neither is it the cleverest. But on a superficial level, which I guess must be the only one Musk cares about, I have to concede it does look quite slick.

Tesla’s choice to fully enclose the wheels makes the Robovan look as if it’s hovering above the ground, and the four parallel “streaks” that circle the vehicle and double as its light signature add a certain 1930s “Streamline Moderne” vibe to it. But what I find most striking about the Robovan is that, despite it being even more of a pipe dream than the Cybercab, it seems to be the better resolved of the two designs.

But none of this really matters in the end, as all Musk showed or said during the “We Robot” presentation has no more depth than a design bachelor student’s portfolio project—and it has about the same chance of ever becoming a reality.

Still, I must admit that I quite dig the Cybercab. A small, cute little Tesla coupe for less than $30K? I’m sold, Elon. Now, just give me my pedals and steering wheel back.