Tesla's Cyber Rodeo: Elon Musk reveals robotaxi, and Cybertruck's production plan

Tesla Inc’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk, on Friday, threw an elaborate party for nearly 15,000 people to celebrate the company’s newest factory Giga Texas, in Austin, Texas. Tesla, to mark the opening of its $1.1 billion factory, hosted an event, called 'Cyber Rodeo’, and showcased several art installations using hundreds of drones flying in formation.

The drones depicted an image of Nikola Tesla, a Cyber Rodeo sign, an image of Model Y, Cybertruck, and Shiba Inu dog, among others against the night sky. Musk, who appeared wearing dark sunglasses and a black cowboy hat during the event, said “We’re going to talk about past, present and future” while showcasing Tesla’s first car ‘the Roadster.’

Musk announced that two-thirds of America’s electric vehicles are Tesla cars and highlighted the accomplishments of the Tesla AI team. The billionaire CEO also stated that the Tesla Giga Texas is taller than the Burj Khalifa if the factory were turned on its side and could fit a total of 194 billion hamsters in Giga Texas.

“(Giga Texas) building is the most advanced car factory that Earth’s ever seen,” claimed Elon Musk. He further added the automaker has also started building its in-house 4680 batteries the Austin factory, which over time could be one of the world’s biggest cell factories.

Musk said, “We're going to move to . . . scale that no company has ever achieved in the history of humanity.” While describing the main operations of Tesla’s new gigafactory Musk said, “Raw materials in, a bunch of stuff happens, and car out.” Giga Texas will make the Model Y crossover vehicle and the Cybertruck.

He further added that among the product that are planned for the future will be a “dedicated robotaxi (that) is gonna look quite futuristic," and the Tesla robot Optimus to help "an age of abundance… that's gonna transform the world to an extent even greater than the cars." Tesla’s robot Optimus is coming next year, he said at the end of the event and rolled out the first batch of Made in Texas cars next to a sign displaying "Deliveries begin now.”

Tesla Cybertruck updates:

According to attendees at the Giga Texas Cyber Rodeo, Tesla has made a few more improvements to the Cybertruck. One of the attendees, via a tweet, said that he had noted that the electric-pickup truck’s rear glass now has the functionality to drop and also gets a mid-guard to optimize the Cybertruck’s capability to carry cargo. Reportedly, the mid guard, which allows creates a separation between the bed of the Tesla Cybertruck and the passenger seats, can’t be folded down.

In addition to these, some of the images shared by the invitees on the social platform revealed the new Cybertruck prototypes available at Giga Texas also has a yoke shaped steering and the side cameras in the front fenders were updated.

Tesla Cybertruck is expected to come with a tri-motor four-wheel-drive setup, 500 miles (around 805 km) of driving range and towing capacity of 6,350 kg. The company also claims that the truck will be able to reach from 0 to 60 miles in just 2.9 seconds.

The Cybertruck will also come with a horizontally mounted touch screen infotainment system, full self-driving support, Netflix and YouTube streaming, climate control function among others. The Cybertruck also gets an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) as an additional safety feature.