Tech
Tesla Robotaxi reveal: What to expect
Tesla is gearing up to reveal its Robotaxi this Thursday, and everyone wants to know what it will look like, whether Tesla will unveil a commercialization strategy, and what outrageous timelines Elon Musk might announce to bump Tesla’s stock.
The “We, Robot” event will take place at 7 p.m. PT at Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie studio in Burbank, California, and we’ve got details on how to watch it here. Plus, you can follow along with our own reactions to the Robotaxi event right here via our live blog.
Musk had originally planned to reveal the Robotaxi – which he has also referred to as a Cybercab – on August 8. That’s a deadline Musk set for himself and Tesla a few hours after a Reuters report found that the automaker shelved its plan to build a lower-cost EV and would instead focus its resources on a robotaxi.
While Musk initially accused Reuters of lying, over the next couple of weeks, Tesla indeed laid off 10% of staff to usher in a “next phase of growth,” and Musk said Tesla would be going “balls to the wall for autonomy.”
Tesla has seldom stuck to Musk’s timelines, and as expected, this Robotaxi event ended up getting pushed back to October after Musk requested “an important design change to the front.”
Investors who have backed Tesla’s vision for autonomy have been waiting for Tesla to finally reveal a Robotaxi. But the timing might not be great. Tesla’s margins have taken a hit over the past year or so due to ramped up Cybertruck production, among other factors. Its third-quarter deliveries were somewhat disappointing, and Tesla has issued its fifth Cybertruck recall within a year of launching the vehicle.
A new vehicle would mean more investment into production lines, factory downtime, and other potentially costly issues – things investors don’t love to hear about.
Whether it’s all hype or at least some substance, we will soon find out. But here’s what we expect to see.
A Cybercab prototype
The main thing we expect to see is a prototype for a new vehicle concept, which will be Tesla’s first since it announced the Cybertruck back in November 2019.
Musk has referred to the robotaxi as a Cybercab, which seems to confirm the design concept revealed last year in Walter Isaacson’s biography of the executive – a two-door, two-seater, Cybertruck-like compact vehicle, complete with angular edges and a stainless steel finish.
The vehicle will also likely be built without a steering wheel or pedals. While Tesla engineers have advocated against this at launch, Musk has been firm in his desire to bring a purpose-built vehicle to market, per Isaacson’s book.
Tesla may run up against regulatory issues for that design choice, which don’t align with federal motor safety standards, and we partly expect Musk to use that as a reason why getting the Cybercab to market will be difficult.
Tesla’s lead designer, Franz Von Holzhausen, told TechCrunch’s Kirsten Korosec that the company’s existing vehicle portfolio has laid the foundation for what’s to come with the Robotaxi.
“In a strange sort of way, we’ve been working our way — in a very public way — to what an autonomous future will look like,” Von Holzhausen said. “So you see the big interface that we have, the way it’s configurable and upgradable, and we bring a variety of entertainment pieces to it, and some humor as well. And I think that will continue to evolve.”
Smoke and mirrors
Tesla usually hosts its big reveal events at one of its facilities, so the Hollywood studio choice is a step-change that signals Musk’s showmanship will be on display.
The studio in question is open to the public for tours, so visitors (who are mainly Tesla shareholders and superfans) will get the chance to be dazzled by the sets of Batman, Friends, Gilmore Girls, The Big Bang Theory, Harry Potter and other titles.
It also allows Tesla to take advantage of the large sound stages and sets, some of which resemble a slice of suburbia and even a small downtown area. This could be the perfect place for Tesla to do a demo of its Cybercab in autonomous action – it’s a controlled, closed environment with no other traffic where the car will be able to drive itself at low speed.
We think the demo could feature the ride-hailing app that Tesla teased during its first-quarter earnings call in April.
Other vehicle and product announcements
The title of the event, “We, Robot”, is a nod to Isaac Asimov’s series of science fiction short stories called “I, Robot” which explores the relationship between robots and humans. As such, many believe the event will feature updates on Optimus, Tesla’s humanoid robot. That said, Asimov’s stories revolve around three laws of robotics that prioritize human safety – 1) A robot may not injure a human being or allow a human to be injured through inaction; 2) A robot must obey orders given by a human being unless that conflicts with the first law; 3) A robot must protect its own existence unless that contradicts the first and second laws. Those fit neatly into autonomous driving.
Deepwater Asset Management predicts that in addition to a Cybercab prototype, Tesla will provide previews (but crucially not a prototype) for the $25,000 EV, which fans are calling the Model 2. Analysts Gene Munster and Brian Baker said they expect the Model 2 to have a similar look and feel to the Cybercab, likely based on past comments from Tesla that the two would share a vehicle platform.
The firm also thinks Tesla will provide more details on a Cybervan, a fully autonomous passenger van that could in the future augment public transportation. This prediction is based on Tesla’s March 2023 investor presentation that featured a lineup of Tesla’s current and future vehicles, including a teaser of a van-sized car.
Some potential wildcards
Building a robotaxi is one thing. Commercializing it is another. Tesla may be able to rely on the uniqueness of its vehicles and the company’s general fan power to attract customers for a ride-hail service, but many won’t want to make the switch to a service that will likely be less reliable at launch.
One wildcard prediction we have is that Tesla could announce a partnership with Uber, which has demonstrated that its existing global ride-hail platform is attractive to autonomous vehicle companies. Over the past few weeks, Uber has been signing on AV companies at a rapid clip, including Waymo, Cruise, Wayve, and others. While Musk seems to want to go it alone, partnering might be the best way to actually commercialize these vehicles.
Another potential wildcard is that McDonald’s is involved in this somehow, based on an X post from the fast food chain last week that said, “chat’s about to pop off 10.10.” Musk replied with the laugh-crying emoji, so we might expect to see some kind of autonomous food delivery demo or announcement with McDonald’s on Thursday.
What we don’t expect to see
There will be plenty of hype and chatter about Musk’s vision of an autonomous future, during which the executive will likely make the same argument that Uber made a decade ago about the possibilities for shared rides – it will be so easy and cheap to hail an AV, that people won’t need to own their own vehicles.
A rosy picture, but one that we don’t expect to be backed up Thursday with a clear path to commercialization.
In the past, Musk has said Tesla vehicles on the roads today would be able to progress to autonomy with merely a software update, allowing owners to add their cars to Tesla’s ride-sharing app and rent them out to make extra cash. Tesla has said it would take something like 25% to 30% of the revenue from those rides, and in places where there aren’t enough people to share cars, the automaker would provide a dedicated fleet of robotaxis.
Musk has been promising a fully autonomous Tesla for years now, but has yet to introduce one. Despite Tesla’s advancements in its advanced driver assistance system, named Full Self-Driving (FSD), the tech is still not fully self-driving. It requires a human driver to be attentive behind the wheel and take over if needed.
This might be why Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley, who is an undeniable Tesla bull, said he expects Tesla will offer a “‘dual’ approach with respect to autonomous ridesharing.” There will be a ‘supervised’ autonomous/FSD rideshare service, and a fully autonomous app-based Cybercab, he said, with an expected initial commercial launch slated for late 2025 or 2026.
When it comes to production of the Cybercabs themselves, the analysts at Deepwater point to the lag between Tesla’s unveiling of products and ramping production. The minimum gap of 10 months was with the Model Y, whereas the Cybertruck took 48 months, and the Semi is at 79 months and counting. Tesla delivered a handful of Semis in December 2022, but has yet to ramp up to volume production.
“This suggests the start of production for any of the vehicles announced in August would begin in June of 2025 at the earliest,” Deepwater wrote.
And since the robotaxi event got pushed back so Tesla could “make some important changes,” then the product is still likely a long way off from being ready to go to production.
This article has been updated to include comments from Tesla’s lead designer. It was originally published October 8 at 12:22 pm PT.
Tech
Cursor makes its biggest India push yet ahead of SpaceX acquisition with localized pricing
Weeks before its expected acquisition by SpaceX closes, AI coding startup Cursor is making its biggest push into India yet, launching its first country-specific subscription as the company bets on one of the world’s largest developer markets to drive its next stage of growth.
On Monday, the startup introduced Cursor Start, a ₹649-a-month (about $7) subscription built specifically for India — and priced well below Cursor’s standard $20-a-month Pro subscription.
The move reflects India’s growing importance to Cursor’s business. The startup says India is already its third-largest market globally and home to its highest concentration of power users, with its user base in the country more than tripling over the past year.
That scale, coupled with India’s deep pool of software engineering talent, made it the first market where Cursor chose to localize pricing, Simon Green, Cursor’s head of Asia-Pacific and Japan, told TechCrunch. “We felt that we had an opportunity there to right-size the commercial model and drive scale,” Green said. “The technical competency of the country and the engineering talent that already exists make it a very natural fit.”
India has emerged as one of the world’s largest software developer hubs. Earlier this year, GitHub said that the country has more than 27 million developers on its platform, second only to the U.S., with more than two million joining in 2026 alone.
Cursor Start includes access to Cursor’s Composer 2.5 model and Grok 4.5, with higher usage limits than the free tier, alongside cloud agents, its iOS app, plugins, Model Context Protocol support, hooks, and skills. The startup said the plan is aimed at developers who need more AI-assisted coding capacity than the free tier offers without upgrading to its full Pro subscription.
The lower-priced plan is intended to broaden access rather than replace Cursor’s flagship offering, Green said. Unlike the $20-a-month Pro subscription, Start does not include access to frontier AI models from providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic, or advanced features including Bugbot, Auto Mode, Automations, and the Cursor SDK.
The plan is billed in Indian rupees and supports payments through credit and debit cards as well as India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
Green told TechCrunch that Cursor would use multiple checks to ensure the India-only subscription is available only to individual users in the country, including measures to deter people from accessing the plan through virtual private networks (VPNs).
Cursor is not alone in tailoring its pricing for India. OpenAI and Anthropic have also rolled out India-specific plans over the past year as global AI companies compete for users in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
While Cursor Start is initially limited to India, Green told TechCrunch that the startup could expand localized pricing to other markets if the model proves successful.
“We will continue to do everything we can to fuel the demand and serve those clients that are using us,” Green said. “Now, if this model proves that we could take it to other markets, perhaps we will. But I think it’d be crazy to say we would never do it elsewhere.”
OpenAI provides one precedent for this strategy, having launched its sub-$5 ChatGPT Go in India before expanding the lower-priced subscription to other markets.
In addition to the localized pricing strategy, Cursor is also expanding its presence in India through new hires. Green told TechCrunch that the startup recently hired its first salesperson in India and expects another leader to join in Delhi. The company is also building out its a government affairs office, alongside three technical customer support hires, as it expands its presence in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.
Cursor’s enterprise push is still in its early stages in India, Green said, where adoption has so far been driven largely by individual developers, startups, and universities. He said Cursor sees significant opportunities in sectors including banking and large enterprises as it expands its local sales efforts.
Green said, the India-specific pricing was designed to be commercially sustainable rather than a loss leader. He said the lower-priced plan is viable because it is built around Cursor’s own AI models, which carry lower operating costs than relying primarily on third-party frontier models.
Cursor’s India expansion comes a little over a month after Elon Musk’s SpaceX agreed to acquire the AI coding startup in a $60 billion all-stock deal, following SpaceX’s blockbuster initial public offering. The acquisition is expected to close in Q3. However, SpaceX has been partnered with Cursor since April to develop a next-generation “coding and knowledge work AI.”
Green said Cursor will continue to operate independently until the transaction closes and that the company’s India expansion plans were already in motion before the deal. Once the acquisition closes, however, Green said SpaceX’s existing presence in India through Starlink could help Cursor expand faster by lowering commercial and operational barriers.
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Tech
Lyft and Baidu enter London’s robotaxi battleground as testing begins
Chinese tech giant Baidu has started testing autonomous vehicles in London as part of its partnership with Lyft and Freenow, the German taxi and multi-mobility app that Lyft now owns. Baidu is the latest in a string of companies to test self-driving technology in the UK ahead of commercial robotaxi deployments.
The testing, which began Tuesday with human safety operators, comes nearly a year after the two companies struck a strategic partnership to deploy Baidu’s purpose-built Apollo Go RT6 robotaxi across key European markets through the Lyft platform. The vehicles will eventually be available through Freenow, which Lyft acquired in 2025 for about $197 million.
That deal gave Lyft a foothold in Europe’s ride-hailing market, where a handful of well-funded companies are now jockeying to be first to market with robotaxis.
London is particular is shaping up to be a key battleground in the region. In April, Waymo began testing its autonomous vehicles with human safety operators in the city. Uber and its self-driving tech partner, Wayve, also announced plans to launch a robotaxi service in London this year. That initial service — which customers can now sign up for on an interest list — will have human safety operators behind the wheel before fully driverless operations begin later.
Baidu and Freenow by Lyft (as the latter service is now called) said they expect to invite the public to hail their robotaxis in 2027. The companies, which didn’t provide a more detailed timeline, noted that the launch will depend on regulatory approval.
For now, dozens of test vehicles will operate within London’s borough of Brent. Lyft and Freenow said they continue discussions with safety and city officials, including Transport for London (TfL) and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). The UK government is in the process of creating autonomous vehicle regulations and opened applications in May for companies interested in an AV pilot program that lets companies test self-driving vehicles under government oversight.
When the service does launch, Freenow by Lyft said it will operate a hybrid network — employing the same language rival Uber has used — meaning human drivers operating taxis and private-hire vehicles will work alongside the robotaxis.
“As a platform with deep roots in the taxi industry, our priority is ensuring that autonomous technology supports the professional drivers who keep London moving,” Thomas Zimmermann, CEO of Freenow by Lyft, said in a statement.
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Tech
Granola launches an Apple Watch app
AI note-taking app Granola is launching an app for the Apple Watch in hopes that its users will want to record meetings and take notes without using their smartphones.
Users can set the Granola app as one of the watch faces to start transcribing at any time. The app can also surface reminders about upcoming meetings, and works with the iOS app, which launched last year.
The company’s co-founder, Chris Pedregal, told TechCrunch that the Apple Watch app is meant to be a way to capture in-person meetings without having to take your phone out of your pocket — for example, if someone is having a walking one-on-one meeting.
When Granola tested its app with employees who had Apple Watches, a big chunk of their mobile usage switched from iOS to the Watch, the company said.
In the past year, companies have released auxiliary devices that can be used with smartphones to record and transcribe meetings. Granola said it considered it easier to develop an app for Apple Watches rather than integrate with another hardware product at this point. Dictation app Monlogue earlier this year also added support for meeting note-taking, for both online and offline modalities, along with Apple Watch support.
Granola became a unicorn earlier this year with a $125 million Series C round that was led by Index Ventures.
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