Tesla brought out something not many expected at its Robotaxi event—the Robovan. It’s a fairly large vehicle, and just like the Cybercab, it's fully autonomous: there is no driver’s seat, steering wheel, or pedals.
In its default configuration, the Robovan can seat up to 20 passengers, and Tesla has already envisioned multiple other uses for it, including package delivery, RVing, and others.
So, get your futuristic bus pass ready, and let’s take a ride to see what the Robovan is bringing!
Exterior
The Robovan takes Art Deco – the classic 1950’s style, to the future. It's a spectacular showcase vehicle and doesn’t look like anything you would ever expect to be pulling up to the curb to pick people up. The Robovan looks almost like a train or tram engine and has a sleek front with no visible windshield, and the wheels are tucked underneath the body, where you can’t see them.
It’s a painted aluminum shell, just like the Cybercab, but also mixed with glass. The glass is tinted dark from the exterior – so you can’t really see inside, affording a fairly high level of privacy to those in the vehicle.
One of the most interesting things about the Robovan is its super low ground clearance. It looked like it was floating mere inches off the ground when it pulled up at, We, Robot. According to Elon Musk, this super-low clearance is achieved by having an automatic load-levelling suspension that raises and lowers based on road conditions.
This means that the Robovan will be able to traverse obstacles such as speedbumps and potholes – and that this feature is likely to make its way to FSD sometime in the future. While FSD can already (mostly) correctly identify speedbumps, it cannot identify other obstacles on the road, such as debris or potholes. Having FSD be able to identify and avoid potholes to smoothen the ride would help to improve the comfort of the experience.
The Art-Deco aesthetic is back!
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Interior
The interior is quite spacious – it's able to seat up to 20 passengers in its maximum configuration. In a bus or passenger van format, the Robovan could easily be used to replace short-route buses or, with increased frequency – compete against a full-size 40-seat bus.
Tesla also intends for the Robovan to be used in a delivery capability, as it will be available to order in a format without any seating, which provides a fairly spacious interior for package handling on last-mile and local routes. It could conceivably be a competent competitor to large vans once FSD can reach a fully autonomous state.
Beyond that, Tesla also sees the Robovan being fitted for things such as Tesla Service, RVing, or any other use for vehicles with large interior spaces. There’s a lot of open space on the interior, so we’re looking forward to seeing what ideas people come up with. Maybe a mobile diner?
As per Elon, it is very easy to see out of the Robovan, as the dark windows seem to be one-way tints. Some interior videos, like the one below, also show just how much visibility is afforded to passengers. And those big glass doors? They slide open. It seems that the Robovan has the same set of doors on both sides, but all the pictures showing it off have it only opening on the street side (right side), with right-hand-drive here in North America.
Back to the passenger configuration – the interior showed off was in a clean and classic Tesla white, with lots of interior lighting and HVAC on the interior ceiling. There is a bench seat at either end of the cabin, and then a pair and single seat with an aisle dividing them. The configuration shown was symmetrical and only seated 14.
The van also features a large screen at either end of the cabin, which could be used for entertainment or route information. Tesla didn’t provide any detail on these displays, but they appear fairly large.
Beyond the delivery capacity, the Cybervan also has storage at the rear and front – both fascia plates slide upwards to expose additional storage room – essentially a bus-sized frunk and trunk.
The frunk, oddly enough, looks like it has far more capacity than the trunk in this case – with about 10 suitcases in the open frunk, while the open trunk only looks like it has capacity for 2 suitcases.
The frunk storage. Very spacious!
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The trunk storage. It seems oddly small.
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Release Date
There’s no date or pricing for the Robovan just yet. While it hails back to the 1950’s, it may be further out in the future than Tesla made it seem. Tesla didn’t share a price point or time frame for when the van would become available.
Oh, and Elon mentioned that it's called the ruh-BO-vahn. Like Suburban, but Robovan. We’d love to see what everyone thinks about its name. Let us know how you think it's pronounced.
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Tesla has unveiled its 6-seat Model Y variant in China, known as the Model Y L. This new variant of one of the world’s best-selling vehicles comes with a longer wheelbase, adjusted C-pillar design, and most importantly, a six-seat interior layout.
The vehicle’s specifications have been officially listed in a filing with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), confirming a launch for this fall.
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The addition of a longer wheelbase and a more spacious third row is a fantastic addition for the Model Y’s family utility, and positions this variant as sort of a mini Model X, but let’s compare the sizes to really know how this new Model Y compares to a Model X.
Meet the Model Y L
The defining feature of the new Model Y L is its six-seat configuration. This layout has previously been exclusive to the larger and more expensive Model X. While Tesla has offered the Model Y in a 7-seat configuration before, the third row was much too small to be utilized by anyone but small children.
Comparing Model Y L to the Model X
@xiaoteshushu on X
Let’s compare this upcoming Model Y L to the regular Model Y and the Model X.
Vehicle/Dimension
Wheelbase
Overall Length
Model Y
2,890mm / 113.8 in
4,797mm / 188.9 in
Model Y L
3,040mm / 119.7 in
4,976mm / 195.9 in
Model X
2,965mm / 116.7 in
5,060mm / 199.2 in
The new wheelbase of 3,040mm is a significant stretch from the standard wheelbase, and in fact, is longer than the Model X’s wheelbase of 2,965mm. However, the overall length of the vehicle is 84mm (~3 inches) shorter than the Model X. This means the vehicle sits neatly between the current Model Y and Model X, filling a much-needed gap.
While this Model Y L is slightly smaller than the Model X, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s smaller inside. The Model X features a much larger front end than the Model Y, accounting for several inches. When you line up the front wheel base of the Model X with this new Model Y, the vehicles are almost exactly the same length.
Tesla has designed this Model Y to be a bit more compact and efficient than the Model X, and likely much cheaper, while featuring the well-loved design of the new Model Y.
Other Specifications and Price
The MIIT filing also provided a detailed look at some additional specifications. The Model Y L is a dual-motor, AWD variant, so it will likely be more expensive than the current Model Y AWD that’s available in China today. Tesla charges an additional $6,500 USD when upgrading the Model X from a 5-seat configuration to a 6-seat layout, so we may see something similar here.
The extra length has been added behind the C-pillar, resulting in a longer rear profile for the Model Y L. To accompany this, Tesla has added an updated rear spoiler, similar to the one found on Performance variants, but not carbon fiber. There is also a new wheel design to complement the updated look, along with unique Model Y L badging and a new light gold paint option.
In classic Tesla fashion, no Tesla is slow - and the Y L has a 0-100 km/h (0-60mph) time of 5.9s, with a top speed of 217km/h. Alongside an 82.5 kWh LFP battery pack, the Model Y L boasts an impressive CLTC range of 688 km (427 mi).
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Launch & Availability
According to posts from Tesla China on Chinese social media, the new Model Y L is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2025. Its official listing in the MIIT database is essentially the final regulatory step required before sales can begin, which means the launch is really just around the corner. For now, it appears that Tesla intends to launch this vehicle only in China, as no other filings have been made in other regions. However, these could be revealed in the coming months.
The new Model Y L is a huge addition to Tesla’s lineup - one that addresses the Chinese preference for vehicles with longer wheelbases and additional passenger room in a compact SUV package. The question is - will this variant make its way to North America and Europe?
Solving real-world artificial intelligence - whether for autonomous driving, real-world robotics, or advanced reasoning - requires an almost unfathomable amount of computational power. To meet this challenge, Tesla has been developing its own custom AI training hardware while simultaneously purchasing hardware in the open market.
Now, the next-generation Dojo 2 chip has reportedly entered mass production with the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC. While many may consider this a side quest, expanding Tesla’s computing base will be necessary to achieve exascale supercomputing, which will be crucial for all of Tesla’s AI ambitions.
Elon Musk called Dojo 2 “a good computer,” and then followed up with a classic computer performance joke - Dojo 2 can indeed play Crysis at a billion frames per second.
While Tesla has effectively utilized powerful third-party GPUs to train its models to date, the Dojo supercomputer is a ground-up, application-specific solution designed for a single purpose. It will efficiently process massive amounts of video data for training neural networks. The Dojo 2 chip itself is the key that unlocks this potential.
Dojo 2 will train the vision-based neural nets that FSD relies on, allowing Tesla to process video from its massive global fleet of vehicles even faster. As Tesla continues to improve FSD, one of the biggest challenges has been the intake of video for handling difficult edge cases.
Hundreds of thousands of miles of training data may pass by before an edge case is identified and trained on, but it all needs to be analyzed, labeled, and processed, which is key for Dojo 2. Each new useful piece of training data will help Tesla proceed down the march of 9s, making FSD just that little bit better every time.
This process requires massive amounts of compute and training time - but it is an absolute necessity to improve FSD. Of course, this goes beyond just FSD in vehicles. Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus, also runs on FSD to navigate and interact with the physical world.
While it may be a custom version of FSD, it remains FSD at its core, which means the same neural nets that analyze the environment and build a 3D map of the world for your car perform the same work for Optimus.
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Custom Approach to AI Hardware
Dojo 2’s power doesn’t just come from raw compute; it comes from a series of architectural choices that make it excel at training FSD and differentiate it from general-purpose hardware, or even other AI-specific hardware.
To this end, Tesla is using TSMC’s new Integrated Fan-Out with Silicon-on-Wafer (InFO-SoW) packaging technology. For massive AI workloads, heat and the speed at which data moves between chips are often the biggest bottlenecks.
This new packaging technique allows for high-bandwidth connections directly between processing dies, which lowers latency and dramatically improves heat dissipation, all key to building massive and dense compute clusters.
Unlike general-purpose chips, Dojo 2 is designed with a custom instruction set, specifically built to train FSD. The cores are specifically made to accelerate the exact mathematical operations, like matrix multiples and systolic arrays, which form the backbone of Tesla’s vision-based neural networks.
By building its own hardware, Tesla can then integrate its own software and compilers directly with the silicon, optimizing for specific workloads and avoiding the performance penalties that can result from using third-party software, such as Nvidia’s CUDA.
The start of Dojo 2 may seem like a side quest for some, but it’s actually a key step for Tesla’s AI technologies that give them an advantage over the competition using off-the-shelf hardware. They’ll need to continue investing in custom hardware to improve FSD at a reasonable pace, rather than the current glacial pace we’ve seen over the last few months.
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