Two-Seat Tesla Robotaxi Concept Previewed In Elon Musk Biography

A wooden model of the same vehicle was also shown in a CBS segment dedicated to Isaacson's book on Elon Musk.

Dan Mihalascu

By: Dan Mihalascu

Sep 12, 2023 at 11:58am ET

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Tesla first revealed plans to develop a fully autonomous robotaxi in 2016, but while the project was mentioned several times since, the EV maker never teased its self-driving vehicle.

Fortunately, we now get an idea of how the Tesla robotaxi looks like, or at least the concept version of it, from Walter Isaacson's Elon Musk biography.

A concept image of Tesla's robotaxi was included in the book titled "Elon Musk," and it was quickly uploaded and shared on social media. The image was seemingly placed at the start of a chapter dedicated to the upcoming self-driving vehicle.

Described as a "Robotaxi Concept," the vehicle looks futuristic and doesn't resemble anything Tesla has launched so far. The illustration shows a coupe with a hatchback design and two butterfly doors. The vehicle appears to have three wheels – two at the front and a covered wheel at the rear.

The opened doors offer a look at the interior, which features two seats but no driving controls whatsoever – no steering wheel, no pedals. We're not entirely sure the vehicle even has a dashboard seen from this angle. It does appear to have some cargo space behind the seats, though.

Of course, the million-dollar question is whether Tesla's robotaxi will actually look like this. While it's not easy to find an answer, it would be rather unusual for the EV maker to offer such a detailed preview of an upcoming car that's so important for the company.

That said, a photo of Tesla's design chief Franz von Holzhausen surfaced on X (formerly Twitter), showing the designer next to a wooden model of a small vehicle that looks a lot like the Robotaxi Concept. The image is from a segment on CBS called "Walter Isaacson on the volatile Elon Musk" – see timestamp 4:09 on the video embedded at the top of this page.

Just like the Robotaxi Concept featured in Isaacson's book, the wooden model features two seats, no steering wheel or pedals, and some cargo space behind the seats. The photo suggests Tesla has built a Robotaxi Concept, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will produce it as is.

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If you look closely at the image, the background features two posters that seem to portray the Robotaxi Concept. They're not very clear, but they seem to show two different versions of the vehicle, one with three wheels and one with four wheels.

Is Tesla working on two variants of its robotaxi or are we looking at the robotaxi and Tesla's promised $25,000 EV? We'll just have to wait and see.

Learn more about Tesla's robotaxi project

Elon Musk’s Biography Reveals Design Inspiration For Tesla’s $25K EV And Robotaxi