Tesla Cybercab Excludes The People That Need Autonomous Cars The Most

Autonomous cars are the future, when that future happens on a large scale is anyone’s guess but it is likely still aways out. While most of the key players like to throw around the “mobility” buzzword, a segment of our population sees that term very differently. Tesla’s new Cybercab is step in that direction, but it ignores the people that need it most.

Tesla’s Big Discounts Worked, Sort Of

For a country as wealthy as America, our ability to provide widespread transportation access to our disabled population severely lags behind the rest of the developed world. This is mostly due to a vastly inadequate public transit system. Even within the major cities, bus and light rail options are not designed for disabled users. In Manhattan, for example, there are 121 subway stations, only 39 of which have elevators. That means a wheelchair user in the most populous city in the world can only access 30 percent of the subway stops. That’s pathetic.

If you are disabled and don’t live in a major city the mobility challenges are even steeper. Most public buses don’t have lifts and while the Americans With Disabilities Act mandates that an accessible option be provided, agencies such as paratransit are not optimized and can be a major hassle.

I have spoken with disabled people who had to use Paratransit and in many cases it can take hours to travel 20 miles in to get to a doctor’s appointment. Then they have to wait within a two-hour window at that location just to get picked up to go somewhere else. Imagine you had to dedicate four hours of your day just to see the doctor for thirty minutes.

These logistical nightmares make it incredibly difficult to for disabled people to live productive lives. While the ADA prevents employers from discriminating against employees with a disability, if the individual doesn’t have access to reliable and predictable transportation to get to work, it makes it very difficult for them to hold down a job.

Purchasing a disability-equipped vehicle can be prohibitively expensive for many buyers, and some folks wouldn’t even be able to operate it due to their condition. There is hope that these vehicles can someday benefit the disabled community and provide them with more “mobility.” A study from the Ruderman Family Foundation examined the potential impact autonomous cars will have on the disabled.

Mitigating transportation related obstacles for individuals with disabilities would enable new employment opportunities for approximately 2 million individuals with disabilities, and save $19 billion annually in healthcare expenditures from missed medical appointments. This is in the context of the anticipated broader impacts of autonomous vehicles: $1.3 trillion in savings from productivity gains, fuel costs, and accident prevention, among other sources.

The key problem with Tesla’s Cybercab is that the shape is far from ideal for folks with mobility impairments. Tesla essentially made a robot sports car for two people. While the Robobus could also be a solution, it seems that this vehicle, with the capacity to carry up to 20 people, is more like a city bus alternative, but worse. While other autonomous transport companies are using established vehicle platforms, Tesla’s Cybercab was a fresh start and could have been any shape.

Back in 2021 a company called Kenguru came up with the idea of a “neighborhood autonomous vehicle” that could accommodate a wheelchair. While the design isn’t nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the slick Tesla Robotaxi, there was an established benchmark on how to make a compact autonomous taxi that could accommodate a variety of passengers from able-bodied, to wheelchair users, or maybe folks who have a hard time slinking into a low slung car.

Tesla is not the first company to try to offer autonomous on-demand vehicles, currently Waymo, Cruise, and others are experimenting with “robo-taxis” in various metros to gather data on how these vehicles should safely and effectively integrate with the current infrastructure.

Whether or not Elon can actually deliver on this Cybercab at this price within his predicted time frame remains to be seen. He has been promising a fleet of self-driving cars for over a decade. In the slow march towards an autonomous vehicle future, maybe Telsa or someone else will step in to make a vehicle tha prioritizes a mobility solution over style.