- Tesla briefly showed the Cybercab's charging speed during last week's We, Robot event.
- With 35% left in its battery, they showed an animation of the Cybercab wirelessly charging at 19 kW.
The Tesla Cybercab won’t have a physical charging port. Elon Musk announced that the only way it will be able to charge would be through a dedicated wireless charging pad, but the Tesla boss didn’t say how quickly it would charge.
The charging speed and power of the Cybercab (or any robotaxi) are indeed of less importance to users since they would not be involved with charging the robotaxi in any way. You will hail the driverless cab, climb aboard, and it will take you to your desired destination—when, where, and how it charges won’t matter because it won’t affect your experience as a passenger.
However, if you’re still curious about how quickly the Tesla taxi charges, the manufacturer dropped a hint during last week’s presentation. During last week’s We, Robot event, Elon Musk mentioned the inductive-only charging solution, and the camera focused on him without revealing the screen that he was standing in front of. It was at that point that they actually showed what charging speeds we can expect and at what state of charge.
The animation showed that with 35% left in the battery, the car started charging 19 kilowatts, which after a few seconds went up to 21 kW and may have kept climbing, but they no longer showed it. That’s nowhere near as quick as the manufacturer’s Superchargers, but it is quicker than the home chargers that it currently offers, which top out at 11.5 kW; it’s on par with what we know current wireless EV chargers are capable of.
The estimated remaining charging time (likely to be 80%, not full) was 56 minutes. Charging to 100% would probably take twice as long, with charging power tapering off considerably after 80%. Tesla didn’t state the Cybercab’s battery capacity, but if you count the battery cells during one of the animations (when they showed that the same cell would power both the Cybercab and the Optimus bot), assuming it was an accurate representation, it amounted to 810 cells.
If those are second-generation 4680 cells (also found in the Cybertruck’s battery), then the total capacity would amount to roughly 75 kilowatt-hours gross and about 70 kWh usable, giving the vehicle a theoretical range of 300 miles or more. These are not official numbers, but they are something to go by until the manufacturer releases the actual figures.
