Tesla design lead reveals why the Cybercab is yellow in color

The Cybercab, announced by Tesla at its "We, Robot" event, has quickly emerged as the most intriguing product launch by Tesla in over half a decade. The last time there was this much hype around a Tesla, was during the Cybertruck unveiling back in 2019, and before that, at 2017's Roadster and Semi event. The driverless, 2-seater Cybercab has been slated to enter production in 2026, but reckoning with Tesla's record of keeping production promises, that timeline is highly questionable, to say the least.

As tempting as it is to rant about the Cybercab, we must digress and focus on the piece of information at hand. In a recent interview, Tesla's chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, who is arguably as influential at Tesla as Jony Ive was at Apple, revealed the reason why the contentious Cybercab is yellowish-golden in color, and the reason is definitely quite interesting. According to Franz, the Cybercab's yellowish-golden hue was chosen as an homage of sorts to the iconic yellow NYC cabs. Tesla expects to operate an entire network of autonomous Cybercabs, and the yellow color was chosen as a futuristic spin on the beloved NYC taxi. 

Despite the outward appeal of an entire fleet of sleek, self-driving cabs, there is no doubt that there are some major hurdles to overcome before fully autonomous vehicles can enter the mainstream market. The dissension surrounding the dependability of Tesla's full self-driving technology continues to be a polarizing topic, and it's honestly rather difficult to imagine how a fully autonomous Tesla will become feasible by 2026, which is when the mass production of the Cybercab has been planned. But as mentioned previously, Tesla has a notorious track record of simply not living up to its promises, there's more than enough reason to be doubtful about the company's timeline, ambitious as ever.