Glamping, a word that combines the terms, glamour and camping, refers to going to campgrounds but having the amenities normally present in a hotel.
Tesla has an interesting Cybertruck trailer concept. It's a large trailer about the size of a tiny house. It’s a nice looking trailer and it reflects the angularity and aerodynamic shape of the Cybertruck. In Cybertruck patents, Tesla shows the Cybertruck pulling a weight of 20,000 pounds, however the official Cybertruck specs say it can tow more than 14,000 pounds. I interpret that as a max weight of between 14,000 pounds and 15,000 pounds.
Now, remembering what we learned in high school physics, you’ll recall that how much weight a truck can tow has three components. The truck has to overcome rolling resistance, air resistance, and gravity. Now rolling resistance increases gradually depending on both the weight of the trailer and the speed you’re trying to tow it. It’s a linear increase. While there’s more rolling resistance at highway speeds than there is at parking lot speeds, it’s not all that much more.
Then there’s air resistance. That’s not related to the weight of the trailer at all. Air resistance is related only to the cross sectional area of the trailer, the aerodynamic shape of the trailer, and the speed of the tow. Air resistance increases as the square of the speed, so that’s a much more significant factor at highway speeds than at low speeds, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the weight of the trailer.
A few months ago, Ford came out with a publicity stunt involving a prototype electric Ford F-150 Lightning towing a million pounds of railroad cars when they were empty. Then they loaded one and a quarter million pounds of pickup trucks into the railroad cars, and the electric Ford towed all that, too (you can watch the full video below).
It was supposed to demonstrate something. All it demonstrated is that Ford likes to lie to people who don’t remember the physics they learned in high school.
The tow was done at slow speeds on steel rails with steel-wheeled railroad cars. Of all the land vehicles currently in use in the US, trains have the least rolling resistance. Maglev trains have less rolling resistance, but they’re not in use in the US. And anyway, maglev trains don’t roll. They float on a magnetic field. So all the electric Ford had to do was overcome a certain small rolling resistance. Admittedly, you or I would have been unable to start those train cars rolling by pulling or pushing by hand, but probably any pickup truck could have done it. It didn’t have to be a Ford.
The reason there’s a weight limitation for towing a trailer is that roads aren’t level. On hills, there are two considerations. The truck needs to be able to tow the trailer up any hill it might come across, and it has to be able to control the trailer when going down any hill it might come across. So if Tesla says the Cybertruck is rated for 14,000 pounds, then it really shouldn’t try towing 20,000 pounds even if that seems possible on level ground or mild hills. But there is a way around this limitation in the era of electric vehicles.
What I’m going to tell you does not come from Tesla, or any knowledgeable source. It comes strictly from my imagination so take it with a grain of salt.
The way the Cybertruck can safely tow a load that’s higher than its rated maximum towing weight is if the trailer has its own batteries and its own electric motor(s). There would, of course, have to be coordination. The trailer would have to respond to the truck driver’s control input, but that’s not difficult to arrange. If the trailer had batteries and motor(s), the range between recharges would not be degraded by towing. If the trailer could be recharged separately from the Cybertruck by a second Supercharger stall, then the length of time to recharge wouldn’t be prolonged.
Now let’s talk about what the trailer could include. I looked up the weight of a standard 30-foot travel trailer. The weight averages around 5,800 pounds. So that leaves plenty of room for amenities. The trailer could expand, for example. It could expand upward when parked, or sideways. Lots of travel trailers do that. So instead of being 30 feet by 8 feet, it could be twice that. Perhaps it could expand sideways on both sides, That would make it 30 feet by 24 feet.
Add to that interior room, an extra roof to cover an outdoor patio, another 8 feet by 30 feet. Cover all that roof with solar panels, and you’d have lots of electricity while you were at the campground. Excess solar electricity created in the daytime would be stored in the trailer’s batteries at night.
Then there are other amenities. In addition to the normal water tanks for drinking, bathing, and other cleansing purposes, there could be a hot tub for two. That would hold 150 gallons of water, 600 pounds. Tesla is good at making heat pumps. Heat pumps can be used to heat or cool the trailer depending on the outside air temperature. If the trailer is parked near a stream or a lake, the heat pump might be able to exchange heat or cooling with the body of water if that would be more energy-efficient than exchanging heat or cooling with the outside air.
While traveling, there should be enough outside video cameras so that the driver would not have blind spots next to or behind the trailer. These should sync with the Cybertruck’s display screen.
The Ford F-150 Lightning has a helpful feature for hooking up the truck to a trailer. The driver first cranks up the trailer’s hitch to the proper height. Then he drives the truck to the front of the trailer so he can see the trailer hitch in the rear camera display. At that point, the truck itself backs up until the truck’s trailer hitch is properly aligned with the trailer’s hitch receptacle. Tesla should do that for the Cybertruck in a software update.
Finally, there should be Internet access via Starlink.
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Tesla appears to be preparing to expand its Robotaxi geofence in Austin, Texas, with numerous engineering vehicles taking to the road. One of the most interesting sights, between the short and tall LiDAR rigs, was a Cybertruck validation vehicle, which we don’t often see.
Tesla’s expansion is moving the Robotaxi Network into downtown Austin, a dense urban environment that is currently outside the geofence. It appears Tesla is content with the latest builds of Robotaxi FSD and is ready to take on urban traffic.
The inclusion of a Cybertruck in the validation fleet is noteworthy, as the rest of the vehicles are Model Ys. This suggests that Tesla may be addressing two challenges simultaneously: expanding its service area while also addressing the FSD gap between the Cybertruck and other HW4 Tesla vehicles.
Tesla Validating Downtown Austin before expanding the Robotaxi geo-fence area. pic.twitter.com/ylFATtjcDi
Recent sightings have shown a fleet of Tesla vehicles, equipped with rooftop validation sensor rigs, running routes throughout downtown Austin and across the South Congress Bridge. While these rigs include LiDAR, it’s not a sign that Tesla is abandoning its vision-only approach.
Instead, Tesla uses the high-fidelity data from the LiDAR as a ground truth measurement to validate and improve the performance of its cameras. In short, it essentially uses the LiDAR measurements as the actual distances and then compares the distances determined in vision-only to the LiDAR measurements. This allows Tesla to tweak and improve its vision system without needing LiDAR.
This data collection in a new, complex environment right outside the Robotaxi geofence is an indicator that plans to expand the geofence. Tesla has previously indicated that they intend to roll out more vehicles and expand the geofence slowly. Given that their operational envelope includes the entire Austin Metro Area, we can expect more locations to open up gradually.
Once they expand the operational radius to include downtown Austin, they will likely also have to considerably increase the number of Robotaxis active in the fleet at any given time. Early-access riders are already saying that the wait time for a Robotaxi is too long, with them sometimes having to wait 15 minutes to be picked up.
With a larger service area, we expect Tesla to also increase the number of vehicles and the number of invited riders to try out the service.
After all, Tesla’s goal is to expand the Robotaxi Network to multiple cities within the United States by the end of 2025. Tesla has already been running an employees-only program in California, and we’ve seen validation vehicles as far away as Boston and New Jersey, on the other side of the country.
Cyber FSD Lagging Behind
One of the most significant details from these recent sightings is the presence of a Cybertruck. Cybertruck’s FSD builds have famously lagged behind the builds available on the rest of Tesla’s HW4 fleet. Key features that were expected never fully materialized for the Cybertruck, and the list of missing features is quite extensive.
Start FSD from Park
Improved Controller
Reverse on FSD
Actually Smart Summon
It may not look like a lot, but if you drive a Cybertruck on FSD and then hop in any of the rest of Tesla’s HW4 vehicles, you’ll notice a distinct difference. This is especially evident on highways, where the Cybertruck tends to drift out of the lane, often crossing over the lane markings.
Tesla was testing parts of Downtown Austin, TX with this Cybertruck which had a massive roof rack, and sensors.
We previously released an exclusive mentioning that a well-positioned internal source confirmed with us that a new FSD build for the Cybertruck was upcoming, but we never ended up receiving that particular build, only a point release to V13.2.9. The AI team’s focus had clearly shifted to getting the latest Robotaxi builds running and validated, and while a flagship, the Cybertruck fleet was small and new, and really a secondary task.
The Cybertruck’s larger size, steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, and different camera placements likely present a bigger set of challenges for FSD. Deploying it now as a validation vehicle in a complex environment like downtown Austin suggests that Tesla is finally gathering the specific data needed to bring the Cybertruck’s capabilities up to par. This focused effort is likely the necessary step to refine FSD’s handling of the Cybertruck before they begin rolling out new public builds.
When?
Once Tesla’s validation is complete, we can probably expect the Robotaxi Network to expand its borders for the first time in the coming days or weeks. However, we’ll likely see more signs of the expansion, such as Robotaxi vehicles driving themselves around the area, before the expansion actually happens.
Hopefully, the Cybertruck will also learn from its older siblings and receive the rest of its much-needed FSD features, alongside an FSD update for the entire fleet.
Tesla is rolling out a fairly big update for its iOS and early-access-only Robotaxi app, delivering a suite of improvements that address user feedback from the initial launch last month. The update improves the user experience with increased flexibility, more information, and overall design polish.
The most prominent feature in this update is that Tesla now allows you to adjust your pickup location. Once a Robotaxi arrives at your pickup location, you have 15 minutes to start the ride. The app will now display the remaining time your Robotaxi will wait for you, counting down from 15:00. The wait time is also shown in the iOS Live Activity if your phone is on the lock screen.
How Adjustable Pickups Work
We previously speculated that Tesla had predetermined pickup locations, as the pickup location wasn’t always where the user was. Now, with the ability to adjust the pickup location, we can clearly see that Tesla has specific locations where users can be picked up.
Rather than allowing users to drop a pin anywhere on the map, the new feature works by having the user drag the map to their desired area. The app then presents a list of nearby, predetermined locations to choose from. Once a user selects a spot from this curated list, they hit “Confirm.” The pickup site can also be changed while the vehicle is en route.
This specific implementation raises an interesting question: Why limit users to predetermined spots? The answer likely lies in how Tesla utilizes fleet data to improve its service.
Here is the new Tesla Robotaxi pickup location adjustment feature.
While the app is still only available on iOS through Apple’s TestFlight program, invited users can download and update the app.
Tesla included these release notes in update 25.7.0 of the Robotaxi app:
You can now adjust pickup location
Display the remaining wait time at pickup in the app and Live Activity
Design improvements
Bug fixes and stability improvements
Nic Cruz Patane
Why Predetermined Pick Up Spots?
The use of predetermined pickup points is less of a limitation and more of a feature. These curated locations are almost certainly spots that Tesla’s fleet data has identified as optimal and safe for an autonomous vehicle to perform a pickup or drop-off.
This suggests that Tesla is methodically “mapping” its service area not just for calibration and validation of FSD builds but also to help perform the first and last 50-foot interactions that are critical to a safe and smooth ride-hailing experience.
An optimal pickup point likely has several key characteristics identified by the fleet, including:
A safe and clear pull-away area away from traffic
Good visibility for cameras, free of obstructions
Easy entry and exit paths for an autonomous vehicle
This change to pick-up locations reveals how Tesla’s Robotaxi Network is more than just Unsupervised FSD. There are a lot of moving parts, many of which Tesla recently implemented, and others that likely still need to be implemented, such as automated charging.
Frequent Updates
This latest update delivers a much-needed feature for adjusting pickup locations, but it also gives us a view into exactly what Tesla is doing with all the data it is collecting with its validation vehicles rolling around Austin, alongside its Robotaxi fleet.
Tesla is quickly iterating on its app and presumably the vehicle’s software to build a reliable and predictable network, using data to perfect every aspect of the experience, from the moment you hail the ride to the moment you step out of the car.
![Tesla Updates Robotaxi App: Adds Adjustable Pick Up Locations, Shows Wait Time and More [VIDEO]](https://www.notateslaapp.com/img/containers/article_images/tesla-app/robotaxi-app/25-7-0/robotaxi-app-25.7.0.webp/4ac9ed40be870cfcf6e851fce21c43b9/robotaxi-app-25.7.0.jpg)
