Elon Musk's latest invention mocked online after he calls it the 'future' of transport
If Elon Musk has a catchphrase, we can't help but feel he'd steal that one from Futurama, where the guy says, "Welcome to the world of tomorrow."
Things are evolving faster than we can keep track of in 2025, and when it comes to how we get about, transportation is no different.
Whether it be record-breaking maglev trains whisking us around, the idea of bringing back giant airships, or Elon Musk's Starship taking us into the cosmos, the days of gas-guzzling cars are well and truly behind us.
As part of this, Elon Musk continues to push the electric car industry, with Tesla being one of his biggest business ventures.
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Tesla has had a rocky 2025, mainly due to backlash against Musk's short-lived time in politics as part of the Department of Government Efficiency.
As well as protests, boycotts, troubles with shareholders, and lawsuits galore, he's also faced complaints that the long-awaited Roadster revamp is nowhere to be seen.
Musk is accused of trying to distract us by hyping us his Optimus robots and sparkly Tesla diners, but at least he managed to get the much-delayed Robotaxi off the ground.
While some think Tesla should focus on getting one thing right before moving on to the next, the tech billionaire is already looking ahead to the 'future' of autonomous vehicles.
Despite his critics, the richest man in the world has been compared to modern-day Leonardo da Vinci, with his own Grok even going on an awkward spree where it praised him as the greatest person who has ever lived.
As part of his futuristic vision, Musk is again hyping the Robovan. First announced as part of the "We, Robot" show in October 2024, the Robovan is an autonomous vehicle that's supposed to carry cargo or up to 20 passengers. Boasting a suitably futuristic design and due to run on the same Tesla Network as the Robotaxi, Musk promised: "We’re going to make this, and it’s going to look like that."
The gold colorway option seems pretty ostentatious in a time when people are more worried about money than ever before, but elsewhere, the design of the Robovan has been mocked as looking like a hybrid between the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Iron Man and a household toaster.
As Musk again shared a snap of the Robovan and said, "It's coming," naysayers couldn’t help but take aim at the Robovan.
One person chuckled: "Bro really built a Cybertruck that went to college and got a 9-to-5 😭🚐⚡️Looks like the vehicle NPCs drive in futuristic video games."
Another called out its apparent lack of ground clearance and added: "Only one thing can stop the future: speed bumps."
A third said: "It looks like a post WWII electric toaster, not the future."
The other big problem is that we don't know what to actually call it. In a September 2025 interview, Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen referred to it as the 'Robus' during the Bloomberg Hot Pursuit podcast. When co-host Matt Miller asked about the vehicle, von Holzhausen said: "I’m in the Robus, yes.”
He then later doubled down on the new name when asked if he was talking about the Robovan and concluded: "We showed this vehicle almost a year ago now, at our 10/10 event, which is really based around autonomy and the future of transport.”
Still, with the second-generation Roadster MIA and Robotaxi facing a slew of issues, some think it'll be the year 3000 before the Robovan is actually on our streets.