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Tesla Launches Steering-Wheel-Free Cybercab Robotaxi In Austin (businessinsider.com) 153

Tesla has begun offering public rides in Austin in its purpose-built Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals. "You can go outside, take rides," said Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's VP of AI. "Anyone can take rides. It's open to the entire public." Previously, the fleet consisted only of Model Ys.

Texas records show Tesla had registered 45 Cybercabs as of Thursday, though the company has not disclosed how many are currently carrying passengers. Tesla also says it eventually wants consumers to be able to buy the vehicles for under $30,000. Business Insider reports: Videos posted online by Tesla influencers and content creators who were invited to the Austin event showed that the Cybercab can be hailed through the Robotaxi app. In a video posted by David Moss, an autonomous-vehicle content creator, Robotaxi users could open the car's butterfly doors through the app. After the riders enter the car, the doors closed automatically, Moss said in the video. The launch comes nearly two years after Tesla first unveiled the Cybercab at its "We, Robot" event in Burbank, California.
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Tesla Launches Steering-Wheel-Free Cybercab Robotaxi In Austin

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Well, that's a fairly significant step to 1 million on the roads by 2021.

    Great jorb, Elona, you don't mince those words.

    • by T34L ( 10503334 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @03:30AM (#66322506)
      I don't see why'd it make sense to make many cybercabs because by 2016 all Tesla cars will be self driving and you'll be able to just send your own Tesla to run cab overnight and just make you money passively.
      • ...on Mars
        • That's a pretty small chocolate bar to parallel park a car on!
      • by shmlco ( 594907 )

        ".... and you'll be able to just send your own Tesla to run cab overnight..."

        Yep, be great to earn dollars from all of those people who need to be out and about at 2 AM...

        • You'd be surprise to know how many riders there are throughout the night
          • by shmlco ( 594907 )

            Not enough to make up for waking up in the morning to go to work, only to find out some drunk puked in your front seat.

            Or the used condoms in the back.

        • ".... and you'll be able to just send your own Tesla to run cab overnight..."

          Yep, be great to earn dollars from all of those people who need to be out and about at 2 AM...

          You could also tell it to just circle and wait for you if it can't find a parking spot. When cars can drive themselves there will be more not-particularly-good reasons for them to be out there doing their own thing than you can shake a stick at.

      • Trying to propagate the humor without the vacuous brain fart, but can't figure out how to work cabs or taxis or even robocars/robocabs into a more appropriate Subject...

        However I actually had a more serious reaction to the joke because it wouldn't make much economic sense to only send your car out at night. Too much competition. Much more reasonable to adjust your own travel schedule to off-peak times and send your car out to make money because you don't need it at peak-demand times.

        However the "stink" refe

        • by shmlco ( 594907 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @03:55PM (#66323706) Homepage

          Musk picked Austin for Tesla’s robotaxi trials and rollouts primarily because the city serves as the home base for Tesla's corporate headquarters, and it offers close proximity to company engineers and executives overseeing the project.

          Also, Texas law does not permit individual cities to regulate or ban autonomous vehicles, so it's an AV friendly environment.

          Finally, other autonomous vehicle networks, such as Waymo, had already established testing footprints in Austin.

          So sorry, but I think your conspiracy theory is a bit short lived.... ;)

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Sure, mock him now, but you'll not be laughing when SpaceX sorts out the time machine that he had been secretly baking into his predictions all along.

  • Let me think (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @03:30AM (#66322504)
    Buy a car where there are no mechanical linkages from the 'passenger' to vehicle control systems: Everything is a touch-screen element totally at the mercy of a corporation. What could go wrong?
    • Not only that (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      On a more practical front - if there's an emergency how TF are emergency teams supposed to move the car out of the way or get it on the back of a tow truck easily if they can't fecking well steer it and the computer is dead?

      This is just yet more tech for its own sake. Musk needs to realise sci-fi is not a how-to manual, its entertainment.

      • by havana9 ( 101033 )
        I notmally ride a vechicle that is driverless. The first version was available in Lille, France in 1983 [youtube.com]. It was deemed so safe that when maiden ride was made by at the time President fo France, FranÃois Miiterand.
        These vehicles have a control panel hidden behind a locked panel, and a train driver with the correct key could open it and operate manually the vehicles. [www.ansa.it]. If there's a power failure, there's also a diesel powered locomotive that could be used to tow the train cars
        These safety measures a
        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Yes, we've had self driving commuter trains since '86 with close to zero problems. no controls that I'm aware of and no backup diesel besides buses.
          Of course it is a lot easier to have an automatic train, especially one with no at grade crossings then a vehicle in unpredictable traffic.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • Fear not! If something goes wrong you can just drive it with a Logitech wireless gamepad!

      • Fire and Police just need forklifts as part of standard equipment.

      • Though often it's also a warning, that could not be worded any more clearly.

        Musk and his ilk think it's aspirational.

      • During emergencies, Tesla staffs can drive the car remotely using the onboard cameras.
      • On a more practical front - if there's an emergency how TF are emergency teams supposed to move the car out of the way or get it on the back of a tow truck easily if they can't fecking well steer it and the computer is dead?

        One of those logging trucks with the giant claw?

    • Re:Let me think (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @05:19AM (#66322562)

      Buy a car where there are no mechanical linkages from the 'passenger' to vehicle control systems: Everything is a touch-screen element totally at the mercy of a corporation. What could go wrong?

      Anyone for what could go right? Like NOT being harmed or killed by yet another distracted driver drunk on 100-proof doomscrolling behind the wheel?

      Yeah. We do know what possibly could go wrong. But until we address what definitely goes wrong every day, put the fucking junkie in the backseat and let the machine drive. It’s a lot more sobering event. For all of us.

      Yes. This is the “answer” when you cater to grown-ass children as we now do. You coddled immaturity. Then they all grew up. In body only. Teenagers are immature to the point of not even wanting to learn how to drive, because responsibility is ick. That mentality simply did not exist last century unless you were born with a silver chauffeur in your drivers seat.

      Sadly, the You’ll Own Nothing auto-driving solution here is also a response to the $50,000 new car price and the $350/month insurance cost that will total that unitard chassis design the moment you get a fender bender. Negative Equity is the name of the fiscal prostitute hired by the stealership pimp to try and sling that shit as sexy now. Yeah. That bad.

      • Yes. This is the “answer” when you cater to grown-ass children as we now do. You coddled immaturity. Then they all grew up. In body only. Teenagers are immature to the point of not even wanting to learn how to drive, because responsibility is ick. That mentality simply did not exist last century unless you were born with a silver chauffeur in your drivers seat.

        What in the ever-loving fuck are you on about? Are you suggesting it's only this generation that does stupid shit and gets into accidents because they don't know how to drive or drive drunk? This is beyond "rose coloured glasses" and into territory that could be described as "outright blind".

        Fun fact, teenagers of every generation were immature shits, you too. And many of them across all generations never grew up.

    • Re: Let me think (Score:4, Interesting)

      by HnT ( 306652 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @06:41AM (#66322598)

      You do realize that nowadays in modern cars practically everything is drive-by-wire, chip and software, right? You are making suggestions on a bus and control units then decide what to actually do based on a lot of other factors and tuning.
      It would not be all that practical but you could easily steer these teslas with a gaming controller if you REALLY want to drive yourself but the idea for a market and a direction based on safety stats is clear: the mass of cars in the future will drive themselves, and the average Joe will not interfere with anything. Actually driving yourself could become a kind of luxury spare time or something for future boomers and their passion and enthusiasm for gas guzzlers.

      And these vehicles released into the wild in Austin are their R&D project to fine-tune things, for consumers and for actual taxis.

      • Re: Let me think (Score:5, Interesting)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday September 04, 2026 @06:59AM (#66322614) Homepage Journal

        You do realize that nowadays in modern cars practically everything is drive-by-wire, chip and software, right?

        There are almost zero exceptions to the only thing being solely drive-by-wire being the throttle. Literally the only production vehicle without steering linkage is the Cybercuck. Every other one uses a linkage with a normally locked electric clutch which is disengaged during normal operation but which fails closed so that you can still steer. Every single vehicle with brake by wire uses mechanical brakes with a spring and pedal sensor before the mechanical part to do the electronic braking. So no, that is patently false and if you think it's true then you don't understand vehicles, the argument, or both.

      • Re: Let me think (Score:5, Informative)

        by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @07:35AM (#66322654)

        You do realize that nowadays in modern cars practically everything is drive-by-wire, chip and software, right?

        Actually there's only 4 cars ever put in production with drive by wire steering. Cybertruck, the top trim of Mercedes EQS, Lexus RZ, and the Infinity Q50 (this one has a clutch override).

        Every car on the road not one of these has a direct mechanical connection between the wheel and the road. It includes power steering assist, and in cars which self drive the computer can apply force to the wheel, notable not a single one of those 4 cars can apply enough torque on the wheel to overpower even a small woman yanking on the steering wheel.

        The same kind of system applies to the brakes. You have a mechanical connection between breaks and wheels. ABS can apply a secondary force reduction that is limited in duration. But it's not braking by wire. The computer can also apply a separate breaking action not linked to the brake pedal.

        The only truly drive by wire system you have is the accelerator, and that's been true since the days of fuel injection.

        • The only truly drive by wire system you have is the accelerator, and that's been true since the days of fuel injection.

          Fuel injection in cars is from the 1950s. It was mechanical. Most throttles were cable operated even decades into the era of sequential fuel injection, though some vehicles went throttle by wire in the eighties like GM diesels with the 6.5 liter engine. So no and no.

          • Thanks for your autistic interpretation. The rest of the world realises we're talking about the era where fuel injection is electrically controlled by an ECU. Most cars sold even in the late 80s had carburated injection systems.

            But if you want to nit-pick at least be correct, fuel injection is from the late 1800s. Some of the earliest engines used in cars had direct fuel injection. Daimler mass produced and sold the first passenger vehicles in the 1930s with fuel injection.

      • And these vehicles released into the wild in Austin are their R&D project to fine-tune things, for consumers and for actual taxis.

        And these vehicles released into the wild in Austin are their R&D project to fine-tune things, for corporate overlords whose wet dreams are of a dystopian future in which they monitor and sometimes prescribe the movements of all 'average' citizens. FTFY.

        Feel free to tell me that I'm wildly exaggerating, so long as you provide a convincing argument. I'd really like to be wrong, but I think that level of control is where the world is heading.

        • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

          Feel free to tell me that I'm wildly exaggerating, so long as you provide a convincing argument.

          You're only slightly exaggerating. In reality, the corporate overlords dream of printing piles of money and becoming vastly richer than they already are; monitoring and controlling the 'average' citizen is mainly a means to that end, rather than an end unto itself. A citizen that depends on your product to conduct his life is a citizen from which money can be regularly extracted!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sethra ( 55187 )

      > What could go wrong?

      Insurance companies are offering discounts as much as 50% for every mile you drive in FSD on the Tesla 3. They wouldn't do that unless the actuarial tables are telling them it's significantly safer than when a human is in control.

      Can things go wrong? Always possible - this is the real world we're talking about. Do they go wrong more often with the average driver behind the wheel vs FSD? Yea, definitely does.

      Tesla FSD is safer.

      People generally feel less secure only because they a

      • Would those same insurance companies even cover a wreck that happened if the driver hopped in the back seat? That is what we are talking about, not a driver using autonomous features that they can instantly override at any time.

      • This is an interesting claim. I checked, and the main insurer offering this kind of discount for driving with Tesla FSD... is Tesla, who have an incredibly vested interest in pushing FSD, of course. Other claimed discounts appear to be theoretical, and rely on insurance that uses driving telemetry to assess premiums in combination with the assumption that FSD will be driving in a slow/chill manner, not on it being FSD.
        • by shmlco ( 594907 )

          `Which still brings an interesting question to light. If self-driving vehicles turn out to be dramatically safer, will insurance companies give reduced rates to them?

          Or to flip that around, charge "normal" drivers extravagant rates because they're costing them more money?

          • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

            Or to flip that around, charge "normal" drivers extravagant rates because they're costing them more money?

            If we assume there is meaningful competition between insurers, then any insurer that started charging "normal" drivers extravagant rates would start losing customers to its competitors who could easily undercut them on price. So the likely outcome would be that self-driving cars would get cheap insurance, and the rest of us would continue paying rates similar to what we pay now. In particular, the arrival of safe self-driving cars would presumably not result in human drivers having more accidents.

            OTOH if

    • Buy a car where there are no mechanical linkages from the 'passenger' to vehicle control systems: What could go wrong?

      Everything... except user error.

      That exception is pretty big.

  • Launches!
    As a limited demo product
    In the handful of areas Tesla self driving taxis have been approved for testing
    Later, after we start in Austin
    Elon Musk level launch!
  • by jonwil ( 467024 )

    Will it be cheaper to ride in a no-driver vehicle than in a regular old taxi or Uber? Because if it is (and the programming was such that I could put luggage or some other item on there and not have to worry about the vehicle disappearing with my stuff) I would absolutely want to use it when I need to move something too big for the bus or train.

    • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @04:00AM (#66322526)
      Nothing is ever going to be cheaper than the thing before it.
      • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @05:35AM (#66322572)

        Nothing is ever going to be cheaper than the thing before it.

        Go back 100 years and tell me how many 1926 dollars you would need to buy one of those newfangled automobiles. Think you’ll find millionaires bragging about how “cheap” they are?

        Go back 50 years and buy a personal computer. If you are important enough to sell it to, you’ll find out the price because you know what they say. If you gotta ask, it must be..cheaper?

        Do I dare ask a teenager to look at a cell phone bill from 25 years ago? Back when you paid per text message each way (incoming and outgoing), and charged per minute of talk time? Think per megabyte would be cheaper today? Just my landline long distance bill was over $100/month. That’s still cheaper than 90% of the internet plans that ultimately replaced it and much more.

        And people wonder why the newest generation, appears spoiled.

        • by quenda ( 644621 )

          Nothing is ever going to be cheaper than the thing before it.

          Go back 100 years and tell me how

          Eh? I thought the nutter must have been being ironic. You telling me he's actually just a moron? No!?

        • by Morromist ( 1207276 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @06:03AM (#66322582)

          In 1924 the average earnings were $1,303
          And the price of a model T (the most popular car model sold that year) was $290.

          Today the average salary is 70k
          the price of a new Ford F-150 (the most popular car model sold last year) is from 40k - 115k

          So no cars are not cheaper as you seem to suggest. Obviously they're better, but I don't think that was the discussion.

          To me the older generation is the spoiled generation. They've lived through one of the wealthiest eras in human history in the wealthiest country and their miserable, constantly complaining and demanding more and electing people who have been massively increasing the national deficit - which the old people will not have to pay off becaue they'll be dead.

          • To appear slightly fair, maybe you shouldn't compare a Model T to a fully loaded F-150? The Model T was an entry-level vehicle. The cheapest new vehicle today is the Hyundai Venue at $20k. And that's ignoring all the great-condition used vehicles you can get for $10k and above. And no we can't say people could have bought used vehicles in the 1920s, because used vehicles sucked.

            • I'm sure comparing a new car to getting someone's second hand handmedowns nowadays to make the math work is reaaaaaaalllllllly making your point that the previous generation didn't have it better off /s

            • This is all beside the point anyway. Yes there is a curve to the price of new technology, I'm not debating that. Imagine how much fire would cost before man controlled fire. My point us that once technology is matured, prices only go up.
              • by HiThere ( 15173 )

                Well, the argument about computers is wrong, too. Admittedly we're talking about S100 bus computers, I think the Apple was a bit later. I *could* have bought an S100 bus computer, but decided to wait a few years...and I was a very recent college grad.

          • In 1924 the average earnings were $1,303

            Do you know that purchasing power and cost are two different things right? Things are still cheaper than they were before. Also looking at average earnings varies widely by economic policy over many years. Average earnings are a poor reflection of population wealth especially as inequality has changed greatly over the years.

            You're right purchasing power is down for cars, but still know you're talking about a different thing and not refuting the parent's point in the slightest. Many things are much cheaper.

            • But the things that people need and thus cannot avoid spending money on has exceeded inflation 10x. Housing, rent, transportation, child care, food... Maybe buying power has gone up on paper but not for people who need to live in the real world.
  • by syntap ( 242090 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @06:17AM (#66322592)

    ... or, you can be a nerd on the News for Nerds site and look up the answer. Tesla has a lot of material on their site dedicated to first responders and Tesla vehicles.

    Robotaxi First Responder Interaction Plan -

    https://digitalassets.tesla.co... [tesla.com]

    Robotaxi Rescue Sheet -

    https://digitalassets.tesla.co... [tesla.com]

    Instructions on what to do whether or not the vehicle is powered.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      Fun fact, those documents apply to the Model Y, and does not answer the question about how the car gets manually moved because that question is still obvious because the car has a steering wheel.

      But even without that, they are expecting first responders to deal with 27 pages of material over their snowflake and also directs the first responder that they must call Tesla along with everything else.

    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      I'd bet that they can. [townnews.com]

    • I do not wish to defend Musk, but you are significantly devaluing emergency responders.

      Emergency responders are dedicated to doing what is needed to save lives.

      They will break a window, cut a seatbelt, use the jaws of life to pry doors off, etc. If they need the vehicle to physically move, they will push/pull it.

      Do not underestimate emergency responders.

  • by kackle ( 910159 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @08:54AM (#66322782)
    Steering-wheel-free? You mean with all of these tech geniuses involved not one could conceive of an out-of-band scenario where having a manual steering wheel would be a good, maybe life-saving, idea?
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @09:27AM (#66322850)
    They might be remote control cars like the waymos are piloted it from the Philippines. But muskrat typically just doesn't even give a rat's ass enough to do something like that. I would not be surprised if these things aren't just running with the same broken software that the rest of the Teslas run on and if that turns out to be the case several people are going to get killed before these are removed from the market.

    It will however pump the stock and muskrat is completely untouchable. The law just doesn't apply to him.
  • by gary s ( 5206985 ) on Friday September 04, 2026 @09:45AM (#66322894)
    Still waiting on that landmark case where a self driving car kills a bunch of people and tesla is up to is ass in lawsuits.
  • Make it make sense.

    • The average cab fair is overwhelmingly one person. If you want to include two people, according to google it is still 90 percent of rides.
      • by kwerle ( 39371 )

        And because cars are a certain size. Making it half the size for just one person would be nearly as expensive and would be worse for taxi'ing 2 people (which are still a reasonable number of fares).

  • In any kind of emergency, driverless vehicles cannot perform.
  • They were doing construction, unloading a truck in San Jose. It trapped a Wamo, but that's what we can expect from Driverless cars.
  • I hope you enjoyed the ride.

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