Elon Musk Unveils Autonomous Taxi Lacking Steering Wheel And Driving Pedals

Elon Musk sent dozens of self-driving Cybercabs without steering wheels or brake pedals onto the streets of Austin, Texas, on Thursday, betting that Americans will overcome their fears of rides with "no control" and hop inside. The rollout of the gold-colored Teslas, which give passengers no way to take manual control in an emergency, marks a significant milestone for the company as it prepares to expand the service to other cities. Tesla shares, which have suffered amid a broader slump in vehicle sales, rose more than 5 percent on Thursday amid investor optimism that the futuristic-looking taxis will gain traction quickly with the public.

Ahead of the launch, Tesla teased the moment on social media platform X with the phrase "No steering wheel, no pedals." Musk followed with a post depicting a giant Cybercab floating above the Austin skyline, later writing, "A Storm of Cybercabs," in reference to the scale of the rollout. An invitation-only launch event was held later Thursday, with attendees including selected Robotaxi riders and sweepstakes winners. Tesla subsequently confirmed that Cybercab rides were officially opened to the public in Austin following the event, with attendees able to hail a Cybercab to destinations within the company's designated service area.

It remains unclear how quickly Musk intends to scale up the Cybercab service more broadly, though the pressure to move fast is significant. Tesla currently trails self-driving taxi leader Waymo in both the number of vehicles deployed and total trips completed. To close that gap, the company must demonstrate that its camera-only autonomous system can safely navigate city streets and avoid pedestrians without the additional sensor technology used by competitors. Rivals such as Waymo and Amazon's Zoox supplement their camera systems with radar and lidar, a laser-based sensing technology that provides an additional layer of environmental detection.

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Beyond the technical challenge, Tesla also faces the task of winning over a still-skeptical public. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found that seven in ten U.S. adults said they were "not too" or "not at all" comfortable riding in a driverless car, with only a small share expressing strong comfort with the concept.

According to the survey, just 16 percent of respondents said they would be "somewhat" comfortable riding in a driverless vehicle, while a mere 7 percent said they would be "extremely" or "very" comfortable doing so. Austin has had a self-driving Tesla "robotaxi" service since June of last year, though those vehicles have been equipped with steering wheels and brake pedals, initially operating with human safety drivers on board who could take over in the event of a problem.

That service has since expanded to five additional cities across Texas and Florida. Tesla currently operates more than 200 "unsupervised" robotaxis across these markets, according to the monitoring service RobotaxiTracker, a figure that remains far smaller than Waymo's fleet of more than 4,000 such vehicles operating across 14 cities. State records show Tesla had registered 420 autonomous vehicles in Texas as of Wednesday evening, including 45 Cybercabs specifically, according to Reuters reporting.

As Tesla moves to expand the Cybercab's presence on public roads, the coming weeks are likely to serve as an early test of both the technology's reliability and the public's willingness to embrace a vehicle that offers no manual means of intervention in the event of an emergency.

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