Early last month, Tesla unveiled the Cybercab, a 2 door vehicle with no steering wheel and pedals, fully reliant on the future of autonomy. Since then, they’ve put the vehicle on display at a couple Tesla showrooms, most recently at the Meatpacking District location in New York City. I went to go take a look, and I have a few thoughts.
Showroom restrictions
First things first, there’s a couple unfortunate limitations at the showroom. You can’t touch the vehicle, sit inside it, nor take a look at the trunk.
The first two are sort of understandable since they’re early vehicles, though even then it’s a little weird since these are the same vehicles they gave test drives in on unveil night. I don’t exactly understand why they won’t open the trunk, as it would’ve been nice to get a look at how much room it offered.
Cybercab impressions
Limitations aside, it was still really nice to get to take a look at the Cybercab. Despite sharing the same “cyber” branding as the Cybertruck, this is still a very sleek looking vehicle, and honestly one of my favorite designs from Tesla.
It’s definitely a smaller vehicle in person than you’d expect – you really need to see it in person to comprehend its size. A couple things stood out to me: legroom, display, and the color.
Though I wasn’t allowed to sit inside, the cabin seemed fairly spacious, despite the vehicles smaller size. Obviously, with it being a two seater without being a compact car, there’s a fair bit of space for additional legroom.
The display is also quite large, taking up a great portion of the dashboard. It’s not necessarily surprising, since in a theoretical world with autonomous driving, there’d be more of an opportunity to watch shows and movies while being driven to your destination.
The color is also gorgeous. It honestly suits this vehicle perfectly, and I’m not sure if it’d work as well on something like the Cybertruck or even the Model 3. It works perfectly here though, and it’s cool to see a unique color that most vehicles don’t offer.
Cool prototype, uncertain future
While it’s really cool to take a look at the Cybercab prototype, it’s still just that – a prototype. As it stands today, the Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, and Tesla seemingly has no plans of selling a version of the Cybercab that you can actually drive yourself.
Tesla does plan on selling this vehicle to consumers for potentially $30,000 – as soon as 2026, or rather, “before 2027.” That whole concept hinges on Full Self-Driving getting to a safe enough point where cars could be deployed en mass, without any easy way for riders to take over. Regulators would also have to be on board with it.
I do believe in Tesla’s ability to develop Full Self-Driving, but there’s also the simple fact that interventions would need to be near zero for a no-steering wheel vehicle to be safe. I just don’t think we’ll get there so soon. Even if we do, regulation is a big hurdle for Tesla to jump over – so I just can’t see Cybercab in its current form being on our streets before 2027.
On the optimistic side, Trump’s transition team has stated that they plan to make a framework for autonomous vehicles a priority in the upcoming administration. Maybe that’ll speed things up a little bit, if it comes to fruition. While on the same subject, the aforementioned $30,000 price tag for Cybercab might actually be after incentives, something that the Trump administration plans to swiftly kill off.
Gallery
With all that being said, here are the photos I took at Tesla Meatpacking District. I’d highly recommend going to see it yourself if you’re in the New York City area. We don’t know how long the Cybercab will be on display, so I’d go sooner rather than later if you can.
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