Cybercab (Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images)

It turns out Tesla’s Cybercab might need to have a steering wheel and pedals after all

Tesla’s Cybercab was supposed to be a steering-wheel-less alternative to its affordable mass market car.

10/29/25 9:24AM

When Tesla scrapped its plans for a low-cost consumer car, the company said that instead it would produce the low-cost Cybercab, an autonomous-only vehicle without a steering wheel and pedals meant for ride-hailing or personal use.

“I think having a regular $25,000 model is pointless,” CEO Elon Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call last October. “It would be silly, like it will be completely at odds with what we believe.” The vehicle was supposed to be available for ride-hailing this year and in “volume production” in 2026.

It looks like Tesla may be backtracking on those plans.

“If we have to have a steering wheel, it can have a steering wheel and pedals,” Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm told Bloomberg Tuesday.

Doing so would solve a number of problems for Tesla.

First off, it’s unclear whether Tesla’s technology is where it needs to be for cars to safely drive themselves without someone intervening. While Musk recently said the company now has “clarity” on achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, that’s not the same thing as rolling out unsupervised FSD to the public, which the company has long promised. Even the company’s robotaxis, which comprise about 30 Model Ys in a pilot program in Austin, still have a safety monitor in the passenger seat.

Then there’s also the thorny issue of getting approval for the driverless tech. Despite Musk’s lobbying efforts, regulators haven’t budged on certain safety standards, like requiring mass market cars to have steering wheels and pedals.

“The original Model Y was not going to have a steering wheel, or pedals,” Denholm told Bloomberg, saying the company has been here before. “If we can’t sell something because it needs something, then we’ll work with regulators to work out what we need to do.”

The release of the Cybercab could help solve issues with the company’s aging, relatively expensive lineup. Earlier this month, Tesla unveiled its “new” Model Ys and 3s, but they were mostly just lower-trim versions of existing Model Ys and 3s. Their lower prices had also been significantly undercut by the expiration of the government’s $7,500 EV tax credit. The Cybercab, which is supposed to cost around $25,000, would be both cheaper and newer than the company’s existing lineup.

Tesla hasn’t released a truly new model since the Cybertruck came out in 2023, and that has largely been a flop sales-wise. Tesla also generally offers far fewer options than competitors like BYD.

Jon Keegan23h

Judge blocks Pentagon’s move to blacklist Anthropic

A federal judge in Northern California has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic as a national security supply chain risk.

The ruling temporarily prevents the Defense Department from restricting the AI company’s access to federal contracts amid a dispute over its refusal to allow certain military and surveillance uses of its technology. The designation could also have shifted lucrative government work toward competitors, including OpenAI.

Earlier this month, Anthropic, the company behind Claude, sued 17 federal agencies and their heads, alleging the government exceeded its statutory authority.

Rani Molla24h

Report: SpaceX’s record IPO may grant preferential access to retail investors and Tesla shareholders

SpaceX’s impending IPO could raise $40 billion to $80 billion and rank as the largest ever — as well as one of the most unconventional.

The Wall Street Journal reports several ways CEO Elon Musk is considering breaking with IPO norms:

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Exclusive | The SpaceX IPO Will Be Just as Unconventional as Musk Himself

Investors in his other companies, including Tesla, could receive preferential access to shares.
Individual investors may get a third or more of the allocation, far above the typical ~10% mark.
Instead of a traditional road show, Musk wants investors to visit SpaceX facilities in person.

Rani Molla3/26/26

Tesla released estimates for Q1 deliveries and they’re lower than analysts expected

Ahead of first-quarter earnings next month, Tesla released its own company-compiled Wall Street consensus estimate for deliveries: 365,645 vehicles. While that’s lower than the 382,000 FactSet consensus estimate, it represents a nearly 9% jump from Q1 2025, when Tesla sold 336,681 vehicles.

Tesla started releasing its own consensus estimates to the public — not just institutional investors — for the first time in Q4 2025. The move was seen as a way to temper investor expectations, as other estimates were too high. Last quarter, Tesla’s compilation was closer to actual numbers, which fell 16% year over year.

The market-implied odds from event contracts suggest 64% of traders think Tesla’s Q1 deliveries will be more than 350,000, 44% think it will be higher than 360,000, and just 21% have it at higher than 370,000.

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

The toughest AI benchmark just got a whole lot tougher

ARC-AGI-3 is the latest version of a clever benchmark that challenges AI models to solve mini video games with no written instructions.

Jon Keegan3/26/26

Rani Molla3/26/26

The US leads the world in robotaxi deployments

Every day it seems another robotaxi launches somewhere in the world. But most of them are in the US.

Of the 171 active robotaxi deployments globally, 69 — or 40% — are in the US, according to a new report from the Bank of America Institute. China, the next largest market, accounts for 24% of deployments.

Most of those deployments are still in testing or early commercial stages. Only 10 US cities currently have fully commercial robotaxi operations, defined as services that operate on public roads, carry paying passengers, run fully driverless without a safety driver, and function all day in any weather.

For now, that effectively refers to Alphabet’s Waymo, which operates commercially in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio, and the San Francisco Bay Area. That definition excludes competitors like Tesla, whose Robotaxi service uses safety monitors, and Amazon’s Zoox, which has yet to charge customers for rides.