Tesla Cybercab without a steering wheel and pedals is out: a tech journalist takes the first ride

A car without a steering wheel and without pedals that takes you from point A to point B and leaves you with nothing to do — that’s exactly what Tesla promised for years, and on September 3, 2026 it finally put it on public roads. In Austin, Texas, it started operating the Cybercab, a two-seat robotaxi that has no driver control elements at all. And the first rides are already documented.

First public ride: “completely boring, just as it should be”

Analyst and YouTuber Sawyer Merritt took one of the historically first public rides in the Cybercab; he filmed the entire trip with reactions from inside the cabin. His assessment is interesting precisely because there’s so little drama: according to him, it’s “a completely boring ride—exactly the kind it should be.” And that’s arguably the best possible review for autonomous driving.

Merritt highlights above all the smoothness. The FSD system, he says, works even more smoothly in the Cybercab than in his own car—without hesitation and without jerking. He also praises the suspension: the vehicle doesn’t have air suspension, but standard springs, and still the retardation went through without jolts. Surprisingly, the cabin is quiet even without acoustic glass; all you hear is a louder car passing very close by.

Interior: a TV-like display and the most legroom of all Teslas

Cybercab is also the smallest Tesla that’s been built so far—and paradoxically it offers the most space for your legs. The seats form one bench that slides forward and back quite a bit and can be reclined; taller passengers can therefore make a lot of room for themselves. The centerpiece of the dashboard is the 22-inch display, which looks more like a TV hanging on a wall than an in-car screen.

Inside you’ll find two cup holders, USB-C connectors, ambient lighting all around, and Braille lettering on the door handle. You can control the climate, music, or temperature with your voice via the Grok assistant. The materials are essentially practical: what looks like fabric on camera is actually injected foam that’s easier to clean. Merritt’s video describes the result simply: it feels like a lounge, not a taxi.

There are also some minor caveats behind the praise. The seats lack side bolstering, and you can’t lift the front part of the seat cushion, so taller passengers don’t get supported thighs. On the other hand, that same flat shape makes getting in easier—and for a vehicle meant to carry anyone, including people with limited mobility, that makes sense.

Tech: no brake fluid and eight cameras

Cybercab is the first Tesla to brake using brake-by-wire—there isn’t even a drop of brake fluid anywhere in the entire car. It’s a major change that makes sense specifically for a no-pedals vehicle: if the brake isn’t controlled by a foot, there’s no reason to route an hydraulic circuit through the car. Fewer fluids also means less service, which matters more for a fleet driving all day than it does for a private car.

For orientation in the surroundings, it uses eight exterior cameras and one cabin camera that is visibly larger than the one in today’s production series models. Tesla sticks to a purely camera-based approach, meaning no lidar—and that’s the biggest technological difference versus the competition. By the way, the display doesn’t show which version of the autonomous mode is running; it only says “self-driving,” and there’s a single button to stop at the roadside.

Why this made the stock market go crazy

The economic side of the Cybercab is just as interesting as the technical one. According to FTNews, the estimated production cost of one Cybercab comes to around $18,000, while competing companies pay more than $100,000 for a single autonomous vehicle. In a robotaxi service, where money is made based on the number of kilometers driven, that is the difference between a business and an expensive experiment.

The market reacted immediately: on the day of the launch, Tesla shares jumped by 5.42% to $376.37, and the company’s market value reached $1.4 trillion. By Wednesday evening, Tesla had 45 Cybercabs registered in Texas, and in total it was operating 420 autonomous vehicles there. Serial production started in April 2026, so the fleet has plenty of room to grow.

In Slovakia, you can’t order a ride like this yet—and it won’t be soon. Tesla has only approved FSD Supervised in Europe, meaning a Level 2 assistant that requires constant driver supervision—and so far it’s available in five countries (the Netherlands, Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, and Belgium), which Slovakia isn’t among. The Cybercab is several levels ahead: a car with no steering wheel and no pedals is a completely different category for European approval, and no one is rushing to open that door yet.

What that means

For now, the Cybercab only drives in a limited area in Austin, and it’s more the beginning of the story than its climax. What’s interesting, though, is that, according to Merritt, even pedestrians in the streets no longer pay attention to it—those autonomous Teslas have been driving there for weeks, and people have gotten used to them. That everyday familiarity is probably the most accurate prediction of what autonomous transport will look like once it eventually comes to us too.

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