Tesla Cybercab Has Hidden On-Screen Joystick for Manual Driving — SkimNews
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- Matthew Skrzypczak posted a video on X on September 7 showing a Cybercab touchscreen split into a driving interface with an on-screen joystick and a live surround-camera view, writing he had 'a feeling I wasn't supposed to see this'
- Tesla built the Cybercab with no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors, and the virtual joystick appears to serve as the workaround for manually repositioning the car in depots or tight spots — a mode Tesla has never publicly shown
- NHTSA opened an audit on September 3, the same day Tesla launched the Cybercab in Austin, examining whether Tesla was justified in deciding certain federal safety standards don't apply to a driverless car; the probe covers roughly 1,000 vehicles
- Robin Denholm, Tesla's chair, said in October that the Cybercab could get real physical controls if regulators required them: 'If we have to have a steering wheel, it can have a steering wheel and pedals'
- Cybercab prototypes during the test phase were equipped with steering wheels and pedals, and Tesla's robotaxi service has already run for more than a year using Model Ys with the same autonomous hardware and software
- Electrek editorialized that a touchscreen joystick is 'not a serious answer to the question regulators are actually asking, which is what happens when a driverless car needs a human and there's no real way for one to take over'
Why it matters: Tesla's central pitch is that the Cybercab doesn't need manual controls because autonomy makes them obsolete — yet a hidden touchscreen joystick exists for exactly the manual interventions regulators are worried about. The NHTSA audit, covering ~1,000 vehicles, is asking how Tesla legally certified a car with no wheel, pedals, or mirrors, and Denholm's October concession that physical controls could be added suggests Tesla itself anticipates a possible regulatory demand it isn't ready to meet publicly.
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