How would it feel to ride in a brand new Tesla vehicle that requires no real driver, no steering wheel, and no gas or brake pedals?
A vehicle like this one sounds much more like a literal rollercoaster than a luxury vehicle. And one might infer that it couldn’t be just a harmless joyride in one of these cabs when you’re on the road with real vehicles and drivers.
Who Created the Cybercab
Elon Musk and the electric car company Tesla officially made their 2019 design idea a reality. By late February of 2026, his unique vehicle rolled off sketch sheets and onto real test tracks at Gigafactory Texas, located in Austin, Texas.
And in the midst of public sightings of the new car at the factory, Elon guaranteed that official model production would start in April. He mentioned that the Tesla Cybercab, otherwise known as the Robotaxi, would be sold at a price of $30,000. And likely it would be fully autonomous, meaning that the car could function entirely independent of human supervision.
But for a vehicle that’s supposed to be completely autonomous, one might question how safe the luxury vehicle is to drive in.
A Minimalistic Design With Minimal Safety
Alongside Elon’s popular 2023 Cybertruck, the Cybercab’s futuristic design makes it differ greatly from most other cars at just a first glance.
It’s got a gold-toned exterior, a full-width LED light bar headlight, and two butterfly doors. The interior is a two-seater lounge-style cabin with one big touchscreen on the center dashboard. Finally, it includes a built-in self-driving software that doesn’t rely on human operation for driving it at all.
But because the Cybercab excludes every traditional feature included on other cars, like the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals, and rearview mirrors, passengers shouldn’t get too comfortable. Since these are all added to cars not for luxurious experiences, but for the driver’s safety on the road.
And ultimately, the design shifts much farther towards minimalism, as the designer intended to create a vehicle that provides comfort and entertainment for consumers. But it overall lacks many safety features that even other vehicles with self-driving features include. So is it ready to be sold at dealerships for personal ownership?
Why Else is the Cybercab Design Dangerous
Earlier this year, on February 18th, journalist Alex Barrientos emphasized in his article, “Tesla’s Cybercab Enters Production (With Unfinished Self-Driving Tech)”, how the vehicle’s software is not only completely run by AI, but is unfinished, and not yet ready to fully operate while unsupervised, despite Elon’s plans to release it as fully autonomous.
He mentioned how the Cybercab relies entirely on a vision-based system run by AI, or artificial intelligence. Meaning it has absolutely zero backup human controls.
“Tesla chair Robyn Denholm reportedly suggested including a steering wheel in the Cybercab design, but Elon Musk overruled the recommendation,” said Barrientos.
So, in short, drivers must rely solely on the AI software to navigate them safely on the road.
“I would feel very unsafe in that sort of situation,” emphasized Lauren Martinez (12), “you have no way to stop the car if it is solely powered by AI.” She raised concerns about the complete lack of accident prevention due to having no control over the vehicle. “I would potentially put myself and others in compromise of safety on the road.”
And overall, artificial intelligence and self-driving vehicles shouldn’t operate together unless human controls are involved. Because it isn’t always guaranteed that autonomous software will navigate passengers safely to their destination on its own.
The SAE Levels of Driving Automation
When vehicles include advanced systems with ‘hands-free’ or self-driving modes, they usually operate at one of 6 levels of vehicle automation.
The 6 levels defined by SAE, or the Society of Automotive Engineers, start at level 0 and progress to level 5. Level 0 being No Driving Automation, level 1 being Driver Assistance, level 2 being Partial Driving Automation, level 3 being Conditional Driving Automation, level 4 being High Driving Automation, and level 5 being Full Driving Automation.
At 0, the human controls the vehicle and does all the driving, with only some automatic features, such as blind-spot warnings or emergency braking. At 1, there might be a single driver support system, like steering or acceleration. At 2, the vehicle can steer, accelerate, and brake on its own, with the driver still watching the road. At 3, the vehicle does the same, but the driver must be available to take over at any time. At 4, the vehicle can completely drive without human interaction, but is typically still supervised. At 5, the car can drive entirely independent of human controls and supervision; the passengers do not control the car in any way at this level.
A Successful, Safer Autonomous Car in Action
For popular vehicles like the Waymo robotaxi, a fully autonomous, Uber-like car service, its vehicles operate 24/7 at an SAE level of 4. Navigating California cities from Los Angeles to Santa Monica and Inglewood, the company collected data over the past 2 years that demonstrated its driving skills were incredibly safe and efficient.
On June 17th of 2025, Caroline Petrow-Cohen, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, wrote “Waymo Expands Service Area in Los Angeles and San Francisco” to inform people of how Waymo’s driverless vehicles were performing on the road. And it turns out they had 81% fewer airbag-deployment crashes, 78% fewer injury-causing crashes, and 62% fewer police-reported crashes than traditional vehicles taking similar routes.
And while Elon’s Tesla Cybertruck is set to operate at SAE levels 4-5 as well, the Waymo cars (by Google’s Parent Company, Alphabet Inc.) still operate much more safely for a wide variety of reasons.
All Waymo robotaxis include manual controls like the steering wheel, both gas and brake pedals, both rearview and sideview mirrors, and complete AI software. Their vehicles have other great features included in both the hardware and software. They have 360-degree sensors (for detecting pedestrians and traffic signs), cameras, weather radars, exterior audio receivers (for hearing emergency sirens), cleaning systems, and even interactive technology just for the passengers.
In the backseat is a touchscreen console that lets the passenger start or stop the ride, adjust the radio, view their route, and even call real human agents through the system for support.
And while CNBC reported in recent days that Waymo is beginning to recall thousands of robotaxis after a software flaw allowed the vehicles to drive through dangerously flooded roads, it reminds the public that self-driving cars will have glitches here and there. And autonomous cars may always be flawed in some areas, as their software is typically operated by artificial intelligence, a system that’s infamous for getting things wrong from time to time.
So while AI and vehicles can and have worked together very successfully, the duo can also become easily hazardous when malfunctions occur. And it emphasizes why vehicles traditionally operated by humans are much safer. But then again, when the right safety controls are in place and the driverless vehicle operates under human supervision, it can be made immediately safer for everyone involved: the driver, passengers, and pedestrians.
But given the glitches that even the safer, higher-functioning driverless vehicles have had, might it be a poor decision for Tesla to sell the level 5 Cybercab if it doesn’t contain even the basic safety features of a Waymo?
The Mechanical Malfunctions of Musk’s Models
Throughout Elon Musk’s 17 total years as CEO, he helped Tesla release the 1st generation Roadster of 2008, the Model S in 2012, the Model X in 2015, the Model 3 in 2017, the Model Y in 2020, the Semi in 2022, the Cybertruck in 2023, and the $30,000 Cybercab in 2026. The Cybercab will be the eighth major Tesla vehicle that he heavily contributed to the making of, but how have some of Tesla’s previous self-driving vehicles performed on the road?
These are just some of the many creations that contributed to the company’s success, but there have also been multiple instances in which Tesla’s vehicles have been involved in accidents and even fatalities that weren’t the driver’s fault.
On December 26, 2025, Journalist Elijah Nicholson-Messmer wrote “At Least 15 People Have Died in Tesla Crashes Due to Faulty Electric Doors” to warn the public of the frequent and dangerous door malfunctions Tesla drivers have experienced. Messmer shared that “According to a new Bloomberg investigation, at least 15 people have died in Tesla crashes since 2012 after doors failed to open on impact. In some fatal cases, occupants have also been trapped inside vehicles that caught on fire”.
In a dozen other incidents, even emergency responders were unable to open the doors of crashed Teslas that caught fire. And in total, 15 deaths were identified as being tied to the contributing factor that Tesla’s doors were inoperable.
He emphasized how the root cause of this is the 12-volt, battery-operated electronic door handles Tesla contains. In serious collisions, the battery can easily get damaged and even lose power, stopping its function entirely, even if the door itself isn’t damaged.
And finally, he mentioned that although electronic door handles and similar accidents are not unique to Tesla vehicles. But the company still accounts for the largest number of consumer complaints about the door’s glitches after an impact crash.
A Deadly Overreliance On Autopilot
Most of Tesla’s cars have Tesla Autopilot ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System), which is at automation level 2 for Partial Driving. Meaning that the vehicle can control steering, accelerating, and braking all on its own. All, except the driver, were remaining present and ready to take over the wheel when necessary.
Leading up to 2025, tesladeaths.com had documented 65 total fatalities tied to the Tesla Autopilot feature alone. And Elon has responded to fatal Autopilot-related incidents in a manner that implies that it’s the driver’s fault for either being distracted or for misusing the Autopilot feature. NBC News further elaborated on the common autopilot disclaimer back on July 7th, 2016, when they wrote ‘Tesla has said that drivers should keep their hands on the wheel, even while the car is partially controlling its own movements.’ in their article “Tesla Ramps Up War of Words Over Fatal Autopilot Crash”.
For a May 7th 2016, Florida highway crash, occurring in a Model S vehicle, it turned out to be that the person who was driving was watching a film with Autopilot enabled instead of paying attention to the road, according to witnesses, as mentioned in Tess Townsend’s “Elon Musk: Tesla’s Death ‘Not of Material Value’ to Shareholders”.
In more recent instances, like on May 17th, 2022, in Mission Viejo, California, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a driver in a Tesla Model 3, who later on was confirmed to be using Autopilot mode during the time of the accident.
A similar incident occurred in Walnut Creek, California, on February 18th of, 2023. The driver of a 2014 Tesla Model S crashed into a parked Contra Costa County firetruck, which ended fatally for him and injured four firefighters. Tesla had confirmed a month after the incident that the driver was using Autopilot.
Altogether, it is still the driver’s main responsibility to pay attention to the road, whether Autopilot is on or not, and it further emphasizes the tendency to overtrust the capabilities of the vehicle they’re driving.
This is one main way these accidents have occurred.
But these accidents also highlight why an AI-only system shouldn’t take full control of an autonomous vehicle like the Cybercab, as it might only result in more accidents. Even if the driver is paying attention, they won’t be able to control the vehicle if an accident is about to occur.
A fully autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals suggests that it’s safe for the driver to rely on the built-in system to drive. And although the car is designed for higher levels of automation, expected to operate at level 5 (Full Driving Automation), it has unfinished AI software and no human controls if a malfunction were to occur or if an accident were about to happen. These flaws only set the company up for more incidents they will have to respond to.
Only this time, Tesla would take a greater fault for their car design, lacking the safety features that could have prevented it.
What About The AI is Unfinished
While prototypes of the cab roll onto testing grounds in places like Texas, California, and New York, the official version continues to rely on older AI4 software for driving rather than the delayed AI5 chip it really requires.
AI4 is a 4.0 hardware that many Teslas have been using for the past three years, which offers their vehicles basic sensors and self-driving controls.
But AI5 is a much more advanced version of this hardware, and it’s supposed to be delayed until at least mid-2027 due to supply reasons.
So, really, the Cybercab should be available for purchase once the newer hardware can be installed in the vehicles. But Tesla delayed it and is sending out their new car regardless of the risks.
Barrientos’ article from previous sections also mentioned Tesla’s track record of delaying safety hardware features for its vehicles. In 2021, Tesla went through with the removal of radar sensors, which then led to performance issues in their cars. The following year, ultrasonic sensors were removed, which then diluted previous parking features. And by 2023, they introduced the yoke-only steering wheel and removed the Model 3 signal stalks that would later return in 2025.
Why An Unfinished AI Doesn’t Belong ‘Behind the Wheel’ With Full Control
It’s a huge problem when artificial intelligence is given big tasks meant for human effort and completion. Especially for generative AI, numerous AI bots such as ChatGPT have been linked to major flaws, including the sharing of misinformation, harmful, and biased content.
Tesla’s Cybercab uses an AI system that’s supposed to mimic human sight and have ‘pure vision’. But almost the entirety of both AI overdependency and the camera-based approach to self-driving technologies has led to too many tragedies.
As AI continues to take over human jobs in the modern day, it’s also become a tool to the advantage of billion-dollar companies, helping them make their vehicles more unique and appealing.
But there is absolutely nothing appealing about being the passenger of a complex vehicle controlled by insufficient software that’s bound to malfunction.
The Better Route To Take 
Finally, from choosing your new car at the dealership to testing those new features on the road, it’s important to acknowledge all the potential dangers of the vehicle you’ll be driving.
It doesn’t mean you should avoid certain car companies, but it means educating yourself about what you’re buying to ensure the driving experience is safe.
