In an interesting new aerial drone video coverage of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas — the company’s Cybercab robotaxi prototype was spotted what looked like a steering wheel.
Giga Texas local observer Joe Tegtmeyer was on his routine drone coverage of the factory on Monday when he saw another instance of the Cybercab testing. Tesla was running the robotaxi on the test track of Giga Texas to collect autonomous driving data from the vehicle.
Tesla started testing the Cybercab on this test track in November last year. However, this time it was different as Tesla’s robotaxi prototype apparently had a steering wheel installed.
A Tesla enthusiast account on X posted a close-up of the above picture focusing on the windshield of the Cybercab. This photo (below), shows what looks like a steering wheel. However, no person can be seen behind the wheel driving the car.
The following photo of the Tesla Cybercab prototype has become a topic of discussion as some users argue that this is not a steering wheel but a seat belt randomly left behind by the occupant (let us know what you think in the comments box below).
Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen in his Cybercab presentation at the Petersen Museum said that this vehicle will never have a steering wheel as it’s focused on autonomy.
However, vehicle teardown expert and Tesla influencer Sandy Munro has a firm belief that the Cybercab is actually Tesla’s next-gen affordable car. The smaller sub-$30K Tesla vehicle is also called Model 2 or Model Q.
In a podcast last year (listen below), Sandy Munro said that the Cybercab vehicle needs a steering wheel to be declared the compact and most affordable Tesla Model 2 electric car.
According to Munro, Tesla (TSLA) is going to use the Cybercab robotaxi vehicle platform for the next-gen Model 2/Q car. It just needs a steering wheel and the acceleration + brake pedals to become a Model 2.
Since the design R&D, engineering, and software of the vehicle is already in place, it will be a smooth transition for Tesla to launch the Model 2 vehicle.
In my opinion, the Model Q or Model 2, a smaller compact and cheaper Tesla EV will be up for sale even before the Robotaxi. The reason behind this is that this vehicle will not need a ton of regulatory approvals like the fully autonomous steering-less Cybercab robotaxi and there is still a few years before Tesla’s Autopilot Full Self-Driving (FSD) reaches Level 5 autonomy.
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