Tesla (TSLA) is one of those rare automakers that has its own crash testing facility at its Giga Texas and Fremont factories. Tesla calls them Crash Labs.
Yesterday, in a drone video coverage of Giga Texas, Tesla YouTuber Joe Tegtmeyer found multiple Cybercab robotaxi units that were put at the storage lot after crash tests (pics and video below).
Last week, Joe already reported on the possibility of crash testing of Cybercabs going on at Giga Texas. Yesterday, he found out the proof of this happening at the ultra-large Tesla car factory in Austin, Texas.
Aerial drone shot of a Giga Texas storage lot showing multiple Tesla Cybercab robotaxis post-crash safety testing. Credit: Joe Tegtmeyer / YouTube (video below).– Advertisement –
Cybercab crash tested examples at Giga Texas today, including one that has undergone a side impact showing the strength of the steel side frame & rear casting assembly & 15 other tested vehicles.
There are some interesting Model Y castings laid out on the E side of the main… pic.twitter.com/8h960KG372
As we can see in the drone photo above, Tesla usually keeps the crash-tested vehicles covered outside the crash testing facility at Giga Texas. However, these two Cybercabs remained uncovered to tell a story. It may be intentional to keep the hype for the smaller Tesla Cybercab vehicle platform.
One of the Cybercab prototypes has the number “PSFTY-7689” mentioned on it. This tag is likely specific to crash testing, as the Cybercab unit was tested for a side-impact crash.
The doors of this Cybercab prototype are missing, and the windshield is damaged as well. The Tesla Cybercab is still looking good from the occupant’s safety perspective in a t-bone accident. The pillar or impact object did not penetrate much into the vehicle.
The other prototype, which is half-covered, shows markings on the hood that suggest it was used in a frontal impact crash test. Crash safety testing of the Cybercab robotaxi is critical at this point, as Tesla aims to bring it to production in Q2 of 2026.
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Not just the Cybercab robotaxi vehicles are found at Giga Texas, the unibody Giga Castings of the Cybercab are also getting piled up at the factory. This makes perfect sense as the automaker is expanding Cybercab testing and going towards production next year.
These AI Supercluster data centers house hundreds of thousands of GPUs (Nvidia H100, H200, and Tesla AI5 in the future). These large clusters of GPUs are intended for video training of Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) & Optimus humanoid robot’s AI Vision.
Tesla has filed for multiple permits to set up advanced data center cooling and fire-mitigation systems at Cortex 2. This new data center is going to require massive energy to process Tesla FSD AI Vision neural network data.
Joe wrote in the description of his video, explaining this large cooling system:
To begin with, we now know the facility will be rated up to 200 MW of electrical power to run the datacenter, and this will require a substantial number of transformers and a chiller system, both of which are under construction currently and I expect to see further expansion as we move into 2026 and construction continues.
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In addition, we talk about the West Hall portion of the facility, which is where the bulk of the servers will be installed and operational. There are two protection systems permitted for this specific area, and these are for the NPVEC fire suppression system like HALON and specifically designed for computer systems and the VESDA (Very Early Smoke Detection Alarm) system that offers rapid fault detection.
Video: Tesla Giga Texas construction update. Cortex 2 data center construction and Cybercab crash testing prototypes, more.
Author of more than 1500 articles on Tesla, SpaceX, and EVs. His work has been liked and tweeted by Elon Musk and other prominent influencers. You can reach him on Twitter @IqtidarAlii
