The Cybercab of Tesla began to circulate through the streets of New York, although in a rather different version than the one imagined by Elon Musk. The autonomous taxis designed to move without driver have been sighted in the last weeks in Manhattan and Brooklyn, but with a person sitting in the driver’s seat and a steering wheel in front.
Their presence was confirmed by the New York City Department of Transportation in Gothamist, who photographed one of the vehicles on Fulton Street, Lower Manhattan, while another was seen at the end of August at the entrance of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Both had the characteristic sand body shop of Cybercab, without side mirrors, Texas plates and the logo on the front.
Tesla has just begun to use the fully autonomous version of Cybercab in the United States, a two-seat vehicle designed without steering wheel, pedals and rearview mirrors. In New York, however, the rules are different.
The Department of Transportation program for autonomous vehicles provides that companies interested in experimenting with this technology on city roads get an authorization from the State Department of Motor Vehicles and subsequently a specific permit from the DOT. During the tests there must also be an operator on board ready to take control of the vehicle.
Tesla, at least for now, did not follow this procedure. The Department of Motor Vehicles of the State of New York confirmed in Gothamist that the company did not submit a request to obtain a permit for experimentation of autonomous vehicles.
This explains why the Cybercabs spotted in the city are not working as a robotaxi. According to the DOT, Tesla is experimenting with a “supervised” driving system: the car can independently perform several operations, but the driver must remain in the driving position and be able to intervene.
It is the same distinction that Tesla makes for his Full Self-Driving (Supervised). Despite the name, the company specifies in the manual that the system does not make the auto autonomous: who is behind the wheel must continue to control the road and be ready to intervene immediately. A camera in the cabin also checks that the driver remains attentive during use.
It is not yet clear how many Cybercab are circulating in New York or how long these tests will last. Tesla didn’t answer Gothamist’s request for clarification.
The problem is not only about authorizations to experiment with technology. Even if Tesla gets the necessary permits to test the autonomous driving, it could not yet use Cybercab as a taxi without a driver for a fee.
The rules of the Taxi and Limousine Commission do not currently allow to use autonomous vehicles for the city’s for-hire services. TLC Commissioner Midori Valdivia said that the agency is observing what is happening in other American cities, evaluating not only security but also effects on traffic, emergency management and taxi drivers.
A New York has about 180,000 drivers working in the taxi and ride-hailing services sector, according to TLC. The arrival of robotaxi opens a question that goes beyond technology: if and when these vehicles can transport passengers without a person at the wheel, they will enter into one of the largest markets in the world for taxis and cars with driver.
New York has already begun to confront the problem through Waymo, the autonomous driving company controlled by Alphabet. In 2025 the city had granted her the first permit to test autonomous vehicles in Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, initially with a fleet limited to eight cars. Even in that case, however, a specialized operator had to remain always behind the wheel.
Waymo’s permission has expired and the company continued to collect data on the streets of New York without using autonomous driving functions. An attempt by Governor Kathy Hochul to open robotaxi trials in other parts of the state had also been resized in recent months.
The result is that while in some American cities driverless taxis are already a reality, in New York technology continues to be subjected to much more restrictive rules. The city defines its roads one of the most complex urban environments in which to experience an autonomous vehicle: intense traffic, pedestrians, bicycles, buses, road works and emergency means make the driving much less predictable than other contexts.
The Cybercabs that are appearing these days between Manhattan and Brooklyn also serve to understand how Tesla technology behaves in this environment. To see them really work as they were designed, however, it will serve something that today in New York does not exist: permission to remove the person from the driving place.
L’articolo Tesla robotaxis arrived in New York, but they still have someone behind the wheel proviene da IlNewyorkese.
