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\n The Tesla Cybercab invasion is here, sort of.
\n Photo: Aaron E. Martinez\/The Austin American-Statesman\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Those stopping by Mt. Sinai\u2019s Chelsea medical center in late July may have stumbled upon a rare mechanical bird: a brassy gold Tesla Cybercab, parked<\/a> right across the street. It\u2019s not clear how long ago Tesla let its robotaxis loose on the city\u2019s streets or how many are currently cruising around the five boroughs, but for gear and Tesla heads, it\u2019s become something of a sport documenting their sightings along the Cross Island Expressway or stuck in midtown traffic, the latest signs of Elon Musk\u2019s promised<\/a>, Blade Runner\u2013esque future.<\/p>\n But if anyone is expecting to be shepherded around by one of these blingy two-seaters in the near term, they\u2019re going to get quite the letdown. While driverless Tesla Cybercabs have begun to zip around cities in Florida and Texas as part of autonomous robotaxi fleets that have no steering wheels, no brakes, and no side mirrors, a city Department of Transportation spokesman tells me that the Cybercabs here are testers equipped with a steering wheel as well as gas and brake pedals. (A Cybercab spotted<\/a> by Gothamist the other day did, in fact, have a steering wheel and a human sitting behind it.) This almost certainly has to do with the fact that state law requires a person to keep at least one hand on the steering wheel of any car on the road. But Missy Cummings, the director of George Mason University\u2019s robotics and automation center, thinks the test is likely a strategy to warm locals and lawmakers up to the fully driverless design. \u201cTesla first brings the safety-driven ones there to acclimate everyone, and then they hope to bring in the other ones,\u201d she says. Which, on some of the most congested and chaotic streets in the country, could create some pretty serious headaches. \u201cThis is a nightmare for first responders,\u201d she says, explaining that without the controls, they\u2019d have no way of clearing them in an emergency.\u00a0\u201cWhy would you let that on your city streets?\u201d (There does appear to be some kind of hidden panel in the car that allows humans to honk, steer, and reverse, but for at least one test driver those controls weren\u2019t fully working<\/a>.) Tesla also is currently under investigation<\/a> over whether the Cybercab\u2019s lack of a steering wheel or brake pedals violates federal safety regulations.<\/p>\n The bigger question is how the Cybercabs were quietly loosed on city streets, even with their human controls. When Alphabet wanted to test its autonomous Waymo<\/a> Jaguars in Manhattan and Brooklyn, it had to get permits<\/a> from the city and state. (Those permits, meanwhile, lapsed this spring<\/a>, and Waymo has had to wait for their renewal.) Tesla, meanwhile, has avoided dealing with any of the red tape because, as the company has<\/a> claimed, its Cybercabs aren\u2019t anywhere close to operating without a human in the driver\u2019s seat. The city DOT spokesman tells me the\u00a0Cybercabs that people have spotted in recent weeks are currently operating with an \u201cadvanced driver assistance system\u201d that may hand off control to a human driver out of the blue (which is what Tesla cars already seem to offer: a suite of self-driving features that can be overridden by a human). Elsewhere, however, the company is offering its Cybercabs to consumers<\/a> as a driverless chauffeur service that can be hailed with an app, an experience that, at least according to one reviewer, was close to being driven around by a \u201cslightly stoned teenager.\u201d Tesla is also opening up fleet sales<\/a> to those interested in running their own robotaxi companies.<\/p>\n Matt Wansley, a law professor at Cardozo focusing on AI and automated driving regulation, says being cryptic about how autonomous its vehicles actually are\u00a0is part of Tesla\u2019s usual playbook. The company markets itself to consumers as being on the cusp of a fully automated driving system, but with regulators, it hedges with a more conservative description of its technology as a mere \u201cdriver-assistance system.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s clear that the intent of Tesla is to build an automated driving system,\u201d Wansley says. \u201cThey just don\u2019t want to say that because it would trigger all these regulatory requirements that they don\u2019t want to deal with.\u201d What Tesla is getting for now, with its stealth pilot, is perhaps the most valuable: data about New York City\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Curbed Newsletter<\/p>\n A daily mix of stories about cities, city life, and our always evolving neighborhoods and skylines.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n