Tesla Cybercab doesn’t have any manual controls — but it does have a virtual joystick
The Verge Andrew J. Hawkins ● Covered by 2 sources
Rumor — unconfirmed reporting.
Tesla’s Cybercab has no wheel or pedals, but riders found a hidden virtual joystick. It looks like a back door for employees in a car sold as fully driverless.
Based on reporting by The Verge, Andrew J. Hawkins — read the original for the full story.
Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error
Tesla built the Cybercab around absence. No steering wheel. No pedals. No obvious way for a rider to take over by hand. That was the point, at least on the surface.
But less than a week after the Cybercab launched in Austin, Texas, some passengers spotted something else. In at least two videos posted on X, riders ran into what looks like a secret manual control meant for Tesla employees, not customers.
The control shows up as a square-shaped screen in the lower left corner of the main display, with a toggle in the middle for manual driving. It’s not a wheel hidden under a flap or some bulky emergency lever. It’s a virtual joystick, sitting inside the interface.
That detail changes the feel of the whole vehicle. Tesla has been presenting the Cybercab as something that cannot be manually driven. The discovery suggests there is at least some internal way to move it by hand, even if only for staff use. For a car sold on the promise of no human control, that’s a pretty revealing little panel.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is exactly the sort of thing Tesla does: sell the mythology first, then quietly keep the escape hatch for itself. A driverless car with a secret manual mode is not shocking; pretending the secret won’t matter is the real trick.
Read more about this at: The Verge
