Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Technology

Tesla’s Cybercab may have a steering wheel after all

Tesla’s board chair says the Cybercab may need a steering wheel to meet safety rules that require it.

Tesla’s Cybercab may have a steering wheel after all

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What does it need? A good steering wheel that doesn’t fly off when you’re driving.

What does it need? A good steering wheel that doesn’t fly off when you’re driving.

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Tesla’s Cybercab isn’t scheduled to go into production until 2026, but when it does, it may end up stuck with a vestige of the automotive past: a steering wheel.

To be sure, we still use steering wheels. But the Tesla Cybercab was meant to be the first vehicle of the new future, and there’s nothing futuristic about steering wheels.

Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla’s board of directors, let slip in an interview with Bloomberg that the autonomous vehicle may need to include one of those round, spinny things us lowly humans use to navigate through our course, analog environment. That’s because steering wheels are kind of a big deal with regulators; they like cars to have them. If you want to sell a car without one, you need to apply for an exemption from current federal safety rules. And that comes with a lot of tradeoffs.

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