Tesla May Add Steering Wheel, Pedals to Cybercab After All
Board Chair Signals Shift Toward More Conventional Affordable EV
Key Takeaways:
- Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said the company may add a steering wheel and pedals to its forthcoming Cybercab to meet safety rules and boost sales.
- The shift marks a potential change from CEO Elon Musk’s fully autonomous vision as Tesla seeks to produce a lower-cost electric vehicle positioned below the Model 3.
- Denholm said the Cybercab is slated for volume production next year, with regulatory limits and safety standards shaping Tesla’s final design decisions.
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Tesla Inc. sees the forthcoming Cybercab as its long-promised more affordable electric vehicle — and it’s willing to make fundamental design changes to sell the car in high volumes.
In short, it’s willing to make it more like a normal vehicle that human drivers can control.
“If we have to have a steering wheel, it can have a steering wheel and pedals,” Robyn Denholm, the chair of Tesla’s board of directors, told Bloomberg News in an interview Oct. 28.
The comments from Denholm, who’s going all-out to sell shareholders on the merits of an unprecedented pay package for Elon Musk, signify some crucial wiggle room within Tesla’s product roadmap.
While some investors have been on board with the chief executive officer deciding early last year to prioritize bringing a completely autonomous vehicle to market, others have been concerned about such a high-risk pursuit. The concern has been that the company will have trouble growing without a new EV positioned below its cheapest car, the Model 3.
Denholm clarified that this is what the Cybercab is — what many investors have colloquially referred to as a Model 2.
Musk first unveiled the Cybercab on a movie studio lot near Los Angeles a year ago this month. Weeks after showing off prototypes that lacked steering wheels and pedals, the CEO bristled when asked when investors can expect Tesla to offer a cheap car that isn’t intended to be used as a robotaxi.
“Having a regular $25K model is pointless,” Musk said, referring to a price point he said Tesla would aim for at least as far back as 2020. “It would be silly. Like, it would be completely at odds with what we believe.”
Denholm’s stated openness to modifying the Cybercab — which is scheduled for volume production next year — suggests an evolution within Tesla over the past year. Regulators have been reluctant to budge on certain longstanding safety standards even despite Musk’s lobbying Washington to do so. The U.S., for example, requires cars to be equipped with a steering wheel and pedals.
Seeking exemptions from those rules can be a long and arduous process. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration didn’t act for more than two years on General Motors Co.’s attempt to get authorization for its purpose-built autonomous vehicle, the Cruise Origin. GM ended up scrapping plans for the Origin last year before shutting down Cruise altogether.
Even if Tesla were to overcome the hurdles that Cruise couldn’t, NHTSA only allows manufacturers to deploy as many as 2,500 autonomous vehicles per year that lack traditional controls. That limitation would effectively render the Cybercab a niche product.
There’s precedent for Tesla pivoting in this way, Denholm said.
“The original Model Y was not going to have a steering wheel, or pedals,” she said. “If we can’t sell something because it needs something, then we’ll work with regulators to work out what we need to do.”
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