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After a Week of Cybercab, the Steering Wheel Feels Strange

Gail Alfar's Saturday X Article describes leaving a wheel-less Cybercab cabin and picking up a Model Y steering wheel again, one week after Austin launch.

Harper Quinn, Live desk · Sept. 12, 2026 · 2 min read

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Gail Alfar beside a gold Cybercab on a downtown Austin street at night, launch credentials on a lanyard, tree lights behind the car.
Photo via @gailalfaratx on X

AUSTIN, Texas - One week after Tesla opened Cybercab to public hail here, the strangest part is not the gold body on downtown streets. It is what happens when a rider leaves that cabin and picks up a steering wheel again.

Gail Alfar was at the September 3 launch downtown. She sat in the unsupervised two-seater, stood in the packed room with the engineering teams, then went back to her Model Y. In a Saturday X Article titled "Two Worlds, One Week After Cybercab," she described the gap in plain terms. Full Self-Driving had made the two worlds feel closer. After a week of Cybercab, the gap felt wider.

Source on X — @gailalfaratx
Source on X — @gailalfaratx

Austin remains where the public can open the Robotaxi app and hail a Cybercab today. The story is not a new city or a new fare. It is the physical contrast between a cabin with no wheel and no pedals and the daily car that still asks a human to catch the mistake.

Alfar's photos from launch night make the contrast concrete. A gold Cybercab under tree lights on a downtown street. A passenger view of the empty dash: ambient strip, center screen, butterfly doors up, nothing for the hands. Another frame shows PRND and Self-Driving on the screen with the launch floor packed beyond the open door. The stills are from September 3, not renders.

Photo via @gailalfaratx / X
Photo via @gailalfaratx / X

In the Cybercab there is nothing for the hands to do. No wheel to hold just in case. No pedal to hover over. Then the rider steps out, walks to a normal car, and the hands look for a column that is not there. Alfar called that return a strange kind of jet lag. Hands still know where the wheel is. A foot still hovers. Part of the mind is already living in the empty cabin. The rest is still licensed for the old world.

The styling on the street tells a product truth as well. This was not a regular sedan with the controls deleted. It was built for a different job. Some of the night photos look closer to sculpture than to transportation: the gold finish, the light bar, the empty place where a wheel is supposed to be. You can stare at the street shot and forget, for a second, that the same machine is already moving people around Austin.

The launch room behind the glass was packed with engineers, production staff, and autonomy teams. Ashok Elluswamy and colleagues walked through what it took to bring a wheel-less taxi to the street. Layered body panels on a display table made the purpose-built claim visible. Optimus stood nearby. Gold robotaxis waited outside. The night was a product reveal and a team reveal at once.

The car in those stills is the dedicated Cybercab. The Model Y is still the daily car with a wheel. One week after September 3, the news is that the unsupervised cabin is real enough to change how a steering wheel feels when you pick one up again - and that Austin riders can already hail that cabin today.

Harper Quinn is a senior correspondent covering Robotaxi launches, Austin fleet ops, and the day-to-day of Cybercab rides. Previously reported transport and consumer tech for independent trade titles; based in Austin.

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