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Yellow Cab, Meet Your Future: Cybercab Spotted on NYC Streets

Sawyer Merritt posts a champagne Cybercab sharing a Manhattan block with a classic yellow taxi.

Claire Bennett, Live desk · Sept. 11, 2026 · 2 min read

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A champagne Cybercab sharing a Manhattan intersection with a classic yellow taxi, disc wheels and no side mirrors.
Photo: @SawyerMerritt / X

AUSTIN, Texas - Sawyer Merritt posted a simple caption on Friday afternoon: "The future and the past in NYC." The photo does the reporting. A champagne Cybercab shares a Manhattan block with a classic yellow taxi, the two shapes locked in one frame.

That image is the newsstand beat. The gold two-seater sits mid-block, disc wheels and no side mirrors, with a yellow cab hard behind it and a one-way sign in the trees. It is the same cultural contrast the desk has chased since Austin - old paid ride beside the new unsupervised form - now on a New York street.

Source on X — @SawyerMerritt
Source on X — @SawyerMerritt

Local coverage this week already put sand-colored Cybercabs in the five boroughs. Gothamist reported Thursday that a city transportation official confirmed Tesla is testing a supervised self-driving system in New York, with a person able to take control. Reporters there spotted the unusual cars without side mirrors, including on Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan and near the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, some carrying Texas plates and Cybercab markings up front.

That is a different product moment from Austin. In Austin, anyone can download the Robotaxi app and hail a wheel-less Cybercab today. New York, under current state rules that still expect a human driver, is getting supervised testing and street sightings - not an open public hail of the unsupervised cab. Merritt's photo does not claim a New York launch. It shows the hardware already reading as inevitable next to the city's most famous taxi.

The framing matters for readers who only see the gold car. Cybercab in paid Austin service is the unsupervised two-seater. The New York frames circulating this week include supervised runs. Keeping those lanes straight is how the desk stays accurate while still filing the picture that landed: future paint, past medallion yellow, same asphalt.

The timing lines up with a busy Cybercab week. Austin riders are already treating the two-seater as a normal hail. Tesla Japan opened a public display tour in Tokyo on Friday. Merritt's New York still adds the third beat: the car looking at home beside the taxi it is built to replace, even in a city that has not opened unsupervised rides yet.

Tesla has not announced a New York Robotaxi open for the public. The company did put Cybercab into hailable service in Austin, and it is now walking the car through display stops in Japan. Friday's Merritt still sits in that wider map - hardware in more cities, hail still centered on Austin, and a single photograph that makes the transition feel obvious.

Cybercab.news is treating the tip as a primary street sighting from @SawyerMerritt, with Gothamist's Thursday report used only for the supervised-testing context in New York. Austin remains the city where the public product is a hail.

Claire Bennett covers the Robotaxi map, fleet counts, and the cities still waiting. Based between London and the U.S. launch markets.

Cybercab.news is an independent fan site and is not affiliated with Tesla.

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