The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals and no mirrors, which means a rider in the back has no easy way to see what is coming up beside or behind the car. Tesla now says it is working on a fix. When Tesla enthusiast Dan Burkland asked on X for riders to be able to "pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand," adding that it "would be great especially for peace of mind," a Tesla user-interface engineer replied: "In development." Not a Tesla App, which reported the exchange on Oct. 13, said the engineer gave no release date.
What riders get today
The camera feeds are not new to the cabin, but they appear at only one moment. According to Not a Tesla App, when a ride ends the screen shows a "Please Exit Safely" view with the left repeater, rear and right repeater cameras side by side, so passengers can check for cyclists and traffic before opening a door. During the trip itself, there is no way to bring that view up. The planned feature would let riders open the same feeds whenever they want.
Because this is software, the existing fleet should be able to get it through an over-the-air update once it is ready. No new hardware is needed: the Cybercab already uses its external cameras to drive.
New seats, and "very cool upgrades"
The camera request is one of several cabin changes in the works. At the "Inside Cybercab" session during Saturday's X Takeover event at Giga Texas, Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley said the car will get new seats and that more rider-experience upgrades are coming "very soon," according to EVBytes and Not a Tesla App. He did not say what the upgrades are or when they arrive.
EVBytes says today's seats work like a bench that slides forward and back as one unit, with recline controlled from the touchscreen. It also points to a survey Tesla sent Cybercab riders in early September, which asked them to choose features such as heated and ventilated seats, fully reclining seats, tray tables and wireless phone chargers. Tesla has not said which of those, if any, it will add. EVBytes expects new seats to arrive in future production cars rather than as a retrofit, but Tesla has not confirmed that.
Why the mirrors matter beyond comfort
The camera feature also lands in the middle of a federal review. NHTSA opened audit query AQ26002 on Sept. 3 to examine how Tesla certified a car that the agency's own filing says lacks "a brake pedal, gas pedal, steering wheel, and mirrors." A Sept. 10 special order contains 21 requests, including questions on inside and outside mirrors and the rearview image rules in FMVSS No. 111. TeslaNorth reports that NHTSA gave Tesla until Oct. 30 to answer under oath, after Tesla asked for Nov. 20. A rider-facing camera view is a comfort feature and does not by itself answer those certification questions, and nothing in the reports links the two.
What it means for riders and investors: If you ride Cybercabs in Austin, expect an on-demand camera view and a new seat design at some point, but with no dates attached. For investors, these are small but real signs that Tesla is reworking the cabin based on rider feedback as it adds cars and heads to Dallas, which AI software VP Ashok Elluswamy has said is coming "soon." The bigger near-term Cybercab event is still Tesla's Oct. 30 deadline with NHTSA, nine days after the Oct. 21 earnings report.
