Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that the Cybercab’s have moved from 10 PM to 11 PM, noting that he was trying to protect pets from being run over by limiting the robotaxi’s service hours. While he was trying to come off quirky and silly, Musk was basically admitting that Full Self-Driving mode can’t see at night.
“The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark,” he tweeted.
However, it seems that the Tesla Cybercab can’t even see in broad daylight.
The Cybercab’s alarming blind spot
On a subreddit dedicated to Tesla, a user shared a video of a Cybercab getting tested, possibly without its knowledge. Someone in Austin apparently placed a doll in front of the Cybercab’s front tire to see what the pedal-less, steering-wheel-less robotaxi would do. And?
It ran it over.
Yep, it ran the fake baby over as it pulled away from the curb.
This made it all the more eye-rolly that Musk was claiming he was so concerned with grey cats being run over at midnight. The Cybercab doesn’t have the ability to really detect objects any time of day.
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u/OptimusBot from discussionin
teslamotors
I know Tesla fans want to blindly believe in Tesla and its Cybercab, but I think the evidence is quite alarming. Musk himself said Full Self-Driving mode doesn’t work anywhere near as intended. It’s not autonomous. Yet we have a Cybercab using FSD without any driver inside.
Luckily, Tesla’s robotaxi service is extremely behind schedule. Embarrassingly behind, really. Musk has made fun of Waymo relentlessly, even mocking its announcement of 2,500 robotaxis across the U.S. around 2025. At that same time, Tesla had 30 robotaxis and its service was considered awful, inconsistent, and required full-time human supervision.
Most recently, Musk made fun of Waymo for that one time it ran over a bodega cat sleeping near its tire a few years ago.
“Maybe what a lot of people don’t know is that Waymos are like pet destroyers,” Musk said. “Maybe Waymo has made some improvements on that front, but they do run over a lot of pets, and we don’t want to run over the pets.”
As of October 2026, Waymo has had six incidents involving pets. Meanwhile, the Cybercab could run over a toddler in the middle of the afternoon.
Tesla’s cameras have limited functionality
I could go on for hours about Tesla’s exaggerated plans and constant delays regarding its robotaxi service. But the real issue here is that Musk refuses to use Lidar sensors.
“Lidar is a fool’s errand,” Musk told attendees at Tesla’s Autonomy Day in 2019. “Anyone relying on lidar is doomed. Doomed! [They are] expensive sensors that are unnecessary… It’s ridiculous, you’ll see.”
Meanwhile, Waymo can drive 24/7, and the Cybercab shouldn’t be out past 11 PM (or at all).
Full Self-Driving mode has been constantly scrutinized, investigated, and brought up in lawsuits since it isn’t autonomous, as Tesla promised for over a decade. One of the current National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations concerns FSD cameras failing to work in certain conditions, such as rain and at night. Tesla was recently forced to change its name in Europe after many countries questioned its capabilities and sought to avoid misleading their citizens. It’s now called “Tesla Assisted Driving” over there.
Yet this Level 2+ assisted driving system is in Cybercabs, which have no steering wheels or pedals.
In June 2026, Tesla employees were caught on camera doing some hardware testing in an Austin parking lot. The tests just consisted of them putting stuff in front of the Cybercab and seeing what would happen. Unlike its passenger cars, the Cybercab has a camera on its bumper meant to detect low objects.
It seems that this camera still doesn’t work as intended. Yet Musk is pushing to spread its robotaxi service even more, encouraged and supported by his fans. Despite being aware of this concerning issue.
There are now over 300 Cybercabs in Austin, where they initially launched. And they all can’t detect babies on a sunny afternoon.
