Tesla’s Cybertruck Powershare feature can now back up your home at the same time as a Powerwall 3, the company announced Thursday. Run together, the truck and the battery add more than three days of backup power, which Tesla says is the equivalent of nine extra Powerwalls.
It’s a feature Tesla first promised for 2025, and it’s showing up nearly two years after Cybertruck deliveries began. But it finally closes one of Powershare’s most annoying gaps.
A 2024 Tesla Model Y ran off Interstate 35 in rural Missouri, struck a guardrail, and killed its driver, a 64-year-old woman from Raymore. Troopers reported a single-vehicle wreck and said the car “went off the road.”
What they didn’t say, and likely didn’t know, is that Tesla’s own report to federal regulators says the car’s driver-assist system was engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data.
A US congressman is demanding the Department of Transportation explain what it’s doing about Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving after an NBC News investigation surfaced dozens of videos of drivers apparently asleep at the wheel.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi gave Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy until September 30 to answer five questions about the systems, which Tesla itself says “require active driver supervision and are not autonomous driving systems.”
Tesla’s flashy unveiling of its Cybercab robotaxi in 2024 left some glaring questions unanswered.
The sleek, gold-colored coupé impressed with a futuristic design, but baffled onlookers with its cramped two-seat interior, lack of a charging port, and a dubious, far-too-good-to-be-true $30,000 price tag.
Just under two years later, the first Cybercabs are starting to hit the streets in Austin, Texas — and Tesla is just itching to sell you one. Last week, the EV maker started handing out a “Robotaxi interest form,” as Electrek reported at the time, in an apparent effort attract would-be entrepreneurs willing to buy an entire fleet of the unusual vehicles.
Put simply, the idea is to share revenue from ride income with Tesla while the vehicles operate on the carmaker’s network, using its self-driving tech.
It’s part of a much broader plan. For many years, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised that its Full Self-Driving-enabled vehicles, including the Cybercab, could effectively turn into an appreciating money-printing machine, allowing owners to sit on their couch and magically watch the money roll in.
As early as 2018, Musk promised investors that he saw the “future as kind of a shared electric autonomy, so that you’d be able to do ride-hailing or share the car any way,” likening it to “some combination of like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb.”
But there are plenty of reasons businesspeople should hesitate before takeing Tesla up on the offer of operating a Robotaxi fleet, as Electrek‘s Fred Lambert argued in a compelling essay this week.
Basically, he pointed out, “if running a fleet of Cybercabs were actually profitable, Tesla wouldn’t sell you a single one.” It’s like claiming you’ve found an infinite money glitch — and then instead of quietly profiting off it, selling a get-rich-quick book on how to do it yourself.
There are also looming technical questions. Musk’s lofty promises of a vehicle that completes ride-hailing requests autonomously while also appreciating in value has little, if any, bearing with reality in 2026. To the contrary, the EV maker’s offerings are among some of the fastest depreciating vehicles on the market today.
Then there’s the questionable value proposition. Tesla controls the entire network, the self-driving software, and prices. It even “sets the split,” as Lambert argues. Instead, fleet owners are stuck eating the “capital cost and the depreciation, while Tesla keeps the software margin and its cut of every fare.”
In other words, “you don’t own a business in that arrangement. You own the downside.”
It’s a dubious business opportunity closely reminiscent of Tesla’s infamous FSD advanced driver assistance software. Owners once shelled out a massive $15,000 — before it became exclusively a $99 a month subscription — to access a feature that’s still a complete disaster, leading to fatal collisions and terrifying close calls even after many years of development.
Not only are they spending the equivalent of a small car on faulty software, they’re willing to shoulder the risk as well. Tesla has a long track record of trying to wriggle out of lawsuits arising from these accidents, arguing it was the driver’s fault for engaging the software and not paying attention.
Much like its regular lineup of FSD-enabled vehicles, Tesla’s Cybercab relies entirely on a camera-based autonomous driving system, an approach that experts say is fundamentally flawed.
Nonetheless, as the Austin American-Statesman reports, local investors in Austin are chomping at the opportunity to run their own Cybercab fleet.
Meanwhile, regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are watching closely. The agency opened a probe into the Tesla, questioning that its new Cybercab “meets all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.”
The Boring Company has closed a $3 billion Series D funding round led by the United Arab Emirates, valuing Elon Musk’s tunneling venture at $23 billion.
That’s roughly four times its 2022 valuation of about $5.7 billion. And most of the case for it sits in tunnels the company hasn’t dug yet.
One of the selling points of Tesla’s much-hyped Cybercab — its purpose-built robotaxi — is that it doesn’t need manual controls. That’s why it doesn’t even come with a steering wheel or pedals.
But an early passenger who got to ride one of the self-driving cars after they launched in Austin last week discovered that they secretly have manual controls hidden in a touchscreen — the most practical way to control a car, as everyone knows — after its software glitched out and accidentally revealed them.
The passenger, Matthew Skrzypczak, wrote on X over the weekend that when he got in his Cybercab to take it for a spin, the display, instead of showing an interface to let him start his ride, showed a “virtual joystick for manual driving.”
“I have a feeling I wasn’t supposed to see this,” he wrote.
In a video he uploaded, the display shows a splitscreen view of various camera angles and an area that lets you control several of the car’s functions. Crucially, there’s also a touchscreen joystick for shifting the car into gear, which says “forward” at the top and “reverse” at the bottom.
Skrzypczak was able to close the door and honk the horn successfully, but when he tries to move the car it doesn’t budge — which is probably for the best, since there were pedestrians nearby — though this may be because he was simply using the joystick wrong.
This feature is almost certainly intended for Tesla employees, and it’s unclear why a passenger like Skrzypczak, and at least one other who noted the issue, was able to access it. To be clear, manual controls are obviously necessary in case an employee or emergency workers needs to move the vehicle when it’s malfunctioning. But putting it behind a slippery touchscreen is also far less practical than an old-fashioned steering wheel and pedal, which is all being done so CEO Elon Musk can have bragging rights.
The workaround hasn’t proved amusing to regulators. Shortly after Tesla launched Cybercab rides in Austin, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit into how Tesla self-certified that the vehicles were safe for the road despite their lack of conventional manual controls.
A 2021 Tesla Model Y left an Alabama highway, hit two trees, and caught fire, killing its driver, 29-year-old Kayleigh Page. Her 7-month-old daughter was pulled from the burning car by a stranger who saw it happen.
Troopers reported it as a single-vehicle wreck. What they didn’t say, and likely didn’t know, is that Tesla’s own data shows the car’s driver-assist system was engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data.
An Amazon Prime Air cargo jet ripped right past the landing zone at the Miami International Airport on Sunday afternoon, struggling to stop itself in time before overrunning the runway and crashing into a cleaning crew and a nearby SUV.
It was a tragic incident, killing five innocent people.
The Boeing 767-300 also barreled right through a chain-link fence that was protecting a highly unusual lot of vehicles: photographs of the scene show the dented nose of the airliner just a few dozen feet away from a kennel of parked Tesla Cybercabs.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has banked the future success of his EV maker on the gold-colored self-driving vehicles, which are too small to fit more than two passengers and lack both steering wheels or pedals. Their sudden appearance in a story about a deadly airliner disaster had the billionaire taken aback. However, instead of offering his condolences after the tragedy, Musk simply tweeted the word “Weird” in response.
The peculiar cameo also led to plenty of questions over Tesla’s plans to roll out the cars outside of Austin. Just last week, the Cybercabs were deployed for the first time in the Texas city, but the company has yet to announce any imminent launches in Miami.
Regulators from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration watched closely following last week’s deployment, which comes just shy of two years after Tesla first showed off its Cybercab. As Bloomberg notes, the light on details event was “uncharacteristically low-key,” offering no livestream or media coverage.
The “Cybercab event was largely a bust,” tweeted Future Fund Advisors co-founder Gary Black. “The launch offered little detail and key questions remained unanswered.”
Indeed, regulatory approval is hazy for vehicles without any traditional driver controls, a topic that’s especially pertinent to Tesla. Musk has bet the company’s entire future on the success of its Cybercabs and its humanoid robot, dubbed Optimus.
With neither showing any signs of a significant public rollout any time soon, Wall Street is bound to keep asking some tough questions.
A Tesla Cybercab rider found something in the robotaxi: a manual driving mode. When he got in, the touchscreen was showing a virtual joystick to drive the car by hand.
Tesla built the Cybercab with no steering wheel and no pedals. But it apparently still has a way to drive it manually, and you do it by dragging a finger across a screen.
XPeng has switched on what it calls the world’s first automated production line for advanced humanoid robots, and its IRON robot walked off that line under its own power. The Chinese automaker says the line runs with more than 80% of its core processes automated.
It’s the clearest signal yet that IRON is headed for real manufacturing and not just stage demos. XPeng is targeting mass production by the end of 2026.
A Tesla Model 3 ran a stop sign in Buena Vista Township, New Jersey, and hit a Honda Civic turning left through the intersection. The Civic’s driver, 82-year-old Stephen Field, was killed.
Police reported it as a car that failed to stop. What no one reported is that Tesla’s own data says the car’s driver-assist system was engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data.
Tesla is now asking businesses whether they’d like to buy and operate their own fleets of Cybercab robotaxis on its network. It’s the same pitch Elon Musk has been making since 2019: buy the cars, put them to work, and earn money while you sleep.
There’s one problem with it. And it never happened, and you shouldn’t fall for it now. If running a fleet of Cybercabs were actually profitable, Tesla wouldn’t sell you a single one.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about whether our Electrek readers believed the new Cybercab would be a transformative new technology, or – not. After nearly 2,700 responses, here’s what you told us.
Tesla is rolling out a new version of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software that can take control of your car to avoid a crash, even when you’re driving manually.
The automaker announced the feature, part of FSD Supervised v14.3.9, in a post from its AI team early Friday.
Tesla’s Cybercab is already under federal investigation. NHTSA opened an audit into how Tesla certified the vehicle the same day the company started putting passengers in it in Austin.
The probe targets the exact thing that makes the Cybercab unusual: it has no steering wheel, no pedals, and no mirrors, and Tesla certified it as road-legal anyway.
Xiaomi Auto confirmed it will start selling electric vehicles in Europe, including Germany, in 2027, and it’s already lining up the dealers to sell them.
At IFA Berlin today, the Chinese automaker signed memoranda of understanding with eight of Germany’s largest dealer groups. They’re its first retail partners on the continent.
A Tesla Model X struck and killed a motorcyclist at an intersection in Moraine last year and the crash went mostly unnoticed.
But Tesla’s own report to federal regulators says the vehicle was a Model X with its driver-assist system, Autopilot or Full Self-Driving (Tesla hides which one) engaged. This is part of an ongoing Electrek investigation matching reported crashes to Tesla’s redacted NHTSA data — and it’s the clearest example yet of how completely these crashes can vanish from the public record.
A Tesla running one of its self-driving modes was rear-ended after stopping in the middle of a Arizona highway, Electrek reports, with the driver found dead at the scene. Grimly, it’s not the first accident of its kind.
The crash occurred on October 31, 2025. According to local reports at the time, the 2020 Tesla Model 3 was struck by an F-350 pickup around 3 AM on the eastbound Loop 202 in Mesa, Arizona. None of the contemporaneous reports made note of whether the Tesla had one of its driver-assist systems engaged.
Electrek, however, managed to match the collision to a redacted crash report that Tesla provided in its filings to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These were shared under a Standing General Order that requires automakers to report crashes involving a driver-assist system that’s considered to have an SAE Level 2 of automation or higher, meaning that it can partially drive itself under the right conditions and with constant supervision.
The report states that an automated driving system — either Autopilot or Full Self-Driving — was “verified engaged” during the accident. The vehicle’s “pre-crash movement” is listed as “stopped – 0 mph,” indicating it stopped in the middle of the road. None of these details were shared publicly at the time of the accident.
Electrek says that this is the second time that a Tesla Model 3 with a driver-assist system engaged apparently stopped in a highway before a crash that killed its driver; it also happened in Florida, just weeks before the second one.
What happened is unclear. Tesla’s self-driving software has a well-known “phantom braking” problem that causes the cars to brake unexpectedly, but this is typically to slow the vehicle down, not stop it completely. Going from highway speeds to a grinding halt would be an extraordinary, if not unprecedented, example. It’s also possible that the driver fell asleep behind the wheel or experienced some kind of medical episode that rendered them unable to respond.
The upshot is that we’re more or less being kept in the dark. These details, and whether the car was running the now-obsolete Autopilot or its more advanced successor FSD is impossible to know, because Tesla censored that section of the crash report. It has long redacted crucial information in these reportsreports under the guise of protecting “confidential business information,” a practice that is legal but rarely used to the extent that Tesla does. It has gotten in trouble with regulators for how it reports crashes, though. Last year, the NHTSA launched an investigation into Tesla for repeatedly failing to report crashes in time.
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