Tesla Model 3 with Cybercab cameras caught testing FSD up north

Since Tesla can not really train the Cybercab for all events and scenarios that happen on public roads in bad weather before the pedal-less robotaxi gets the necessary permits, it is trying the next best thing. It has apparently equipped a regular Tesla that has pedals and a steering wheel with the Cybercab's FSD kit.

A sighting of a Model 3 with atypical HW4 camera placements way up north in Concord, New Hampshire, indicates that Tesla may be trying to amass driving data in adverse weather conditions as if from the Cybercab.

The new cameras include one awkwardly placed in the rear window, at the exact same spot where the side camera of Tesla's two-seater robotaxi is located. The other has been put on the fender with some extra fixings, again at the spot and at the angle where it is found on the Cybercab.

Getting a permit to run the Cybercab on public roads would be much trickier for Tesla than it would be to release unsupervised FSD for its Model 3 or Model Y that have pedals and a steering wheel. This may be why it retrofitted the Cybercab's HW4 kit on a Model 3, using it as a test mule to gauge how the autonomous robotaxi will fare outside the closed Gigafactory circuits it's currently been ridden on.

Tesla recently posted a thank you note to the Texas Department of Transportation, depicting a city official in a Cybercab. "Thanks to Austin City & Texas DOT for hosting & supporting our efforts to unlock safe & low-cost premium point-to-point electric transport," it said, likely referring to the unsupervised FSD pilot program it intends to run in the city starting in June.

Tesla is planning mass Cybercab production for 2026, and should've demonstrated its safety record and road readiness to regulators before then. The use of this Model 3 test mule may thus be an ingenious way to speed up the approval process for its first pedal-less car.

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