Tesla's Cybercab robotaxis have reportedly been operating in New York since August 2026 without any formal announcement from the company. Unlike the previously shown design, the vehicles are equipped with a steering wheel and carry a person sitting behind it, which the report attributes to a specific reason. No official confirmation of the service has been issued.
A new arXiv preprint addresses Outside-the-Vehicle Referencing (OVR), the task of letting occupants query physical landmarks outside a car. The authors note that ego-motion and referential ambiguity make this difficult in autonomous vehicles and XR headsets. The abstract introduces a multimodal resolution approach, though the full method details are not given in the preview.
A Guardian opinion piece by Adrian Chiles questions the push toward autonomous vehicles, arguing that no one has articulated a convincing problem they solve. He contrasts them with genuinely useful household inventions and says the appeal is mostly novelty. The column concludes that widespread driverless adoption would diminish everyday driving skills without clear public benefit.