Machines
Musk puts a taxi on the street with no steering wheel
The bet is that New Yorkers will sit in a car that cannot be grabbed back.
The Rocket News · Science · New YorkSeptember 3, 2026 · 4 min read
Video
Elon Musk’s company has begun running a taxi without a steering wheel, asking riders to trust a stack of cameras and a software update in traffic that does not care about a product launch. The pitch is inevitable automation. The fear is a left turn with no human override.
New York has seen this movie with Uber: first the app, then the argument, then the union, then the city trying to regulate a fait accompli. A cabin with no wheel is a fait accompli with passengers inside.
The Science desk’s question is not whether the demo works on a closed course. It is who is liable when it does not, and whether a city of eight million is a reasonable beta test.
Filed under Science
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