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Tesla Starts Cybercab Rides in Austin, Drawing US Safety Agency Interest

A Tesla's "Cybercab" is displayed in downtown Austin, Texas, on September 3, 2026. (AFP)
A Tesla's "Cybercab" is displayed in downtown Austin, Texas, on September 3, 2026. (AFP)
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Tesla Starts Cybercab Rides in Austin, Drawing US Safety Agency Interest

A Tesla's "Cybercab" is displayed in downtown Austin, Texas, on September 3, 2026. (AFP)
A Tesla's "Cybercab" is displayed in downtown Austin, Texas, on September 3, 2026. (AFP)

Tesla said on Thursday it was offering rides in "limited areas of Austin, Texas" in its two-seater Cybercab, a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, with the US auto safety agency responding that it was evaluating the effort.

CEO Elon Musk has said the Cybercab is key to transforming Tesla into a dominant force in driverless vehicles. Tesla in recent weeks has promoted what it called an exclusive "Cybercab launch event" in Austin on Thursday, drawing interest from investors and fans, some of whom came to Texas to try out the golden, butterfly-door cars.

Musk himself skipped the event, attendees said, and remarks from executives on pricing plans, manufacturing and technology lasted only about a quarter of an hour, according to videos posted after the event.

The electric-vehicle maker has a limited robotaxi ride-hailing service with a network of autonomous Model Ys, some with human safety monitors. Its fleet registered in Texas is less than half that of autonomous rival Waymo, whose autonomous service has cars with human controls – but no human drivers. Over time, Tesla ‌intends to make the ‌no-steering-wheel Cybercab the main driverless vehicle model operating within a larger robotaxi network.

Federal safety norms typically require ‌human ⁠controls, and the safety ⁠regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, signaled its interest in Tesla's activity.

"NHTSA is in contact with Tesla and is evaluating the situation," the spokesperson said, without elaborating.

Tesla updated its robotaxi website, saying Cybercab rides were available only in some parts of Austin. Tesla did not specify when it would charge fares, although executives at the event described plans to use dynamic pricing, which would rise with demand, while promising "a first-class experience at coach price".

Tesla AI Chief Ashok Elluswamy, one of the presenters, said that anyone could ride. "It's open to the entire public," he said.

Several Tesla investors and social media personalities in Austin enthused over the look and feel of the Cybercab, posting videos of their rides as well as the event, which included at least one partially manufactured Cybercab.

Musk has promised ⁠for years that driverless Teslas are imminent, including at a Cybercab unveiling in October 2024 at a Los ‌Angeles-area movie studio, but Tesla's robotaxi rollout has fallen short of his targets, and some ‌analysts in recent months have flagged the slower-than-expected growth.

In a Thursday afternoon video, Musk calls it "the first car that is specifically built for unsupervised full self-driving."

MARKET ‌VALUE UNDERPINNED BY ROBOTAXI AMBITIONS

Since launching a pilot in Austin in June 2025, Tesla has expanded its robotaxi service to a handful ‌of other cities in Texas and Florida.

Analysts and investors see driverless vehicles as key to Tesla's future and a central underpinning of its $1.4 trillion market value, far higher than any other automaker. Tesla's core electric-vehicle business faces pressure from global competition, particularly Chinese EV makers.

Musk has said the Cybercab will eventually be Tesla's largest-volume vehicle, supplying a global network of robotaxis and allowing individual owners to add or remove their vehicles from a Tesla-managed driverless ride-hailing fleet when they are not using the cars.

Tesla ‌said production began in April 2026, though Musk cautioned in April that initial production "will be very slow."

REGULATORY HURDLES LIMIT DEPLOYMENT

It is unclear how quickly Tesla will be able to fully deploy the vehicles.

Federal regulations ⁠limit the number of vehicles ⁠any manufacturer can sell without a steering wheel and pedals. Established manufacturers can deploy an unlimited number of such vehicles for testing.

In California, a key market, Tesla does not have permits to operate a robotaxi service or to test driverless vehicles without a safety driver who can take over in the front seat.

In July 2025, Musk said the company's robotaxi network would expand at a "hyper-exponential rate" and be available to half the population of the US by the end of 2025.

Those predictions did not pan out, and Musk and his executives have struck a more cautious tone in recent months, saying the company is taking a careful approach to avoid injuries or fatalities.

REAL-WORLD TESTING REVEALS SERVICE GAPS

Reuters tested out the robotaxi service in the weeks after Dallas and Houston events earlier this year and found long wait times, with sometimes no availability at all.

On three occasions when a reporter managed to get a ride in Dallas, the robotaxi would not drop him at his downtown destination within Tesla's advertised service area. Each time, it left him about a 15-minute walk away. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment about the service issues.

Tesla had 420 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas as of Wednesday evening, according to state records, including 45 Cybercab vehicles. Earlier on Wednesday, state records showed Tesla had registered 314 vehicles. Alphabet's Waymo, the current US leader in driverless taxis, has 988 vehicles registered in the state.

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Food Industry Pushes Back on WHO Guidance for Products with Added Color, Sweeteners

Around 11 million deaths a year are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the agency, based on data from a global study. (Getty Images)
Around 11 million deaths a year are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the agency, based on data from a global study. (Getty Images)
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Food Industry Pushes Back on WHO Guidance for Products with Added Color, Sweeteners

Around 11 million deaths a year are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the agency, based on data from a global study. (Getty Images)
Around 11 million deaths a year are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the agency, based on data from a global study. (Getty Images)

Governments should consider regulating foods that include added colors, flavors or sweeteners designed to make the product more appealing to consumers, according to new draft World Health Organization guidance that has sparked swift pushback from the food industry.

The WHO draft aims to help governments identify which foods should be consumed in moderation as part of a healthy diet – and which products could be subject to measures like warning labels or taxes, depending on national priorities.

The new draft food-profiling model, published last week, marks the first time the UN health agency has included this type of ‌ingredient in its guidance, ‌previously only focused on nutritional content, including fat and salt.

“This draft ‌goes ⁠beyond traditional nutrient ⁠profiling by recognizing that foods may need to be considered not only for their nutrient content, but also for other aspects of their formulation” in order to prevent diet-related disease, said Katrin Engelhardt, technical officer at the WHO's department of nutrition and food safety.

Around 11 million deaths a year are linked to unhealthy diets, according to the agency, based on data from a global study.

The proposed new model is also the WHO’s attempt to guide member states through an increasingly polarized debate ⁠about ultra-processed foods (UPFs), a class of food or drink made using processing ‌techniques, additives and industrial ingredients, which often contain little ‌whole food. Examples include carbonated soft drinks or instant noodles.

BEYOND NUTRIENTS ALONE

Many food scientists say UPFs pose ‌numerous health risks but others – and the food industry – say they are defined too widely, ‌which risks demonizing healthy products.

The International Food and Beverage Alliance, an organization representing major multinational food and beverage companies, said it was concerned the proposed approach shifts attention away from nutritional quality and could capture more products for potential regulation.

"Of particular concern is the potential to undermine established nutrition priorities and reformulation ‌efforts,” said IFBA Secretary General Rocco Renaldi.

Other concerns for the food industry are higher costs from reformulating products or stringent labelling requirements, as well ⁠as the risk ⁠of class-action lawsuits as seen in the United States, and higher taxes for processed food companies.

Broadly, the WHO said the model covers “industrially-produced foods to be consumed in moderation” and is a bridge between its healthy diet recommendations and government policy on individual food products.

Lindsey Smith Taillie, co-director of the Global Food Research Program at the University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said the point of the model was to target unhealthy foods, combining both nutrients and UPFs.

“These two frameworks have never been mutually exclusive and can and should be used by policymakers as the starting place,” she said, adding that healthiness is measured by multiple criteria.

Kraft Heinz CEO Steve Cahillane last week told Reuters that industry players should have a say.

"We're in the food business and we care about consumers deeply," Cahillane said. "And so we ought to have a seat at the table as these discussions evolve."

The WHO proposal is out for consultation until November 27.

Varieties

Pakistan Farmers in Long Fight to Make German Firms Pay for Flood Damage

Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
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Pakistan Farmers in Long Fight to Make German Firms Pay for Flood Damage

Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP
Dozens of Pakistani farmers are suing German firms RWE and Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts. Aamir QURESHI / AFP

In a Pakistani village nestled in rice fields, Abdul Hafeez Khoso remembers the vast industrial zones he saw in Germany when he visited to file a pioneering climate legal case.

"They're spreading pollution: up in the sky there are no borders, it can affect anywhere," the 43-year-old said, describing areas far larger than his village of 800 people.

"This is a problem for the whole world -- that is why it should be resolved at the global level."

Khoso and 38 other farmers from Pakistan's southern Sindh province who were devastated by "apocalyptic" flooding in 2022 are suing German energy firm RWE and cement maker Heidelberg Materials in a rare bid to make big polluters pay damages for climate impacts.

The companies are being targeted not over specific operations in Pakistan, but because of their climate-warming emissions. They are headquartered in Germany, where a recent legal case opened the door to such suits.

The litigation argues that the companies' emissions contributed to climate change and turbo-charged rain that wiped out their crops, livestock and homes.

"The year 2022 was an apocalyptic scene -- not even our elders had ever witnessed such weather," Khoso, who lives in the district of Jacobabad with his wife and toddler, told AFP.

"We had nothing left."

Both firms, which the plaintiffs estimate contributed 0.68 percent and 0.12 percent to global industrial emissions respectively, deny wrongdoing.

Khoso's case is backed by Pakistani and European organizations hoping to win compensation and build on nascent but vigorous international efforts to extract climate damages from corporations.

"We always blame natural disasters, and sometimes we blame God, but science tells us that climate change is increasing the risks and intensity of extreme weather events," said Mir Keerio, a development expert at Pakistan's HANDS Welfare Foundation, which mobilized communities for the lawsuit.

"Those who have contributed significantly to this crisis must be held accountable... we realized we must take our fight for climate justice to the major polluters."

- Debt and damages -

Climate litigation is a growing field globally, but action has so far largely targeted governments, with only a handful of firms such as Shell and cement maker Holcim facing suits for climate disaster compensations.

Lawyers say a ruling requiring a company to pay out compensation proportionate to its greenhouse gas emissions would mark a major breakthrough.

Germany's judiciary moved towards that principle last year in a case brought by a Peruvian farmer, also against RWE.

His compensation claim was rejected, but the courts left the door open to holding emitters liable.

Roda Verheyen, a German lawyer involved in both cases, told AFP the Pakistani farmers' lawsuit builds on that ruling and further accuses companies of "wrongful behavior".

"Large companies knew about the general impacts of climate change since the 1960s," said Verheyen.

"They should have exercised due diligence and actually at least tried to reduce emissions, which they didn't do enough."

The lawsuit also draws on research documenting farmers' losses in the floods, which hit a third of the country, killed 1,700 and affected 30 million Pakistanis.

Munawar Khatoon, a rare female landowner in a conservative area, said the floods struck just before the wheat harvest, submerging seeds and wiping out her family's main source of income.

"We worry about how the next generation will manage to live if this continues," the 43-year-old told AFP in her village Usman Samtio.

"Now when the rainy season comes, we feel fear."

In nearby Dadu district, litigant Abdul Khalique Laghari said the floods affected the region for years.

"To this day, we are unable to repay our debt," said the 55-year-old, who estimates he lost $14,000 in assets including his house, 40 acres (16 hectares) of crops and livestock.

"When we wake in the morning, we start getting calls from the people we owe money to," he said, pointing to crumbling walls and the remnants of flood-damaged houses.

"This has caused us serious mental harm."

- 'For justice' -

RWE and Heidelberg Materials both call the claims in the suit "unfounded".

Heidelberg Materials told AFP its operations were compliant with German laws and that firms could not be expected to retroactively face different standards.

RWE referred AFP to a statement describing the lawsuit as "yet another attempt to shift climate policy demands to German courtrooms".

"It would be a contradiction in terms if the state allowed CO2 emissions, regulated them by law and even demanded them in some cases, but at the same time allowed retroactive civil liability for them," it said.

Even if the case succeeds, an uphill battle remains for millions across Pakistan, ranked among the countries most affected by climate change despite contributing less than one percent of global emissions.

The case will be considered in a civil process likely to take years. But for the litigants, the attempt is worth it.

"This case is for justice," said Khatoon. "We hold these companies responsible for our destruction."

Varieties

This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
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This Year Set to Be One of Four Hottest on Record, UN Report Says

A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)
A tourist holds an umbrella to shelter from the sun while walking on a hot day in Tokyo on July 15, 2026. (AFP)

This year is ‌on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño and perpetuating a warming streak of more than a decade, a UN report showed on Monday.

Countries are preparing to meet in Türkiye from November 9 to 20 for the next round of climate talks and the World Meteorological Organization "State of the Climate" report provides the latest available data ‌to inform ‌their discussions.

Between January and September ‌this ⁠year, the global average ⁠temperature was 1.47 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average and could rise further due to a major El Niño, the report showed.

The WMO report, which encompasses nine data sets, showed that each of the past 12 years, including 2026, ⁠was ranked among the 12 warmest ever ‌recorded since records began ‌in around 1850.

“Every indicator here is telling the ‌same story. We're seeing the heat trapped by greenhouse ‌gasses is showing up in the ocean, in the atmosphere, in the melting of ice and the rising of sea levels,” WMO Head of Climate Information John Kennedy ‌told reporters in Geneva ahead of the conference.

The EU's Copernicus climate ⁠service ⁠already said 2026 was all but certain to become the second calendar year after 2024 to exceed the threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The planet is increasingly accumulating heat, the UN report said, with ocean temperatures continuing to rise this year from 2025 all-time highs.

Global mean sea levels have also reached a record this year as glaciers and ice sheets melt and seawater expands as it heats, the report said.