Information for first responders
For fire, EMS, law enforcement, and towing personnel encountering a Cybercab. This page is public and needs no login. We do not operate vehicles yet — what follows is summarised from the manufacturer’s published responder documents, so your crews have it before they need it and so you can see what we will be accountable for when we do.
Who to call
- Tesla Robotaxi First Responder Support — (844) 837-5255, toll free, 24 hours. This is the line that can confirm the vehicle is immobilised, unlock the doors, hood or trunk, roll the windows down, and move the vehicle remotely.
- Tesla Roadside Assistance — (877) 798-3752, for towing and recovery.
- The vehicle itself. Two-way communication runs through microphones and speakers on the B-pillars and in the cabin. Stand at either B-pillar and speak. If the line is not already open, touch Support on the touchscreen. Cutting low voltage power also kills those microphones — keep a phone to hand.
- Have this ready when you call: Your name. Your agency. Your badge or identification number. The VIN or plate of any vehicle involved. The location.
Closing a road to autonomous traffic
Call the responder line with the address or the latitude and longitude, the reason, and how long you expect it to last. Service is then blocked within 1,000 feet of that point for about an hour by default — longer if you say so, and extendable until you give the all clear. Worth knowing before a long extrication or a structure fire on a through street.
Where this came from. Everything below is summarised from the Robotaxi First Responder Interaction Plan — Cybercab, version 1.2, dated 3 September 2026, and the Cybercab 2026+ Emergency Response Guide, version 002. We last read both end to end on 20 September 2026, and on 6 October 2026 confirmed neither had been revised since. Those documents govern and this page does not; current versions live at tesla.com/firstresponders, and a QR code in the bottom left corner of the windshield opens the interaction plan from outside the vehicle.
Identifying the vehicle
- Cybercab — two seats, two doors, gold, no side mirrors, distinct front and rear lightbars, large wheel covers, cameras on the front fenders, and the Cybercab wordmark on the sides and trunk lid. Doors are opened by a button on the B-pillar. Inside: one landscape touchscreen, no glovebox, and normally no steering wheel or pedals.
- A Cybercab with a steering wheel and pedals is typically an engineering or test car running at SAE Level 2, and a human is responsible for it. Without them it is SAE Level 4 and nobody aboard is driving.
- VIN — on a stamped plate on top of the dashboard, read through the “driver” side of the windshield, and on the certification label on the “driver” side door pillar. The responder line will also read it to you. Registration and proof of insurance are at tesla.com/support/robotaxi/vehicle-info by VIN.
- Our fleet number — a code in the form
NWA-014, at least 3 inches tall on both sides of the vehicle and on a placard inside the windshield. It marks a car as ours rather than the manufacturer’s, and carrying it is a condition of the agreement, not an option an owner can decline. Give us that number and we can tell you everything about the vehicle in seconds. - None of ours are on the road yet. A Cybercab you meet today is operated by Tesla, and the numbers above are the ones that reach someone who can act on it.
Reading it before you approach
The vehicle states what it is doing with its hazard lights and its screen. Both are worth a look from behind it.
- Hazards flashing rapidly — about twice the normal rate — mean autonomous mode is disengaged. That is your signal to approach. It happens after a collision, after you pull the car over, and when it has a connectivity or hardware fault.
- Hazards at the normal rate mean a pick-up or drop-off in progress. The car is still autonomous and will drive away.
- A grey “Self-Driving” indicator in the top left of the touchscreen means autonomous mode is live. Its absence is your confirmation that it is not.
- Stillness proves nothing. It moves quietly and can restart instantly. Treat it as autonomous until the hazards flash rapidly and a representative confirms it is off. Once off, it cannot re-enable itself — only a Tesla representative can.
- To pull one over: get behind it, lights and siren on, and stay behind it. It pulls over at the first safe place, avoids blocking driveways, and may take a while to find one on a highway. Wait for the rapid flash. It then stays put until Tesla moves it or re-engages it.
- It yields to you on lights and sirens, pulling aside without the rapid flash — yielding is not disengaging. It also responds to clear hand signals and follows cone patterns.
- After a collision or airbag deployment it parks, disables autonomy, flashes rapidly, unlocks the doors, drops both windows if airbags fired, and opens a line to Tesla, who can call 911. It stays where it is until the scene is released.
On scene: immobilise, disable, reach the occupants, move
Summarised from the interaction plan and the emergency response guide. Where the real answer is a diagram — loop locations, lift points, no-cut zones — open the guide at tesla.com/firstresponders rather than working from a description of one.
1 · Immobilise it
- Ask for immobilisation on the responder line, or through the B-pillar speakers if the line is already open.
- Cage it — front, back and both sides, where the cameras can see the cage. If you cannot reach anyone, cage it before you interact with it.
- Chock the wheels. It is silent. Never assume it is powered off, and never assume it will not move.
- Open a cabin door and keep it open. A door held open, or a seat belt unbuckled with a passenger aboard, makes the car disengage and park. Block the door so it cannot close and let the vehicle re-engage.
Wait for confirmation that autonomous mode is off before any significant interaction with the vehicle.
2 · Disable it
- Double cut the First Responder Loop and remove the cut section so the ends cannot find each other. That opens the high voltage contactors — isolating high voltage to the pack — and kills low voltage to the airbag circuit. The primary loop is under the hood on the “passenger” side; a secondary loop sits behind the B-pillar trim and can be reached from inside the cabin when the exterior route is not feasible. The guide locates both.
- The hood has no release and no prop rod. Ask Tesla to open it. With no low voltage power, a 48V external supply on the jump start connector releases the latch — 12V and 16V will not — and bring something to prop it with. Connect and disconnect only with the supply switched off; live, it arcs.
- For a complete de-power, cut the loop, then double cut the negative cable on the 48V low voltage battery under the hood — black with a yellow stripe, and never both cables at once — then wait 2 minutes. Cutting the low voltage battery alone is not enough: the system is redundant and the high voltage side can feed it.
- If it is charging, unplug it first or kill power at the station. Never cut a charging cable with power behind it. The charge port is on the rear bumper below the trunk, and a manual release cable sits behind the rear “driver” side wheel liner.
Assume every high voltage component is energised no matter what you have cut. The pack is always live; isolation only confines it to the pack. Never cut an orange cable and never breach the battery. The restraint control module holds a charge for about 10 seconds after a deployment — do not touch it inside that window — and the high voltage circuit needs 2 minutes to de-energise.
3 · Reach the occupants
- Occupants can get out on their own. Doors open from the inside; passengers are not trapped by the absence of a driver. Lift the interior handle fully — the second detent is the mechanical release. Unpowered, the door is heavy, swings out and up, will not stay open, and the glass may crack if it is still up. Prop it.
- From outside, press the B-pillar button, or ask for the doors to be unlocked and opened remotely. If a door reads an obstruction that is not there, hold the button to override it.
- Check the door struts first. Where a door or the area around its strut is damaged, the preloaded spring can pop out as the door opens. Work from the undamaged side; if both are damaged, avoid opening fully.
- The battery is the cabin floor. There is no floor pan between them. Never push down on the floor and never drive a sharp tool into it.
- Cutting. The A and B pillars and door rings are ultra-high-strength steel and want hydraulic tools; the door hinges are thick cast aluminium and take real time. The windshield is laminated, the door glass tempered, and the dash cross-car beam is brittle glass-fibre composite that shatters under load. The guide marks the no-cut zones — read them before committing to a cut.
- Seats and screen are electric and may be dead after a crash. Restoring low voltage power to a crashed vehicle is not recommended: it can start an electrical fire.
4 · Move it, or tow it
- Ask for it to be moved remotely first — that is the preferred route and usually the fastest. Failing that, a uniformed responder can be granted access to the on-board controls after showing a badge to the B-pillar camera.
- Pushing it clear. Where low voltage power is present and there is little fire or high voltage risk, it can be pushed a short distance to clear the roadway. The parking brake sets itself above 5 mph, or if low voltage power drops. Pushing it when it is not in Neutral or Tow Mode can overheat the motor, and with electrics exposed carries a shock risk even after the loop is cut.
- If airbags deployed, do not move it on its wheels unless it can be shifted to Neutral or Tow Mode. Secure the wheels and transport it.
- Tow with all four tyres off the ground, every time. The motor generates power when the wheels spin, and that can overheat it badly enough to ignite what is around it. A roll-back or flatbed is the recommended method; a wheel lift with self-loading dollies is the alternative, front wheels lifted, within the dollies’ speed rating.
- The tow strap is behind the front licence plate — unscrew and rotate the plate. Hook the carabiner, or both loops if there is no carabiner, since one loop alone can let the strap detach. Secure with an 8-point tie-down, pulling the wheel covers off if they foul the straps, and stow the winch hook before moving. Do not tow from the control arms.
Fire, water, and the battery
A 400V lithium-ion pack sits under the cabin floor, liquid cooled with orange coolant, with a 48V battery under the hood. Standard EV response applies, and the guide is specific about the numbers.
- Water, and a great deal of it — roughly 3,000 to 8,000 gallons applied directly to the battery to fully extinguish and cool a pack fire. Call for the supply early. Foam is not recommended, and neither is submerging the vehicle to cool it.
- Monitor for at least 24 hours on a thermal camera: no fire, smoke, popping or hissing for 45 minutes before releasing it to a transporter. One oddity to expect — the seat belts carry infrared webbing for night visibility and read as a hot spot.
- Re-ignition is a real risk. Store a burnt, submerged or battery-damaged car outside and at least 50 feet from other vehicles and structures. Raising the front about a foot drains water out of the pack; stand 5 feet clear of the battery in voltage-rated PPE while you do it.
- A burning pack vents toxic gas — hydrogen fluoride among them, with oxides of nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper. Full PPE and SCBA, and move civilians out of the plume.
- Submersion is otherwise unremarkable: the body is no more of a shock hazard for being in water. Recover it, disable it as above, drain it, and watch pack temperature on the way to storage.
We will send someone to any scene involving one of our vehicles, regardless of fault or severity, and we will stay until you release it.
Law enforcement requests
For crash reports, video, or trip records from one of our vehicles, call the responder line and ask for the operations lead. For anything requiring legal process, contact robotaxinwa@gmail.com. We retain trip and event data and will preserve it on request.
Manufacturer-held data — camera recordings, diagnostic logs, event data recorder output — is released by Tesla against a warrant or subpoena, under the process at ts.la/ler-guidelines. Ask early: the cameras save footage from before and after a collision or a disengagement, and every disengagement is logged as an incident.
If you have cited or reported one of our vehicles, giving us the report number below closes the loop on our side and helps us fix whatever caused it.
Report a vehicle
Non-emergency. For anything urgent, call 911. If there are injuries, call 911 first.
Training and walkthroughs
We will bring a vehicle to your station and walk your crew through it, at no cost, any time. Email robotaxinwa@gmail.com. We would rather your first encounter with one of these be in your own bay than on a highway at night.
Tesla runs responder training as well, in person or virtually, and takes questions from training officers at RobotaxiFirstResponderSafety@tesla.com. That address is not monitored for emergencies — on a scene, use the responder line.