According to Electrek, a Tesla Cybercab was involved in a crash in Philadelphia this week and came out of it missing the entire outer panel of its driver-side door. Photos posted on Reddit show the gold vehicle stopped on South Broad Street, a little over a mile south of City Hall, with the door's inner frame, window regulator, and wiring exposed. The person who posted the photos did not see the crash but said it looked like a low-speed incident; the glass was intact and the underlying structure did not appear bent, with only crumpled rocker trim and scuffs on the rear quarter panel as other damage. It is not clear who was at fault, whether anyone was injured, or whether a dark sedan stopped behind the Cybercab was involved.
Electrek notes that the Cybercab's body panels are molded plastic with the color mixed into the material, not painted. Tesla engineering and design executives previously explained that the colored skin is joined to a plastic backing and held on by fasteners reached from inside. A door skin coming off whole is therefore roughly what the design would produce. On a steel-bodied car, the same impact would likely mean a dented door and body-shop work; Tesla could in theory bolt on a new skin, though damage lower on the car might complicate that.
The crash also raises a regulatory question. Pennsylvania requires a certificate of compliance from PennDOT to operate a highly automated vehicle, and Tesla is not on the list of certificate holders. Gold Cybercabs were photographed around Philadelphia in mid-September, and Tesla did not say what they were for. Without the certificate, the car on Broad Street was most likely being driven by hand or running Tesla's software as a Level 2 driver-assist system with a human legally responsible. The photos do not show whether this Cybercab had a steering wheel, and that affects whether the crash must be reported to NHTSA. Electrek adds the caveat that if a human driver drifted into the Cybercab, Tesla's software had nothing to do with the crash, and the photos cannot settle whether the panel design is a repair-friendly feature or a liability.