Tesla Plans Cybercab Launch in Austin as Early as This Month
Tesla is preparing to launch its driverless Cybercab in Austin this month, but safety experts and regulators still question the vehicle's readiness.
The gold-tinted two-seater has been spotted around the country, often with temporary controls, while Tesla employees have been testing a fully driverless version on private roads around the company's campus since July. Brad Cesak, a spokesperson for the city of Austin, confirmed that Tesla recently completed a training session with local first responders on how to move the vehicles in an emergency.
Tesla's Robotaxi account on X said a "Cybercab launch event" is imminent and invited followers to ride in Model Y robotaxis for a chance to win a ticket. The Cybercab relies on Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised) software, which the company says is significantly safer than human driving. Safety experts and federal regulators have challenged that claim, noting that the system requires constant driver oversight and remains under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Over a year after Tesla launched its robotaxi service, it still uses human safety monitors in some markets. The Cybercab is designed to operate without human intervention, eliminating that fallback. Tesla says remote operators can take control in an emergency, but experts question whether signal strength and latency could hinder reactions. Tesla has begun adding Starlink equipment to the Cybercab to improve connectivity.
Musk said on an earnings call in July that Tesla needed to accumulate driving data specific to the Cybercab before deploying many of them. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of AI, said the company's unsupervised robotaxis have driven 380,000 miles across six cities in two states. Waymo, which has run a commercial robotaxi service since 2020, has covered more than 220 million fully driverless miles, roughly 579 times as many. According to the crowdsourced Robotaxi Tracker, Tesla was operating 16 unsupervised vehicles in Austin, four in Dallas and one in Houston.
Tesla has not submitted its safety claims for independent review, instead publishing its own statistics while working to limit public scrutiny of data it provides to regulators. Waymo has published studies in peer-reviewed journals; the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently examined Waymo's first 50 million miles and concluded that its crash rates were significantly lower than those of human drivers.
The Cybercab is the lightest and most efficient electric vehicle Tesla has produced, but it is unclear whether its technology is ready for commercial operations. It resembles the Tesla Semi more than the Model Y or Cybertruck in that it appears intended for commercial service rather than personal ownership, despite Musk's claim that it will eventually be sold to individuals. The absence of traditional controls also means that the vehicle would need explicit regulatory approval to be sold to the public, as federal safety rules require pedals and mirrors.