- The Tesla Cybercab, a two-seat EV without pedals and a steering wheel, is now offering robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas.
- The introduction follows a closed-door event where traditional media was not invited.
- Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO and one of the biggest believers in vision-only self-driving cars, did not attend the launch.
After a hyped-up but rather underwhelming launch event on Thursday night, Tesla’s golden, two-seat Cybercabs are finally offering driverless rides in Austin, Texas. A closed-door party attended mainly attended by Tesla enthusiasts and content creators—but apparently not Elon Musk—marked the occasion and was where a hand-picked group got the first rides.
Launching a car without a steering wheel or pedals is the clearest embodiment yet of Musk's bet that cameras and powerful AI can handle the monstrously difficult task of autonomously piloting a car safely. In addition to the driverless Model Ys that have been available through Tesla's fledgling Robotaxi service, members of the public will be able to hail a Cybercab starting at 5 pm Central Time on Friday, Tesla said in an X post.
It's no doubt a milestone for the company and its CEO, who has promised to deliver self-driving cars on a massive scale for years. Just how big or lasting a milestone this turns out to be will depend on how well the Cybercabs actually function, and how quickly Tesla is able to roll them out within Texas and in new cities. Musk is already behind schedule; he said that by the end of 2025 Tesla's Robotaxi service would serve half the U.S. population.
The Cybercab fleet is small right now. Tesla didn’t say how many Cybercabs are available for public rides, but recently published data from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles shows that the company has just 45 Cybercabs registered in the state. It's not clear whether all of those are participating in the service or not. What’s more, the two-seat EVs are only available in Austin for now. In total, Tesla operates approximately 220 driverless taxis across six cities, according to the crowdsourced Robotaxi Tracker website. By comparison, Waymo, the biggest robotaxi operator in the U.S., has roughly 4,000 vehicles offering rides in 14 cities.
Tesla left some big questions unanswered about its Cybercab plans—like when the public will actually be able to buy one for $30,000 as Musk previously promised. But we do know more about the vehicle and how it will operate than before.
Cybercab rides open to public tomorrow 5pm CT
— Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) September 4, 2026
First off, Tesla bans children under the age of 13 from riding in a Cybercab. According to a newly published page on Tesla’s website, the two-door driverless taxi can only carry adults and minors aged 13-17 if they’re accompanied by an adult. What’s more, riders are only allowed to request a Robotaxi for themselves, which means kids who are out partying can’t ask their parents to hail a Cybercab for them.
The Cybercab also doesn’t have ISOFIX or LATCH anchors for child seats, but the official documentation shows that one child seat can be mounted using the car’s seat belt. This is irrelevant for robotaxi rides, seeing how kids younger than 13 can’t use Cybercabs at all, but the feature may have been integrated as a future-proofing method for when the steering-wheel-less EV will be sold to the public.
As a reminder, children as young as eight years old can ride in a Model Y robotaxi if they’re accompanied by an adult.
Size-wise, the new Cybercab can accommodate two people and has a rear trunk cargo volume of 20.2 cubic feet, which is enough for two checked bags and two carry-ons, according to the company. The trunk, which has a weight limit of 220 pounds (100 kilograms), is also adequate for one large folded stroller and one folded wheelchair. “80% of robotaxi rides are with two passengers; that’s why the Cybercab only has two seats,” one of the company officials said during last night’s presentation.
The trunk can be opened from the smartphone app, and the doors automatically open when the rider is nearby. Alternatively, the doors can be opened via the app. When inside, the doors can be opened from the central touchscreen or from the dedicated buttons on each door card.
The two backrests can be controlled independently, but the seat base moves forward and backward as one piece. Tesla said that the rider’s preferences will be automatically set to the vehicle when it arrives, based on settings from previous rides. These include the interior temperature and all of the accounts for streaming services. When the ride ends, the settings are wiped from the car. There’s also Grok integration, enabling riders to ask questions and get naturally sounding answers from the artificial intelligence assistant.
Inside, the Cybercab has a cabin-facing camera and a cabin radar. The camera checks the vehicle for cleanliness and lost items between rides, while the radar scans for occupants to determine how to deploy the airbags. There are front airbags, knee airbags, seat-mounted side airbags, inner seat-mounted airbags, and curtain airbags. USB-C charging ports are also available.
The two-door EV relies on cameras exclusively for driverless navigation, with a total of eight exterior cameras doing the heavy lifting: one at the front, one at the rear, one in each door pillar, two at the top of the windshield, and one in each front fender.
When it comes to pure specifications, the Cybercab is the lightest, most efficient car Tesla has ever made, with a coefficient of drag of under 0.2, according to Eric Earley, the vehicle’s lead engineer. Documents filed with the Environmental Protection Agency show that the entry-level EV is powered by a front-mounted electric motor that makes 219 horsepower. A 48-kilowatt-hour battery pack provides the energy. The car’s curb weight is just 3,113 pounds, making it about 700 pounds lighter than the lightest Model 3 available right now.
The Cybercab doesn’t have conventional hydraulic brakes, and instead uses electric actuators for the calipers. The exterior of the Cybercab is unpainted. The color is embedded into the material when it’s molded in the factory, which reduces cost and complexity, as there’s no need for a separate paint booth.
And this speaks to the key advantage of the Cybercab, as described by Tesla and its supporters. Since the cab is purpose-built and made by Tesla, it can be a cheaper and more scalable than, say, Waymo's Jaguars or Zeekrs. At a large scale, maybe that's true. But Tesla has a lot to prove before it can get there.
