Tesla Cybercab

Background

In 2019, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that he believed that Tesla would have one million autonomous robotaxis operating on public roads by the end of 2020; observers speculated that he meant converting already sold Tesla vehicles to be autonomous.[1]

Since approximately 2020, Tesla had made public statements about a mass market electric car product that would follow the Model Y[2] and would be considerably cheaper than the Model 3. In 2022, Musk was advocating inside the company that the robotaxi would be Tesla's next vehicle, but by September 2022, he had reluctantly accepted the recommendation of Tesla executives Franz von Holzhausen and Lars Moravy that the next-generation vehicle platform should support both a small, inexpensive, mass-market car and a robotaxi that would be built with no steering wheel at all, and that both could be manufactured on the platform and use the same next-generation vehicle assembly line.[3] In October 2022, the company stated publicly that the Tesla engineering team had turned its focus to the new platform, and that the company expected the platform would enable cars to be half of the price of the Tesla Model 3 or Y.[4]

In April 2024, Musk announced that the Robotaxi reveal would take place in August, subsequently delayed to October.[5]

Announcement

Musk unveiled the Cybercab at the Tesla We, Robot event held October 10, 2024, at Warner Bros. Studios Burbank in California, where 20 concept Cybercabs were autonomously driving around the studio outlot at night and giving rides to attendees of the event.[6] Musk stated that Tesla intends to produce the Cybercab before 2027.[7] The final name of the vehicle remained unclear, as Tesla used both "Robotaxi" and "Cybercab" throughout the event to refer to the cars.[8] Tesla also demonstrated their humanoid robot, Optimus, at the event and showed off a single concept prototype of a Robovan that could reportedly hold as many as 20 passengers.[9]

The concept Cybercab shown was a two-passenger car;[10] it had two butterfly doors but no door handles as the doors opened automatically. The car had no rear window and no side view mirrors.[11][12] The car had a hatchback opening for cargo, with no external charge port showing on the prototype vehicles. The production vehicle was planned to include inductive charging.[8][13]

Investor reaction to the announcement was muted, particularly given the long time frame between the announcement and expected start of production.[7] New Scientist noted the Cybercab will not be available for two years while the Waymo self-driving cars are operating on streets today.[14]

In October 2024, Alcon Entertainment, a production company that worked on Blade Runner 2049 (2017), sued Musk for apparent similarities between Tesla's marketing of the Cybercab and the film.[15]

Production

On the Tesla investor call on October 23, 2024, Tesla said they were aiming to be in volume production with Cybercab by the end of 2026, and that the annual production goal was 2 million Cybercabs per year, when several factories are at full design capacity.

In November 2025 at the Shareholder meeting, Elon Musk announced that the Cybercab production would begin in the second quarter of 2026.[16]

In February 2026, Tesla announced the first Cybercab production vehicle had been produced at the Gigafactory Texas.[17] By mid-March, frequent Cybercab test units were spotted on public roads (Silicon Valley and Austin, Texas) as well as 25 units on the Giga Texas facility, many of them operating in test cycles on area roads.[18] Intensive crash testing of more than a dozen units was among the final validation steps before the larger production ramp.[19]

Roof

The roof is to be made of polyurethane panels with embedded pigmentation. The roof is not painted during manufacturing. Plastic parts are welded ultrasonically. An extended headliner matches the frameless windows. Roof-mounted sensors are not present.[21][22]