Tesla will begin producing the Cybercab this April at its factory in Austin, Texas. CEO Elon Musk announced the news during the company’s shareholder meeting on Thursday. The Cybercab is an autonomous electric vehicle designed without pedals or a steering wheel.
His comments on the Cybercab came just after shareholders overwhelmingly approved a compensation package for Musk. The package could be worth as much as one trillion dollars in company shares, making it the largest in corporate history.
Musk described the Cybercab as the first car specifically built for unsupervised, full self-driving to function as a robotaxi. He confirmed it will not have pedals, a steering wheel, or side mirrors. The vehicle is optimized for the lowest cost-per-mile in autonomous mode, and production will start at the Austin facility.
Tesla has not yet demonstrated that its cars can drive themselves at scale without a safety monitor, despite years of promises. Musk’s announcement also appears to conflict with recent statements from Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm. She had told Bloomberg that the Cybercab would include a steering wheel and pedals as a backup plan. Tesla once considered a version with these controls, but Musk killed the idea. Instead, the company opted to create very stripped-down versions of its most affordable cars.
Musk went on to detail the production process for the Cybercab. He claimed the manufacturing line would have a ten-second cycle time. This represents a massive acceleration from the one-minute cycle time required to assemble a Model Y. Musk said this efficiency could lead to the production of two to three million Cybercabs in a single year. He stated that these vehicles will be everywhere in the future.
Tesla first revealed the Cybercab in October 2024 during its “We, Robot” event at a Warner Bros. Discovery studio in California. At that time, the company promised to eventually sell the vehicles for personal use.
Since then, Tesla has launched a very basic robotaxi service, though not with the proposed Cybercab. The service, which launched in June in certain parts of Austin, uses Model Y SUVs. These vehicles are equipped with what Musk describes as a new, unsupervised version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software. A Tesla employee sits in the passenger seat during these driverless rides.
Putting a Cybercab or any vehicle on the road without standard equipment like a steering wheel will require approval from federal regulators. Earlier this year, Amazon-backed Zoox managed to get an exemption, but only to demonstrate its custom-built robotaxis on public roads. Zoox is still seeking an exemption to operate a commercial robotaxi service.
The regulatory process for these exemptions is long and difficult. General Motors tried and failed to get approval for its custom-built Cruise Origin vehicle. Waymo, the dominant robotaxi service provider in the United States, has stuck to its modified Jaguar I-Pace vehicles that still have traditional controls. Waymo is also developing a vehicle with Zeekr.
Musk did not seem fazed by the potential for regulators to thwart his plans. He thanked Waymo for paving the path. In response to a shareholder question at the annual meeting, he expressed confidence that Tesla will be able to deploy all the Cybercabs it produces. He believes that once the technology becomes extremely normal in cities, regulators will have fewer and fewer reasons to say no.