Tesla Opens Personal Cybercab Orders For Select Customers

Insider Brief

• Tesla is inviting select customers to purchase its Cybercab for $29,990 before taxes, with a required $299 monthly Autonomy Subscription and initial deliveries expected in December in Austin.
• The two-seat vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals and is limited to supported service areas, with personal, non-commercial use required unless Tesla authorizes other applications.
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said nationwide availability will depend on regulatory approvals and suggested lowering the subscription fee, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration continues reviewing the Cybercab’s compliance with federal vehicle safety standards.

Tesla is inviting select customers to buy a Cybercab for personal use at $29,990 before taxes, plus a required Autonomy Subscription of $299 a month, according to an X post from the company’s official Robotaxi account.

The two-seat car has no steering wheel or pedals and Tesla’s order page says the subscription and regular vehicle maintenance are required to operate it, with the first month included in the purchase. Orders require a $1,000 nonrefundable deposit, and the monthly fee is billed separately until it is canceled, excluding taxes. Tesla estimates December delivery in Austin.

An order-page screenshot shared by Marques Brownlee also lists Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio as delivery cities, and he wrote that orders are limited to one vehicle per customer. Electrek, citing Tesla’s invitation email, reported that the car is only available in supported service areas.

Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of AI, said in an X post that the Cybercab will work unsupervised inside all the same areas as Tesla’s Robotaxi service while serving its owners’ needs. Electric vehicle news site TeslaNorth, citing screenshots of Tesla’s Autonomy Subscription Agreement, reported that it is limited to personal, non-commercial use and cannot be used for Robotaxi, ride-hailing, delivery or rental platforms unless Tesla authorizes or enables that use.

In a reply to Brownlee, CEO Elon Musk said the vehicle will be available nationwide as the company receives regulatory approval. He also said the monthly fee is too high and should match the cost of Tesla Full Self-Driving and connectivity on other models, which he put at about $115 a month.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has an open audit query into Tesla’s certification that the Cybercab meets all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The agency opened that review after Tesla began commercial Cybercab service in Austin, to examine the technical data and processes the company used to certify a vehicle without traditional human controls, including whether Tesla treated some standard requirements as not applying to its automated vehicles.

Tesla first showed the Cybercab at its We, Robot event as a two-door robotaxi priced under $30,000. The company later started production of the vehicle, and its third-quarter update said Robotaxi rides in Cybercabs had begun in Austin, with nearly 2 million cumulative unsupervised Robotaxi miles by the end of the quarter. At the time, every unit coming off the Texas line was going to Tesla’s own fleet, though Lars Moravy, vice president of vehicle engineering, said the company was trying to get Cybercabs to customers by year-end.

Elluswamy noted on the same call that customer-owned cars could start joining the Robotaxi fleet around the second quarter of next year. Musk also pointed out that Tesla would own most of the vehicles and offer them as a transportation service.