‘End Of The Year’: Tesla Says Cybercab Customer Deliveries Will Begin Soon

Tesla Cybercab RobotaxiBut the vast majority of Cybercabs will be owned by Tesla, CEO Elon Musk says.Tesla will begin delivering Cybercabs to private customers at the end of the year, according to a Tesla executive on Wednesday's earnings call.

Customers will more or less be beta testers, and the majority of Cybercabs will be owned and operated by Tesla, Musk says.

Musk originally said the Cybercab would cost less than $30,000.

Tesla will deliver Cybercabs to customers by the end of the year, Vice President of Engineering Lars Moravy said during the company's third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. But don't get too excited about owning a $30,000 Tesla: CEO Elon Musk quickly walked back ambitions for how many the company will deliver to private individuals.

"In short, we're trying to get to customers by the end of this year, 2026," Moravy said in response to a question on customer deliveries. "Obviously we're producing them on the line in Texas, but all of those are currently going into our own internal robotaxi fleet."

The company has produced a few hundred Cybercabs for development. It is currently offering paid rides in Austin, Texas, with expansion plans for Dallas, soon. But the company is also under investigation by the federal government for using a vehicle without some federally required equipment. (Another robotaxi company, Zoox, recently got the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's blessing to offer autonomous rides in a vehicle without typically required controls.)

The lack of a steering wheel also opens questions for private ownership, which Musk originally promised for a price of under $30,000. How or whether you'll be able to drive it remains an open question. But again, it doesn't sound like Musk is too worried about the answers to this question. More and more, he is promoting the Cybercab as a holistically owned mobility service, not a product for customers.

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"Cybercab is primarily going to be something that is offered as 'transport as a service.' Whereas our other cars will be more the cars you want to own, like the 3 and the Y, and the Roadster, obviously," CEO Elon Musk said on the call. "The vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be essentially Tesla-owned and transport as a service."

That's a different vision than I'm used to hearing from Musk. He has long talked about how you'll be able to own a Model 3 or Model Y and have it pay for itself by offering rides on Tesla's ride-sharing app. When the Cybercab was unveiled, that was a big part of the pitch.

But it was always a weird one. To offer autonomous rides, you need to handle charging, demand matching, fleet mix, cleaning, and maintenance, and it makes sense for the vehicles to be dedicated taxis, as all of its competitors use.

The Model 3 and Y may still support private owners volunteering them for robotaxi duty, should Tesla ever solve broad-spectrum autonomy. But as for Cybercab owners, well, it sounds like there won't be many of them to begin with.