Tesla prepares to roll out Cybercab robotaxis in new cities
US carmaker Tesla plans to launch its Cybercab robotaxi service in Dallas next month and expand it to other cities by the end of the year. The company has not disclosed how much its robotaxi business earns, and regulatory and technological hurdles remain.
US electric carmaker Tesla says it is preparing to launch its Cybercab robotaxi outside its home base of Austin, Texas. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said so on the company's third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. The expansion will begin in Dallas next month and reach other cities by the end of the year. It could put Tesla in direct competition with Waymo, currently the leading robotaxi operator in the United States.
Plans and competition
Tesla already runs robotaxi versions of its Model Y SUV in small fleets in Dallas, Houston, and the Florida cities of Miami, Orlando and Tampa. It also said it will begin selling Cybercabs to fleet operators by the end of the year. Waymo has more than 4,000 vehicles deployed across over a dozen US cities. Tesla argues the Cybercab is cheaper and easier to build, which should let it undercut rivals on price, but it still has to prove this at scale outside Austin.
Limited financial detail
Tesla did not say how much revenue the robotaxi business brings in. CEO Elon Musk said it will not be noticeable in the company's overall results until the second quarter of 2027. In its shareholder letter, the company also changed a chart: the second-quarter letter showed cumulative paid robotaxi miles, which had fallen 36% from the first quarter, while the new one shows cumulative unsupervised miles, regardless of whether paying passengers were on board. Asked about paid miles, Taneja said only that utilization is improving.
Regulation and technology
Taneja said Tesla must secure all regulatory approvals to deploy Cybercabs as fast as it can build them. In September, hours after the Cybercab's formal launch in Austin, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into whether it complies with federal vehicle safety standards. The car lacks a brake pedal and side mirrors, which current standards require. NHTSA has proposed dropping some of these requirements, but the change is likely still at least a few months away.
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's vice president overseeing autonomy, said the bottlenecks are not purely regulatory but technology-driven. Service hours have gradually been extended from 6 a.m.–9 p.m. to 11 p.m., and soon to 2 a.m. The service still does not operate on highways. Tesla plans to address more difficult driving scenarios by the end of the year.
