By Chris Kirkham, Norihiko Shirouzu and Abhirup Roy
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Tesla said on Thursday it was offering rides in "limited areas of Austin, Texas" in its two-seater Cybercab, a vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, with the U.S. auto safety agency responding that it was evaluating the effort.
CEO Elon Musk has said the Cybercab is key to transforming Tesla into a dominant force in driverless vehicles. Tesla in recent weeks has promoted what it called an exclusive "Cybercab
launch event" in Austin on Thursday, drawing interest from investors and fans, some of whom came to Texas to try out the golden, butterfly-door cars.
Musk himself skipped the event, attendees said, and remarks from executives on pricing plans, manufacturing and technology lasted only about a quarter of an hour, according to videos posted after the event.
The electric-vehicle maker has a limited robotaxi ride-hailing service with a network of autonomous Model Ys, some with human safety monitors. Its fleet registered in Texas is less than half that of autonomous rival Waymo, whose autonomous service has cars with human controls – but no human drivers. Over time, Tesla intends to make the no-steering-wheel Cybercab the main driverless vehicle model operating within a larger robotaxi network.
Federal safety norms typically require human controls, and the safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, signaled its interest in Tesla's activity.
"NHTSA is in contact with Tesla and is evaluating the situation," the spokesperson said, without elaborating.
Tesla updated its robotaxi website, saying Cybercab rides were available only in some parts of Austin. Tesla did not specify when it would charge fares, although executives at the event described plans to use dynamic pricing, which would rise with demand, while promising "a first-class experience at coach price".
Tesla AI Chief Ashok Elluswamy, one of the presenters, said that anyone could ride. "It's open to the entire public," he said.
Several Tesla investors and social media personalities in Austin enthused over the look and feel of the Cybercab, posting videos of their rides as well as the event, which included at least one partially manufactured Cybercab.
Musk has promised for years that driverless Teslas are imminent, including at a Cybercab unveiling in October 2024 at a Los Angeles-area movie studio, but Tesla's robotaxi rollout has fallen short of his targets, and some analysts in recent months have flagged the slower-than-expected growth.
In a Thursday afternoon video, Musk calls it "the first car that is specifically built for unsupervised full self-driving."
MARKET VALUE UNDERPINNED BY ROBOTAXI AMBITIONS
Since launching a pilot in Austin in June 2025, Tesla has expanded its robotaxi service to a handful of other cities in Texas and Florida.
Analysts and investors see driverless vehicles as key to Tesla's future and a central underpinning of its $1.4 trillion market value, far higher than any other automaker. Tesla's core electric-vehicle business faces pressure from global competition, particularly Chinese EV makers.
Musk has said the Cybercab will eventually be Tesla's largest-volume vehicle, supplying a global network of robotaxis and allowing individual owners to add or remove their vehicles from a Tesla-managed driverless ride-hailing fleet when they are not using the cars. Tesla said production began in April 2026, though Musk cautioned in April that initial production "will be very slow."
REGULATORY HURDLES LIMIT DEPLOYMENT
It is unclear how quickly Tesla will be able to fully deploy the vehicles.
Federal regulations limit the number of vehicles any manufacturer can sell without a steering wheel and pedals. Established manufacturers can deploy an unlimited number of such vehicles for testing.
In California, a key market, Tesla does not have permits to operate a robotaxi service or to test driverless vehicles without a safety driver who can take over in the front seat.
In July 2025, Musk said the company's robotaxi network would expand at a "hyper-exponential rate" and be available to half the population of the U.S. by the end of 2025.
Those predictions did not pan out, and Musk and his executives have struck a more cautious tone in recent months, saying the company is taking a careful approach to avoid injuries or fatalities.
REAL-WORLD TESTING REVEALS SERVICE GAPS
Reuters tested out the robotaxi service in the weeks after Dallas and Houston events earlier this year and found long wait times, with sometimes no availability at all.
On three occasions when a reporter managed to get a ride in Dallas, the robotaxi would not drop him at his downtown destination within Tesla's advertised service area. Each time, it left him about a 15-minute walk away. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment about the service issues.
Tesla had 420 autonomous vehicles registered in Texas as of Wednesday evening, according to state records, including 45 Cybercab vehicles. Earlier on Wednesday, state records showed Tesla had registered 314 vehicles. Alphabet's Waymo, the current U.S. leader in driverless taxis, has 988 vehicles registered in the state.
(Reporting by Chris Kirkham in Los Angeles and Norihiko Shirouzu in Austin, Texas; Additional reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Peter Henderson, Matthew Lewis and Christopher Cushing)
