Tesla to Expand Cybercab Beyond Austin, Begin Sales to Fleet Operators by Year-End

Tesla said Wednesday it will launch its Cybercab in Dallas next month and expand to additional cities by the end of this year, and will begin selling the vehicle to fleet operators by year-end. The company currently runs small robotaxi fleets of Model Y SUVs in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. On its third-quarter earnings call, CFO Vaibhav Taneja said the company aims to "own transportation of any kind on Earth," though Tesla did not disclose robotaxi revenue. CEO Elon Musk said the ride-hailing business won't be material to financial results until the second quarter of 2027. Tesla also replaced a "Cumulative Paid Robotaxi Miles" chart in its shareholder letter with a measure of unsupervised miles, obscuring visibility into paying riders. The expansion sets up competition with Waymo, which operates more than 4,000 robotaxis across a dozen-plus U.S. cities. Tesla faces a regulatory hurdle: NHTSA opened an investigation in September into whether the Cybercab, which lacks a brake pedal and side mirrors, meets federal safety standards. Autonomy chief Ashok Elluswamy said bottlenecks are "not purely regulatory" but technology-driven.