Tesla Will Sell Cybercabs By The End Of 2026

Tesla Cybercab targets customer deliveries in 2026 while most vehicles continue working as robotaxis in the company’s internal fleet.

Tesla Cybercab Robotaxi

Photo by: Tesla

Brian Potter

By: Brian Potter

Oct 22, at 4:56am ET

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Tesla says it wants Cybercabs in customer driveways by the end of 2026, turning a robotaxi project into something at least a few private owners can park at home. Lars Moravy, the company's vice president of engineering, confirmed the target on Tesla's third-quarter earnings call this week.

The plan comes after a year of Elon Musk promoting Cybercab as the center of Tesla's ride-hailing plans. Right now, every Cybercab rolling off the line goes straight into Tesla's own robotaxi fleet, and none go to buyers.

Deliveries Targeted For The End Of 2026

Tesla Cybercab

Tesla Cybercab

Photo by: Tesla

Moravy told investors that current production "is going into Tesla's internal robotaxi fleet." Customer deliveries are still a stated goal.

Paid rides began in Austin's robotaxi service on September 3, months before this delivery timeline surfaced. Tesla calls the initial end-of-year deliveries "small," a pilot run to study how ownership, delivery, and fleet management work once cars leave its direct control.

The Cybercab itself has not changed since its reveal as a two-seat, purpose-built autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. Tesla first floated selling the design to outside buyers last month at a Cybercab event in Austin.

Full autonomy still depends on software Tesla has not shipped yet. Owners today can subscribe to Full Self-Driving (Supervised), which still requires a human ready to intervene.

Tesla's AI chief Ashok Elluswamy has set an internal target for an unsupervised version in the second quarter of 2027.

Most Cybercabs Will Stay In Tesla's Own Fleet

The Tesla Cybercab seen live

Tesla Cybercab

Photo by: Motor1.com

Musk was blunt about where priorities sit. "Cybercab is primarily going to be something that is offered as like transport as a service, whereas our other cars would be more, you know, the cars that you'd want to own," he said on the earnings call.

That answers the ownership question directly. Customer-operated Cybercabs will be the exception as Tesla scales its ride-hailing network first. Buyers hoping to add one to a driveway are looking at a minority allocation.

Tesla has built toward this moment for years, with Musk describing a low-cost robotaxi fleet as central to the company's future long before Cybercab had a name. The vehicle's reveal set that direction, and this earnings call confirmed the sequencing: fleet first, private buyers later and in far smaller numbers.

Will A Federal Safety Review Slow Things Down?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened its investigation after Cybercabs began operating on public Austin streets. The agency began an Audit Query to investigate Tesla's certification that the Cybercab meets all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

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Specifically, NHTSA is probing whether Tesla had grounds to treat certain federal safety standards as not applicable to a car with no manual controls. Current rules require equipment like brake pedals and rearview mirrors, items the Cybercab simply does not have.

Tesla's reported deadline to respond to the agency sits at October 30, 2026, just over a week after the earnings call. NHTSA has proposed updated standards for vehicles without human controls, but those changes have not taken effect. Existing rules still apply while the review continues.