Tesla to sell Cybercabs by year-end as NHTSA probes safety

By Nathan Brooks

Tesla said on Wednesday it will start selling Cybercabs to customers by the end of the year. The announcement came as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigates the vehicle’s safety certification.

Tesla made the announcement during its third-quarter earnings call. Its gold-hued, autonomous two-seater lacks a steering wheel and other traditional controls.

Tesla starts with its own fleet

Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of engineering, said every Cybercab produced today is bound for Tesla’s own robotaxi fleet. As that fleet grows, Tesla will mainly deliver fully designed autonomous vehicles to customers, starting small, Moravy said.

Under Moravy’s account, customer deliveries follow internal fleet growth and lessons in delivery, ownership and fleet management. Tesla will begin small and expand as it learns how those operations develop.

Tesla first floated third-party sales last month around its Cybercab event in Austin. The company also posted a form for people interested in buying robotaxis, but had not clarified whether it would proceed or how.

For years, Elon Musk has pitched a massive fleet of low-cost robotaxis. Until recently, Tesla’s strategy centered on software updates that would turn privately owned Teslas into self-driving taxis, but that approach has not materialized.

Tesla’s earnings call showed how Musk’s views shifted toward a purpose-built Cybercab while Tesla retains most of the fleet. The change separates Tesla’s vehicle business from its plan to operate autonomous transportation.

Tesla owners can subscribe to Full Self-Driving (Supervised), an advanced driver-assistance system that automates many driving tasks. The system still requires a human driver to take control, and Tesla says an engaged, ready driver remains mandatory. Tesla continues releasing software updates, even as many videos show drivers testing the limits of that rule.

Musk said an unsupervised version of FSD would reach customers sometime in the second quarter of next year. His schedule marked another delay for owners, including some who bought or subscribed to the software years ago.

Tesla keeps most Cybercabs inside its fleet

“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, like the 3 and the Y and whatnot, and the Roadster, obviously,” Musk said Wednesday on the call.

Musk said the vast majority of Cybercabs would remain essentially Tesla-owned and transported as a service. Under that product split, third-party fleet purchases sit ahead of direct consumer ownership, while Tesla’s internal fleet receives today’s output.

What does this change for fleet operators?

Under Tesla’s two timelines, a third-party fleet customer could buy a Cybercab and potentially operate robotaxi service before owners receive the same autonomous capability in their own Teslas. For operators, the immediate change is earlier access to a vehicle designed for ride-hailing, while initial availability remains tied to Tesla’s small start and internal deployment.

NHTSA announced last month that it had opened an investigation into the Cybercab, hours after the vehicles began operating on public streets in Austin. The agency said it would investigate the vehicle to “examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues.”

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards require:

• manual controls such as brake pedals;
• rearview and side mirrors.

Automakers traditionally self-certify compliance, and Tesla certified the Cybercab under the same system. Existing rules do not accommodate vehicles without manual controls.

The Department of Transportation recently proposed removing those requirements for vehicles designed to operate autonomously. The investigation’s outcome could affect whether Tesla or any other operator can legally run the Cybercab.

Two deadlines now define Tesla’s autonomy business: initial Cybercab customer sales by year-end and unsupervised FSD for owners in the second quarter of next year. NHTSA’s certification review could determine whether Cybercabs can scale beyond Tesla’s own fleet.