Tesla’s Cybercab edges closer to launch with employee rides at Gigafactory Texas, 100+ Robotaxis ready to go

Fans of Tesla’s futuristic two-seater Cybercabs are eagerly awaiting the service’s public debut, as the self-driving golden electric vehicles currently sit idle in the Giga Texas parking lot. Tesla says that employees at Gigafactory Texas will soon start receiving Cybercab ride services.

Tesla announced the news on its Robotaxi account on X, sharing a clip of a gold Cybercab with no steering wheel or pedals as it navigated the Giga Texas lot. The post was paired with a simple caption: “Cool news from Giga Texas.”

Later, Tesla’s main account amplified the update, stating on X, “Cybercab employee rides at Giga Texas starting soon.” Adding to the excitement, Tesla’s Cybercab and Robotaxi engineering lead, Eric, revealed that he has already booked and logged “50 rides over the last few days” and hasn’t wanted to step out of the car once.

More questions abound

Despite this, the whole Cybercab sneak peek raises questions. Tesla has yet to clarify whether this is intended as a shuttle service across the sprawling Giga Texas campus or merely a short demonstration loop around the parking lot.

Fans now wait to see whether the Cybercab will ultimately become the ride-hailing product Tesla has been promoting. Only time will tell. For the moment, though, it doesn’t quite match the product many enthusiasts had envisioned.

The Cybercab is envisioned as a two-door vehicle with no manual driving controls, meaning there is no human safety fallback if the autonomous driving system malfunctions. This stands in sharp contrast to Tesla’s Model Y SUV Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, which still retains traditional controls.

For now, Tesla is aware of and fully acknowledges the fact that its self-driving system needs an overhaul before the company, key regulators, and citizens themselves have enough faith in it to run unsupervised on public roads. 

Meanwhile, key regulators are slowly warming to the idea of a future filled with steering wheel–free self-driving vehicles. Just days before Tesla’s announcement, NHTSA administrator Jonathon Morrison told CNBC that the agency would move forward with scrapping the steering wheel mandate for autonomous vehicles “designed never to be driven by a human operator.” This follows the NHTSA’s earlier decision to drop the requirement for autonomous vehicles to be equipped with brake pedals.

At present, Tesla reportedly has a fleet of more than 100 Cybercabs lined up in its Giga Texas lot. According to the company, the final barrier to commercial deployment is not hardware or regulation, but software optimization needed to guarantee passenger and pedestrian safety.