Tesla announced on July 11, 2026, that fully autonomous Cybercab rides for employees will begin soon at Gigafactory Texas, marking the first operational deployment of the steering-wheel-less vehicle on company grounds1,2.
The announcement came via Tesla's Robotaxi account on X, accompanied by a video showing a gold-colored Cybercab autonomously picking up and dropping off employees on the factory campus. Tesla's main X account amplified the update, stating: "Cybercab employee rides at Giga Texas starting soon".
The Cybercab is a two-door vehicle with no steering wheel, pedals, or other manual driving controls. Inside, passengers interact with a 21-inch central touchscreen — described as the largest ever in a Tesla vehicle — that controls content playback, opens the doors, and allows passengers to tell the Cybercab to pull over mid-ride. Each door also includes a physical button that doubles as an emergency release.
While the broader employee rollout is forthcoming, Tesla executives have already been using the vehicle. Eric, Tesla's Cybercab and Robotaxi Engineering Lead, posted on X that he had logged "50 rides over the last few days" and "never wanted to get out of it at the end of the ride".
Tesla reportedly has a fleet of more than 100 Cybercabs lined up at its Gigafactory Texas lot. The company confirmed the Cybercab entered mass production in April.
The scope of the employee program remains undefined. Tesla has not clarified whether the Cybercab rides will function as a shuttle service across the sprawling Gigafactory Texas campus or as a shorter demonstration loop around the parking lot.
The Cybercab is equipped with dual GPS for better position tracking and includes a more powerful FSD computer than standard consumer Tesla vehicles. Tesla has been validating the Cybercab on public roads for months and has also tested steering-wheel-less production units in Austin.
Tesla has said the final barrier to commercial deployment is software optimization needed to guarantee passenger and pedestrian safety, and that its self-driving system needs an overhaul before it can run unsupervised on public roads. The company plans to use the Cybercab as its primary robotaxi vehicle, with Model Y SUVs deployed in markets that require a human safety driver or for rides with more than two passengers. Tesla's Model Y Robotaxi fleet in Austin still retains traditional controls.
The on-campus testing approach allows Tesla to advance operational validation without waiting for broader regulatory clearances. On the regulatory front, 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. Separately, a New Jersey bill would outlaw Tesla's camera-based robotaxi technology in that state3.
ANALYSIS By deploying the Cybercab on its own factory campus, Tesla can accumulate ride data and refine its autonomous software in a controlled environment while sidestepping the patchwork of state and municipal regulations governing public-road robotaxi operations. The divergent regulatory signals — federal loosening of hardware mandates versus state-level restrictions like the New Jersey bill — underscore the fragmented landscape Tesla faces as it moves toward commercial deployment.