Tesla confirmed on its third-quarter 2026 earnings call on October 21 that it intends to begin selling the Cybercab robotaxi to customers before the end of 2026, even as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducts an active audit of the vehicle's compliance paperwork2,4.
Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering, told analysts the company is working to deliver the steering-wheel-free, two-seat autonomous vehicle to buyers this year. "We're trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026," Moravy said. "As we start small this year, and we learn ... about delivery and ownership and fleet management of autonomous vehicles in customer hands, we'll continue to scale that".
The regulatory overhang
The sales target lands while NHTSA reviews whether Tesla's self-certification that the Cybercab meets federal motor vehicle safety standards is sound1. The agency opened an investigation within hours of Tesla launching paid Cybercab rides in Austin, Texas, because existing federal standards were largely written for human-driven cars and generally assume manual controls. Tesla faces an October 30, 2026 deadline to respond to the regulator's questions.
The Cybercab lacks a steering wheel, brake pedal, accelerator pedal, and mirrors. Tesla has not confirmed whether the NHTSA audit could delay or limit its ability to deliver units to customers by year-end.
From fleet rides to retail
Until now, every Cybercab produced has gone into Tesla's internal robotaxi fleet3. Tesla started offering paid rides on a small fleet of the vehicles in Austin early last month. Moravy framed the shift to customer sales as the beginning of a broader strategy: "As Tesla grows, we'll mainly deliver fully designed autonomous vehicles to our customers and Cybercabs will be the first".
Elon Musk said the vast majority of Cybercab units will remain Tesla-owned and operated as a transport-as-a-service offering, though some will go to outside buyers. Tesla has not published a retail price, range, battery capacity, or planned production volume for the customer version of the vehicle.
The sales pledge arrives one day after Tesla disclosed on the same earnings call that unsupervised Full Self-Driving in customer-owned vehicles has been pushed to the second quarter of 2027, limited to the geofenced zones where Tesla already runs its robotaxi service[1]. ANALYSIS The juxtaposition puts Tesla in the position of promising near-term retail delivery of a vehicle that drives itself while simultaneously delaying the broader unsupervised autonomy rollout in its existing fleet.
Tesla also said it plans to expand the Cybercab service to Dallas next month. The company has not disclosed an exact delivery date for customer units beyond the general end-of-year window Moravy described.