Tesla's Cybercab ends its first Austin month with 169 cars and doubts

Tesla's Cybercab has been carrying paying riders in Austin for a month. It's still the only city where the car runs, and Texas records show 169 Cybercabs cleared for commercial use. That's up from 45 at launch, and still a small fleet for a vehicle Tesla says will one day outsell everything else it builds. The first-month reviews have been mixed: long waits, odd drop-off spots and butterfly doors that didn't always close properly.

The car itself isn't the hard part now. Tesla has to grow the Cybercab from a pilot in one city into a real business, and it has to do that while federal regulators question the legal basis for a car with no steering wheel and no brake pedal. Both of those problems will shape how Tesla talks about autonomy when it reports third-quarter earnings on October 21.

What riders actually got in month one

Commercial Cybercab service started in Austin on September 3, 2026. The two-seater has no steering wheel, no pedals and no external door handles. Riders summon it through Tesla's Robotaxi app, and the large center touchscreen does most of the work. For safety, passengers get an overhead STOP button, a pull-over request and a line to Robotaxi Support.

The early complaints were mostly about everyday service, not dangerous driving. Riders reported waits of more than 45 minutes at launch, pickups and drop-offs in the wrong places, and butterfly doors and trunks that didn't close properly. One reviewer waited about 45 minutes for a $15 trip of under two miles (3 km). During that ride the wipers came on under a sunny, 95°F sky, and at the drop-off the car stopped in a live lane and held up traffic.

Then there was the joystick. Some riders found a virtual control panel on the center screen with forward, reverse, stop, horn and door buttons. That's a strange thing to find in a car sold as having no manual controls, and it still isn't clear who the panel is for.

In fairness to Tesla, no major crashes or safety incidents involving a Cybercab have been reported in Austin. Local first responders have still raised concerns about how to deal with a car that has no manual controls and unusual doors. Matt McElearney of the Austin Fire Department said Tesla had provided "comprehensive guidance" on handling both Cybercabs and Model Y robotaxis in different situations.

169 cars, and a much bigger rival next door

The fleet count shows the scale problem clearly. The 45 Cybercabs authorized at launch had grown to 169 by early October, according to Texas Department of Motor Vehicles records cited in coverage of a CNBC report. Add the 420 converted Model Y robotaxis and Tesla's autonomous fleet in Texas comes to 589 vehicles.

Now compare that with Waymo. The Alphabet company has 1,154 autonomous vehicles approved in Texas alone, 359 of them its newer Ojai model. Waymo says it gives more than 500,000 paid rides a week and runs in 15 U.S. markets, with more cities and several international launches planned. Reported figures for Waymo's total U.S. fleet differ. One outlet puts it above 4,000 vehicles and another above 5,000. Either way, it's far bigger than Tesla's.

Those numbers don't mean Tesla can't catch up. Tesla builds its own cars at Gigafactory Texas, where Cybercab pilot production started in February and formal production began in April. At its 2024 unveiling, Musk described a goal of eventually building at least 2 million Cybercabs a year across more than one factory. But Austin hasn't yet shown how fast Tesla can turn production into cars carrying paying riders.

The regulator's question: where's the brake pedal?

The biggest open question isn't technical. It's legal.

On September 3, the same day Cybercab service began, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an audit query, AQ26002, into how Tesla certified the vehicle. Federal safety standards were written for cars with human drivers, and the Cybercab has no steering wheel, pedals or side mirrors.

On September 10, NHTSA turned the audit into a Special Order, a legally binding demand for information. The order sets out 21 requests. One asks how the car meets a rule that says service brakes "shall be activated by means of a foot control," when there's no foot pedal. Tesla's answers have to be signed under oath by a company officer. The agency also asked whether Cybercabs can run with human controls temporarily attached, and whether those controls were part of Tesla's certification.

The original deadline was September 30. NHTSA has given Tesla more time, but no new date has been made public. The order doesn't say NHTSA has found the car unsafe or illegally sold. It asks Tesla to explain its reasoning.

Why the paperwork could cap the whole plan

This matters because of how other companies got driverless cars onto the road. Amazon-owned Zoox, which also builds a robotaxi without a steering wheel, received an exemption from NHTSA in July under a rule called Part 555. Tesla took a different route. It self-certified the Cybercab as compliant, which means it says the car already meets the rules.

If regulators reject that and push Tesla into the exemption process, the company could be limited to 2,500 non-compliant vehicles a year. That cap applies for two years and can be extended for two more. Regulatory analyst Rob Grant said such a limit "barely puts you on par with where Waymo is going to be". A flawed certification could also bring civil penalties of up to $139 million.

No recall, suspension or operating ban has been issued, and Cybercabs are still running in Austin while Tesla responds.

A familiar pattern of promises and slips

If you've followed Tesla's autonomy timelines, you'll be cautious about any expansion date. Musk said robotaxis would cover half the U.S. population by the end of 2025. When that year ended, the service ran in part of Austin. In January, Tesla said it would launch in seven new cities in the first half of 2026. By April, the company's shareholder letter had changed five of those to "preparations underway".

Tesla has added cities since then, using Model Y robotaxis rather than the Cybercab. By July it said driverless Model Ys were operating in Austin and in Miami, Orlando and Tampa. On that month's earnings call, Musk said Tesla would add cities "as fast as humanly possible" while keeping safety the priority.

The Cybercab has a longer history. Tesla unveiled it in October 2024 and said it would cost less than $30,000 and that production would start before 2027. The production part happened on time. Whether the cars can be sold and used at scale under federal rules is a separate question that hasn't been answered yet.

What investors are weighing

The stock moved on cars, not robotaxis, last week. Tesla closed Friday, October 2, at $370.59, up 4.65%, after reporting 486,532 third-quarter deliveries. That was about 25,000 more than analysts expected. Deliveries were still down 2.1% from a year earlier, and energy storage deployments of 13.7 GWh fell short of forecasts. Even after the gain, the shares were down about 18% for the year, according to one report.

The autonomy story carries more weight in Tesla's valuation than any delivery number. Cantor analysts wrote that management expects the Cybercab to "ultimately be the largest volume vehicle in its lineup" once production ramps up. Tesla's core car business is under pressure: second-quarter operating profit fell 57% from a year earlier, to $398 million, according to one analysis. So the case that robotaxis will drive Tesla's future growth is doing more work for the stock than it used to.

Public opinion is another hurdle. In a Slingshot Strategies survey, half of U.S. respondents said they wouldn't feel comfortable riding in a robotaxi without a steering wheel.

What to watch next

• Tesla's NHTSA response. The new deadline hasn't been disclosed. Look for whether Tesla stays on the self-certification route or moves toward an exemption, and whether NHTSA comes back with follow-up questions.
• October 21 earnings. This is the first chance to hear management explain Cybercab fleet targets, new cities and production rates in its own words.
• Texas DMV records. They're the most reliable public count of how many Cybercabs are actually in service. Going from 45 to 169 in a month is a start. Getting to the thousands is what matters.
• A second Cybercab city. Tesla hasn't announced one. Until it does, Austin is the only place to judge the car.

Tesla got the Cybercab built and onto public roads, which plenty of people doubted would happen. The harder test is scaling it up while regulators review its legal basis. Would you ride in a car with no steering wheel today, or would you wait until NHTSA finishes its review?