No Steering Wheel, No Problem: Tesla's Cybercab Now Officially Serving Riders in Austin

Landing a Cybercab right now is basically down to luck. Tesla announced on its website that the Robotaxi App (available on both iOS and Android) now offers Cybercab as a ride option—the driverless vehicle with no steering wheel and no brake pedal has finally made it to actually picking up passengers, two years after its debut. The app covers six cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, but the Cybercab option currently only shows up in Austin, and riders can't specifically request one—which vehicle you actually get depends on how many people are riding together and the fleet's real-time dispatching.

According to The New York Times, Tesla is authorized to operate a total of 314 driverless vehicles in Texas, with the vast majority being Model Ys—Cybercabs make up just 45 of them. The report also notes that it's currently unclear how many of these vehicles are actually in service picking up passengers versus how many remain in internal company testing. In other words, at this stage, Cybercab looks more like a small sample mixed into a massive fleet than a standalone service in its own right.

As for the design, the Cybercab's interior features bench-style seating that fits a maximum of two passengers, with the center console taken up by one large touchscreen display. While the seating only accommodates two people, the trunk space is built to handle bulkier items like suitcases and scooters. Tesla's own website describes the vehicle's purpose as being for "ride-hailing, errands, and commuting"—a line of brand messaging pulled straight from the site.

All the Cybercabs currently operating in Austin are owned entirely by Tesla, though the company plans to sell them to the public eventually. When CEO Elon Musk unveiled the vehicle, he laid out a vision where individuals could own multiple Cybercabs and generate income by running them through a shared fleet network. That personal-fleet concept remains just that for now—a concept—since the vehicle isn't yet available for consumer purchase. At this stage, Tesla is only accepting expressions of interest, and the target audience is business customers willing to buy fleets in bulk to help build out the robotaxi network.