Tesla opens Cybercab orders at $29,990, plus $299 a month
Tesla invited select customers to buy its driverless Cybercab for an estimated $29,990, with a $299-a-month subscription required to operate it and deliveries estimated in December.
The car with no steering wheel
On Friday, Tesla invited a small group of customers to buy a car they cannot steer. The posts on X offered the Cybercab, a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel and no pedals, for personal use at an estimated $29,990, with an estimated first delivery in December. The invitation went to select customers only, and the order page asked for a $1,000 deposit that is not refundable. The first month of the autonomy subscription is included.
The car itself is unlike anything Tesla has sold before. It has two seats, a 21-inch touchscreen and 20.1 cubic feet of cargo space, and its doors open upward. Until now the Cybercab has only carried passengers as part of Tesla's Robotaxi fleet, which began with Model Y cars in Austin in June 2025 and has since spread to other cities in Texas and Florida. Cybercabs joined the Austin fleet in September. Selling the same vehicle to private buyers is a step Tesla had talked about since the car was unveiled in 2024, when Musk promised it would cost less than $30,000.
The $299-a-month catch
The sticker price is only part of the deal. The Cybercab needs a $299-a-month autonomy subscription to operate, which works out to $3,588 a year, and the subscription was already selected on the order page. Musk said on social media that the fee looked too high and suggested it should be closer to the cost of the driver-assistance software and connectivity, around $115 a month. For now, though, $299 is the price on the order page.
The car also only works where Tesla's Robotaxi service already runs. Buyers in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio in Texas, and Miami, Orlando and Tampa in Florida, are inside the service areas, and the car is meant to drive itself only within those zones. Tesla has said the Cybercab would become available across the country as regulators sign off, area by area. And the car is for personal use only: buyers cannot put it to work earning money right away, although a Tesla executive said customer cars could join the Robotaxi network in the second quarter of 2027. On an investor call in October, Musk said the large majority of Cybercab production would stay in Tesla's own hands.
The safety question
Regulators are watching the launch closely. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating whether a car with no manual controls meets federal safety standards, which do not expressly require a steering wheel or pedals. Tesla has told the agency it believes the Cybercab meets the standards but has not publicly explained how. The investigation is still open, and no ruling has been issued.
Tesla is betting the car can be built at scale. Musk said the company would stop building the Cybertruck next year to free up factory space for more Cybercabs. The $29,990 price lands just under the figure Musk promised at the 2024 unveiling, and the December delivery date means the first private owners could be riding in a car with no steering wheel within weeks. Whether buyers accept a car that only drives itself in 8 cities, at $299 a month on top of the purchase price, is the question the launch now has to answer.
- $29,990Estimated purchase price before taxes and fees
- $299 a monthAutonomy subscription required to operate the car
- $1,000Nonrefundable deposit due with the order
- $3,588 a yearWhat the subscription costs over a year
- 8 citiesRobotaxi service areas in Texas and Florida where the car can operate
