Tesla Cybercab Roundup: Everything you need to know about Elon Musk's two-seat Robotaxi

EVwire brief: Tesla's Cybercab launched in Austin, Texas on September 3, 2026. The two-seat robotaxi is now giving public rides across the Austin geofence. Tesla published a full Cybercab Rider Guide ahead of the launch, and details from the launch event have since filled in the full picture of what the Cybercab is.

Here is everything we know about Cybercab, the two-seat, fully autonomous robotaxi with no steering wheel and no pedals.

This is a pretty extensive article from us, so we’ve put together a Table of Contents so you can navigate the topics better:

The Cybercab is a purpose-built two-seat fully autonomous vehicle.

Elon Musk was clear about the Cybercab: It is designed from the ground up as a passenger-only robotaxi.

As we covered in our article, Tesla has published an official Cybercab Rider Guide on its website, complete with a two-minute tutorial video walking passengers through the full ride experience.

Here's one of Tesla's hype videos for the Cybercab:

On September 4, 2026 at 5PM CT, Tesla opened Cybercab rides to the general public across the entire Austin geofence. It was the moment the Cybercab went from internal testing curiosity to something anyone could hail.

At the public launch event, Tesla's head of autonomy Ashok Elluswamy announced that the Cybercab fleet had crossed 1 million cumulative unsupervised miles. That's a million miles with no driver, no safety operator, and no remote takeover. For context, the fleet had been running employee-only rides for weeks before the public launch, quietly stacking miles and refining the system.

Tesla didn't livestream the Cybercab public launch event, but Kyle Conner and the Out of Spec team recorded the full presentation. The video features Ashok Elluswamy and members of the Cybercab engineering team walking through what they described as a 12-year effort to reach this point. If you want the unfiltered version of what Tesla showed at the launch, this is the one to watch.

Here is the full recording by Kyle Conner / Out of Spec:

For more from the event, including Sawyer Merritt's closer front-row recording: read our full launch event coverage.

Tesla released a short video showing some of the crash test footage of rear and side impact to the Cybercab:

Tesla has published an interest form on their website, quite hidden for now, for those looking to purchase Cybercab fleets.

The form went up alongside a revamped Robotaxi website on the same day the production Cybercab is set to be launched at an event in Austin, Texas. EVwire was first to find the new site through the Cybercab FAQ, might have even been first to fill up the form.

The form asks for company details, a deployment region, and lets interested parties select from four categories: Cybercab fleet vehicle purchasing, mobility hubs and infrastructure, event collaboration, or other.

The Cybercab exterior measures 55.4 inches tall and 69 inches wide, with 5.7 inches of ground clearance.

In the Cybercab interior, riders get 43.4 inches of legroom, 38.3 inches of headroom, 51.8 inches of shoulder room, and 50.1 inches of hip room. The step-in height is 16.5 inches.

Much of these details comes from Tesla's official Cybercab Rider Guide, supplemented by observations shared by Whole Mars Catalog, and Sawyer Merritt, who are in Austin for the vehicle’s launch event, as well as EVwire’s Jaan.

The Cybercab has butterfly-style doors that swing outward and upward. When a rider approaches, the nearest door opens automatically by detecting the ride requester's phone.

If it does not open automatically, pressing a button on the windowsill at the base of the B-pillar opens the door manually:

Once seated and buckled in, the door closes automatically. Riders can also open and close doors from the touchscreen.

The interior door lever is for gentle manual use, but pulling it firmly and completely activates the emergency mechanical release, which ends the trip and forces the vehicle to stop in its lane as soon as safely possible.

When exiting the vehicle (also on a regular end of the ride), the screen will show you the cameras feeds from both sides to ensure it’s safe to step outside. Not so much to open the door, as it isn’t extending horizontally all that much.

Both Cybercab seats slide forward and backward together, but each reclines independently.

The head supports are integrated and cannot be adjusted. Riders can control seat position from the touchscreen or from the Robotaxi app.

The seat belts are one of the Cybercab's standout features, as they are motorized:

At the start of a ride, an integrated motor automatically tightens the belt and removes slack. The motor can also tighten proactively when the vehicle anticipates or detects harsh braking, loss of traction, or other sudden road events.

Beyond tightening, the belts can vibrate or pulse to deliver haptic feedback and get the passenger's attention.

Riders must sit upright with their back against the seat, feet flat on the floor, and the belt positioned across the hips rather than the stomach. The seat back must not recline more than 35 degrees from vertical.

The vehicle may pull over or cancel a ride if it detects improper seat belt usage.

Tesla is already gathering feedback on what riders want next. Shortly after public rides launched, the company began sending experience surveys asking passengers to rank potential cabin upgrades. The options included heated seats, ventilated seats, fully reclining seats, a tray table, a wireless phone charger, a better sound system, and more storage space.

Early rider Owen Sparks noted there's currently no good phone holder in the cabin, and YouTuber Kim Java documented her full ride experience including the survey questions. The fact that Tesla is actively polling riders on interior features suggests the production Cybercab's cabin is still being refined based on real-world feedback.

The rear trunk offers 20.2 cubic feet of storage with a maximum load of 220 pounds. Tesla says it fits:

The trunk opens and closes from the touchscreen, the Robotaxi app, or a switch under the exterior handle. And if for some odd reason (???) you get locked inside the trunk:

Tesla featured the Cybercab’s trunk prominently in its highlight of the vehicle’s accessibility features:

The Cybercab has exactly eight exterior cameras: one on the front bumper, one at the rear, one in each door pillar, two on the windshield, and one on each front fender.

Inside, the cabin is equipped with a camera and an in-cabin radar mounted above the dome lights.

The radar is used primarily to control airbag deployment. It is sophisticated enough to identify a passenger's size and weight and optimize airbag response accordingly. A green indicator appears when the interior camera is active so passengers know when it is on.

After every ride ends, Tesla uses the cabin camera to check whether the vehicle is clean and ready for the next passenger, including whether any belongings were left behind.

The Cybercab has an emergency stop button located between the dome lights, where the hazard light button usually sits on a conventional car.

It even carries the hazard light icon. Pressing it initiates an immediate pull-over and connects the rider to Tesla Robotaxi Support.

For less urgent situations, riders can touch "Pull Over" on the touchscreen or request it through the app.

In the event of a crash, the Cybercab is designed to unlock the doors, turn on hazard lights, turn on cabin lights, disable the high-voltage battery, vent the windows, apply the brakes and come to a stop, and automatically connect the cabin to Tesla Robotaxi Support.

If the vehicle loses power entirely, both doors have a mechanical release. Pulling the lever firmly and pushing the door open will get riders out. Tesla warns that if the windows are fully closed and there is no power, the window may shatter when the mechanical release is triggered.

The climate system is automatically managed and cannot be completely turned off. Airflow may continue even when climate appears off, in part to maintain visibility for the vehicle's cameras.

Riders can adjust fan speed to low, medium, or high, and each vent can be turned off independently from the touchscreen. Climate can also be controlled from the Robotaxi app.

Window buttons are located under the touchscreen rather than on the door panel. The cabin includes USB-C charge ports, dome lights that turn on by touching the lens, and configurable accent lights whose brightness and color can be set from the Robotaxi app.

The Cybercab's user interface is built on Unreal Engine, with Tesla specifically crediting Epic Games. The touchscreen is the central hub for the ride experience, showing trip progress, estimated time of arrival, and controls for doors, seats, climate, and media.

Available apps include music, podcasts, games, and other media services accessible through an App Launcher that appears once the trip begins. Some services may require riders to log in with their own accounts. Tesla says personal data is removed from the Cybercab when the trip finishes. The vehicle also includes a built-in Photo Booth application.

One clever engineering detail riders have spotted: the Cybercab has a virtual joystick interface on its touchscreen. Captured on video by a rider, the joystick lets Tesla employees manually reposition driverless vehicles when needed. It's an elegant solution to a practical problem: how do you nudge a fully autonomous car with no steering wheel and no pedals? Rather than bolting on temporary manual controls, Tesla built a software-based system that works through the existing screen.

The video also revealed the Cybercab's fender cameras still displaying what appears to be a Supercharger location, hinting at how the vehicle navigates Tesla's charging infrastructure autonomously.

For the full video, earlier footage of a Tesla employee using the controls at a Supercharger, and David Moss's similar experience: read our full coverage.

Riders request a trip through the Robotaxi app, entering a destination within the service area and reviewing fare and wait-time estimates.

When the Cybercab approaches, its front lightbar changes to a specific color displayed in the app, making it easy to spot the right vehicle when several are nearby. The center screen will also be colored in the same color, and reportedly even the ambient lighting.

Once seated and buckled, the rider touches "Start Ride" on the touchscreen.

The ride will not begin until all seat belts are fastened and all doors and the trunk are closed. During the trip, riders can change their destination through the app or request a pull-over at any time.

At the destination, the Cybercab parks and flashes its hazard lights. Riders exit by touching the Open icon on the touchscreen or gently lifting the door lever, then retrieve any trunk items before completing the trip in the app.

Children under 13 are not allowed in the Cybercab "at this time." The vehicle does not have LATCH or ISOFIX anchors for child safety seats. If a booster seat is needed for an older child, it must be installed using the seat belt retained method.

The Cybercab uses a staggered tire setup: front and rear sizes differ, so tires can only be rotated left to right, not front to back. Tesla recommends rotation every 12,000 miles.

Kyle Conner of Out of Spec shared a breakdown of the Cybercab's engineering after getting a closer look at the vehicle. Here are the highlights:

The Cybercab was designed from the start to be extremely efficient. Its drag coefficient is below 0.2 Cd, though the CdA (coefficient of drag times frontal area, the figure that actually determines real-world aerodynamic drag) has not been confirmed.

Tesla is building the Cybercab using its unboxed manufacturing process, which assembles the vehicle in modules rather than on a traditional single line. The body panels are injection molded rather than stamped metal, which eliminates the need for paint shops, reduces emissions, and uses a large amount of recycled material. The vehicle was designed for the lowest possible production cost and lifetime operating cost.

The drivetrain is front-wheel drive with a fairly tall gear ratio. Tesla put significant work into reducing motor-generated noise inside the cabin. The battery pack also uses dry cathode 4680 cells, engineered to withstand 500,000 miles of DC fast charging, vibrations, and temperature swings.

The Cybercab's motor is also the first Tesla drive unit to use zero rare earth metals. "This was extremely hard to achieve," Elon Musk wrote on X, responding to details posted by launch event attendee Sawyer Merritt. The drive unit features a simplified bar-wound stator and lubrication system, and is 18% smaller, 25% lighter, and more efficient than other top-performing EV drive units.

The key is a hairpin stator that hits a 70% slot fill factor (compared to the typical 40% with round copper wire) and ferrite magnets arranged in a Halbach array, which concentrates the magnetic field on one side to compensate for ferrite being roughly 7 to 10 times weaker than the neodymium magnets in conventional EV motors.

Energy and EV strategy consultant Michael Sura noted that rare earth permanent magnets typically account for 25% to 35% of an electric motor's total material cost, so eliminating them gives Tesla a meaningful cost advantage at scale. For context, the Model Y's motors use approximately 500 grams of rare earth elements. Getting to zero in the Cybercab is a significant engineering milestone.

The braking system is fully brake-by-wire with individual actuators on each corner, believed to be supplied by Bosch. There is no brake fluid and no central master cylinder. The steering is also by wire, with the steering rack mounted behind the drive unit.

The Cybercab is actually the first Tesla vehicle to use a fully brake-by-wire system. Each wheel gets its own independent unit, meaning the system can apply different braking force to each corner without the lag or complexity of hydraulic lines. For an autonomous vehicle with no human driver, this is a natural fit: the software can modulate braking at each wheel with precision that a hydraulic system cannot match.

The steer-by-wire system follows the same philosophy. Tesla first deployed steer-by-wire in the Cybertruck, where it enables variable steering ratios and rear-wheel steering. In the Cybercab, which has no steering wheel at all, steer-by-wire is not a feature but a necessity. Tesla previously shared a graphic showing technologies developed for the Cybertruck that would carry over to future vehicles, and the Cybercab is now the clearest example of that technology transfer in action.

Other engineering details: the Cybercab runs on a 48-volt low-voltage architecture, has an ancillary bay similar to what Tesla calls the "penthouse" that houses the DC/DC converter, and uses an autopilot computer similar to Hardware 4 with some iterative updates that Tesla has not disclosed.

Here’s the full Cybercab Rider Guide.

Deeper dives into specific Cybercab topics:

Source: Tesla Cybercab Rider Guide, Tesla Support: Cybercab

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