Tesla Puts Driverless Cybercabs on Austin Streets

The fleet is small

Tesla has 45 Cybercabs registered with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles as of this week, The Verge reported, though it is not clear how many will carry paying passengers right away.

Counting the modified Model Ys already running, Tesla now has 256 unsupervised autonomous vehicles operating across six cities, per Robotaxi Tracker data cited by The Verge. Alphabet's Waymo runs roughly 4,000 driverless vehicles across 14 cities.

The Cybercab navigates on eight cameras. It has no radar and no lidar — the laser sensors that Waymo and Amazon's Zoox layer on top of cameras, the Texas Tribune noted. It also has no mirrors.

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, enforced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, require vehicles sold in the U.S. to have steering wheels, pedals and mirrors. NHTSA can grant exemptions, capped at 2,500 vehicles per manufacturer per year. Forbes reported in November 2025 that Tesla had not applied for one, and NHTSA has since opened rulemaking on whether to drop the human-control requirements for fully autonomous vehicles.

Tesla's driver-assistance software is under multiple federal investigations. The Texas Tribune, citing AP reporting, listed probes into crashes in fog and low-visibility conditions including one that killed a pedestrian; into dozens of incidents in which Teslas ran red lights or drove on the wrong side of the road; and into whether Tesla failed to report crashes promptly as required.

Riders are not sold yet

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in February found seven in 10 U.S. adults were "not too" or "not at all" comfortable riding in a driverless car. Sixteen percent said they would be "somewhat" comfortable and 7% "extremely" or "very" comfortable, the Texas Tribune reported. Gallup polling in 2025 found skepticism about driverless safety had risen over several years.

A separate Pew poll in January found nearly six in 10 U.S. adults held an unfavorable view of Musk himself.

Children under 13 are currently barred from riding in the Cybercab under the rules Tesla posted with its new robotaxi site, The Verge reported.