Tesla opens Cybercab orders at $29,990, plus $299 a month to drive it

Tesla's official Robotaxi account posted on X that select customers are being invited to buy a Cybercab. It shared screenshots of the order page and of the invitation email.

The order page lists the car at $29,990 before taxes. Buyers put down a $1,000 deposit that cannot be refunded. The page shows an estimated delivery of December 2026 in Austin, Texas.

Tesla said initial availability is limited. It has not said when, or if, orders will open to everyone.

The Cybercab is Tesla's two-seat car with no steering wheel and no pedals. Tesla calls it "fully autonomous", which means the car is meant to do all the driving by itself. You manage rides in the Tesla app.

Here is what the order page lists:

• Seats: Two.
• Screen: A 21-inch touchscreen in the center.
• Cargo space: 20.1 cubic feet, about the size of a big trunk.
• Controls: No steering wheel and no pedals.

Elon Musk first showed the car in October 2024 and promised a price below $30,000. He repeated that target in February 2026 and said customers would get cars before 2027. At $29,990, the price hits the target by a hair. It also makes the Cybercab about $7,000 cheaper than a Model 3.

The car does not move unless you also pay for an Autonomy Subscription. That is a monthly plan that unlocks the self-driving software. It costs $299 a month, and the first month is included.

It is not a box you can untick. It is pre-checked on the order page. The fine print says the "subscription and regular vehicle maintenance" are required to operate the car. The email says the same: subscription required for operation.

Here is how the math looks:

That total leaves out insurance, maintenance, taxes and charging. For comparison, owners of current Teslas pay $99 a month for the Full Self-Driving subscription, where a human still has to supervise. The new plan costs three times as much.

In real life Think of a printer that is cheap to buy but needs a monthly ink plan to print a single page. The Cybercab works the same way, except the plan is for the driving.

Only inside Tesla's "supported service areas". The email says so in its fine print. Those are the places where Tesla runs its Robotaxi service.

Tesla runs the Robotaxi in eight cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio in Texas, and Miami, Orlando and Tampa in Florida. Outside those zones, the car will not operate.

A geofence is a virtual fence drawn on a map. The robotaxi picks up and drops off riders only inside it. An independent tracker named Koby Pierce tested thousands of addresses in the Robotaxi app. He found that the places where Tesla accepts rides are only 59% to 78% of the advertised areas in the six cities he checked. In Austin, where these cars are being delivered, it is about 59%.

The catch: a big map on paper does not mean every street on it works. Railroad crossings are one reason. In Houston, the creator of Robotaxi Tracker saw the app quote about 40 minutes for a trip of two blocks downtown.

Tesla has not named the buyers. The invitations go to hand-picked customers. The delivery estimate points to Austin, and the Robotaxi service already runs there, so early buyers are likely to be in that market. That is my guess from the clues, not something Tesla has said.

The Cybercabs on the road today belong to Tesla's own Robotaxi service. This would be the first time ordinary people own one. Waymo, Zoox and Tesla all run driverless fleets today, but the cars belong to the companies, not to individuals.

Tesla's announcement did not say whether owners can add their car to the Robotaxi fleet and earn money when they are not using it. Musk has talked about that idea for years. It is one of the open questions.

The Cybercab has no steering wheel, no pedals and no side mirrors. US safety rules were written for cars that have them. NHTSA, the federal road safety agency, asked Tesla to explain how it decided the car meets those standards.

Tesla answered on October 30 and asked that its whole response be kept confidential. NHTSA has not ruled. Tesla is taking orders anyway.

The federal government does allow some exemptions for autonomous vehicles, which could work in Tesla's favor. How this ends is not known yet.

No one else sells a driverless car to a regular buyer yet. Rivian plans to add lidar, a laser sensor that measures distance, and a new in-house chip to its R2 so it can drive itself someday. General Motors plans an eyes-off version of Super Cruise in the Cadillac Escalade IQ in 2028. It will work on highways first.

Tesla's own owners have a different question. Many paid for Full Self-Driving over the years and are waiting for their Model 3 and Model Y cars to drive unsupervised. Musk has said that will come in the second quarter of 2027, in areas where the Robotaxi service operates. The Cybercab and current Model Y cars use the same AI4 computer, which is the chip that runs the driving software.

Marques Brownlee, the tech reviewer known as MKBHD, made a public bet after the 2024 reveal. He said he would shave his head on camera if Tesla sold the Cybercab for $30,000 before 2027. With invitations out at $29,990 and a December delivery estimate, that bet is getting closer to a result.

It depends on how you move around. If you spend well over $299 a month on ride-hailing, and you live and work deep inside a Robotaxi zone, the numbers can work on paper. Handing the driving to the car also gives you those hours back.

There are limits, though. A car you own has to be parked when you arrive, which a ride-hail car does not. It also cannot take you to a friend's place just outside the zone. And if the car avoids a railroad crossing, a short drive can turn into a long one.

With a ride-hail service, those problems belong to the company. With a Cybercab, they belong to you. That is the trade: you get a car that is always yours, and you carry the small headaches too.

• If you live in Austin or another Robotaxi city: Check whether your home and the places you go sit inside the zone where the app takes rides. The car only works there.
• If you are weighing the cost: Add up the $299 a month, not just the sticker price. Compare it with what you spend on rides today.
• If you own a Model 3 or Model Y: Nothing changes today. Tesla still says unsupervised driving for your car is coming in 2027.
• If you live anywhere else: You cannot use a Cybercab yet. Tesla has said nothing about other areas.