That gold two-seater at the top of this post is Tesla’s Cybercab, and I photographed it yesterday afternoon rolling through the intersection of Thornton Avenue and Buena Vista Street in Burbank — right by Hollywood Burbank Airport. No steering wheel, no pedals, and a “Cybercab” plate where the license plate should be. Tesla’s driverless future is not just in Austin anymore; it’s out testing on streets an hour from Pasadena. This post opens a new thread in the EVs section here: ongoing coverage of the Cybercab and Tesla’s Robotaxi service.
The car: a taxi you can ride but can’t buy
The Cybercab is Tesla’s purpose-built robotaxi — a compact two-seat coupe with butterfly doors, no steering wheel and no pedals, designed from the start to carry passengers rather than be driven. Production began at Gigafactory Texas in February 2026, and Tesla’s third-quarter update lists installed capacity there of more than 125,000 Cybercabs a year — though installed capacity is not a build rate, and Tesla has never published how many it has actually made. Every Cybercab built so far has gone into Tesla’s own Robotaxi fleet. They began carrying passengers in Austin on September 3, and by October 10 Tesla’s Robotaxi account was reporting more than 300 Cybercabs serving the city.
Can you buy one? Not yet. There is no order page, no reservation list, and no published price — Tesla takes inquiries from businesses interested in running Cybercabs commercially, and that’s it. On Tesla’s October 21 earnings call, vehicle engineering VP Lars Moravy said the company is “trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026,” starting small — and Elon Musk added that the vast majority will stay Tesla-owned, run as “transport as a service.” One open thread to watch: NHTSA has an audit query open into how Tesla certified a car with no steering wheel or pedals against federal safety standards. Tesla answered the agency’s special order by its October 30 deadline but filed its certification answers confidentially, so the public still can’t see the details.
The service: eight driverless cities and counting
The Robotaxi service itself launched in Austin in June 2025 using Model Ys, and it has spent the fall expanding fast. As of this week it offers unsupervised rides — nobody in the car — in eight cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth (opened November 2) and San Antonio (opened November 9) in Texas, plus Miami, Orlando and Tampa in Florida. California, notably, is not on the driverless list — Tesla’s Bay Area service still runs with a human safety driver aboard.
Next in line, per Tesla’s own statements and state filings: Las Vegas, where Nevada regulators voted in August to allow up to 5,000 fully driverless Teslas in Clark County but service hasn’t launched; Phoenix, where Tesla holds an Arizona ride-hailing permit and lists preparations underway; and Jacksonville, added to the “coming soon” list in October. No launch dates have been given for any of the three.
So why was one in Burbank?
Testing. Before Tesla launches anywhere, Cybercabs and sensor-laden test cars spend months mapping and validating local streets — and Southern California, home to Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne and some of the densest driving in America, is always on the test circuit. A Cybercab in Burbank is not a service launch: driverless paid rides in California require state approvals Tesla does not yet hold here, and the company has announced nothing for Los Angeles. But test sightings have preceded every launch so far, and a car with no steering wheel cruising past the airport sign is a sign of where this is heading. When a Robotaxi geofence does get drawn around LA County, readers here will be inside the story early.
What I’m watching
Four things: whether the first Cybercabs actually reach customers — likely businesses first — by the end of 2026 as Tesla targeted on its earnings call; Dallas getting Cybercab rides this month as promised; how the NHTSA certification audit resolves, since the Cybercab’s whole design depends on it; and the Las Vegas launch, the first big test of the service outside Texas and Florida. I’ll post updates in this section as each of those lands.
Sources: Tesla Q3 2026 Update and earnings call (October 21, 2026); Tesla Robotaxi account on X (October–November 2026); The Charge Port, “Tesla Cybercab (2026): Where It Runs & How to Ride” (November 9, 2026); Tesla Robotaxi Tracker and WhereIsRobotaxi city data (updated November 10–11, 2026); Teslarati, “Tesla Robotaxi enters its newest city, reaching San Antonio” (November 2026); NHTSA Audit Query AQ26002 reporting via Tesla North and Electrek.
Photo: A Tesla Cybercab at Thornton Avenue and Buena Vista Street in Burbank, California, November 10, 2026. Photo: Victor Caballero.
