Tesla's fledgling Robotaxi business teased fans with a post on X saying, "no steering wheel, no pedals," a reference to the company's forthcoming Cybercab driverless vehicles. Another post prompted riders to "try it out" in Austin, Texas. And CEO Elon Musk pinned a post to his account on X saying, "A storm of Cybercabs."
Those comments on Wednesday came ahead of a planned event in Austin, where Tesla is expected to share more Cybercab details on Thursday. The company debuted the design of the vehicle almost two years ago.
Musk's automaker designed the Cybercab as a driverless two-seater with butterfly doors that it said will have no steering wheel or pedals. The company has been testing a version of the "purpose-built" robotaxi with human drivers and traditional controls in multiple markets across the U.S.
New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu and Tesla fans also shared video clips on X on Wednesday showing Cybercab vehicles circulating on public streets in Austin, with no steering wheel or driver on board.
Bullish investors are betting the company will soon unleash a torrent of robotaxis in a number of U.S. cities, as Tesla tries to eat into Waymo's big early lead.
Since at least 2016, Musk has told fans and investors that a Tesla vehicle capable of driving itself across the country without any human intervention was near. That still hasn't happened.
Tesla currently sells cars with a system called FSD — short for Full Self-Driving (Supervised). They require a human driver to remain at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time.
One Tesla Robotaxi tracker estimates that Tesla had just over 200 vehicles in its U.S. fleet that are registered as "unsupervised," capable of operating without a human driver on board, at least in geofenced areas of certain cities where they are allowed.
Tesla's "unsupervised" vehicles have logged trips in cities including Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida, the tracker says.
Tesla also runs a chartered car service in the San Francisco area dubbed the FSD (Supervised) Rideshare service. The cars in that fleet are newer Model Y vehicles driven by Tesla employees, who use a version of the company's FSD (Supervised) which is not yet publicly available, according to Tesla terms of service. Passengers can hail the vehicles using the Tesla Robotaxi-branded app.
Meanwhile, Google's Waymo is operating a commercial robotaxi service in 14 U.S. cities, with a fleet of about 4,000 driverless vehicles on U.S. roads, and testing in additional markets.
In a note ahead of the expected Cybercab update, Morgan Stanley analysts said if the event "includes a meaningful rollout of unsupervised" vehicles, they expect Tesla's stock to "regain momentum." Tesla shares are down about 21% this year as of Wednesday's close.
However, if the event underwhelms, the analysts said, the market reaction would be muted or negative. Morgan Stanley has a $400 price target on Tesla and the equivalent of a hold rating.
"Continued growth in the unsupervised fleet (Cybercab or Model Y) is key for the stock to outperform through year-end," the analysts wrote.
Tesla had 45 Cybercab vehicles authorized for driverless operations in the state of Texas, out of a total 420 vehicles registered in the state, for driverless operations as of Wednesday night, according to public records on the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles website.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Tesla in at least two ongoing probes concerning possible safety defects with its partially automated driving systems. Tesla has also been criticized for asking the NHTSA to redact far more information from its crash reports than other AV companies, effectively hiding safety data from public view.
