After Tesla’s Earnings Slide, Pressure’s On for Cybercab

Earlier this year, Musk told investors that Tesla would launch autonomous driving technology in Austin and California this year, with a robotaxi service launching in the Texas city in June. (The service is slated to launch with Model Y’s rather than Cybercabs.) Tesla has since obtained a permit to operate a driver-ed taxi service in California, though will need to apply for and win several more permits to operate that service without drivers behind the wheel. It has entered talks with the city of Palo Alto, where its engineering teams are headquartered, to eventually offer a ride service there, according to emails obtained via public records requested by WIRED. (Because of Texas’ less stringent regulations, the carmaker does not need extra permits or government sign-off to operate a driverless service in Austin.)

The success of Cybercab, which is set to go into production in 2026, is especially important because Tesla does not seem to have many other car projects on the horizon. A long-awaited, more affordable electric vehicle was downgraded last year to a modified but still cheaper version of Tesla’s popular Model Y rather than a whole new vehicle. Last week, Reuters reported that the more affordable vehicle had been delayed by at least several months.

A robotaxi service puts Tesla into direct competition with Google sister company Waymo, which has been operating a paid, self-driving taxi service in metro Phoenix and in San Francisco for nearly two years. (Waymo also operates in Los Angeles and Austin and is set to launch in Atlanta and Miami in the coming months.) Amazon’s Zoox is also preparing to launch service in Las Vegas and, later, San Francisco.

Both Waymo and Zoox took more measured approaches to self-driving than Tesla, with years of testing with supervising drivers behind the wheel to monitor the technology. Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” feature is available on all of its US cars for an added fee, but the company warns that drivers must still pay attention to the road while using its tech. Still, the company has emphasized that it will leap from this less advanced, “level 2” autonomy to full-blown unsupervised driving.

Technology experts have cast doubt on Tesla’s ambitious timelines. Self-driving watchers should be mindful of the high levels of safety and reliability demanded by an autonomous vehicle service, says Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at MIT who leads the Advanced Vehicle Technology consortium, which brings together industry experts and academics to study how people interact with automated driving features. ”I think the world is wondering, can Tesla do this?” says Reimer. “And my answer is, yeah, they can do some demo, probably with a safety driver.”

A Tesla robotaxi service will also need much work beyond even the complex technology required to make the cars go. “Until you actually pull the safety driver out, you don’t realize all the other things they were doing for you: answering questions for the passenger, helping them navigate the whole system, [navigating] the picking up and dropping off,” says Jeff Schneider, a robotics researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who once worked for Uber’s self-driving-car project.

In a slide deck for investors, Tesla wrote that it expected to be affected by uncertainty related to “evolving trade policy,” which the company says will likely affect both Tesla’s global supply chain and what it spends to build its products. “This dynamic, along with changing political sentiment, could have a meaningful impact on demand for our products in the near-term,” the deck said.

Musk told investors that Tesla was still the “least impacted” car company in terms of tariffs, because so much of the company’s vehicle stock is made and assembled in the US. “That puts us in a better position than many of our competitors,” he said. Musk said he would continue to speak with the president about tariff policy. “I will continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that’s all I can do,” he said.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.