Tesla's first new vehicle in years rolled off its Austin production line last month, swarmed by workers in hard hats and safety vests -- the first, the company hopes, of potentially millions.
Tesla has celebrated moments like this before. But never with a car like this. It is called the Cybercab, and it doesn't have a steering wheel or pedals. When it begins mass production in April, as company officials claim, it will be a test of Tesla's make-or-break plan to move beyond being a traditional car company -- and a test of U.S. safety regulations that were never meant for something like this.
The Cybercab is specially designed to be driven autonomously by Tesla's Full Self-Driving software. Tesla has said it would use the Cybercab for its driverless ride-hailing service and sell it to taxi fleet operators and everyday people, who will also one day have the option to add their personal vehicles to the company's ride-hailing app. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has said the vehicle could cost less than $30,000.
While Tesla has broken new ground with its electric vehicles before, selling a vehicle that lacks standard controls is without precedent in the auto industry. Musk has said that the Cybercab -- and the wider deployment of its Full Self-Driving software -- will be crucial to the company's planned shift to autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.
Musk has prioritized the Cybercab over making new models and even canceled two of its cars as it seeks to become an artificial intelligence and robotics powerhouse. Competing with traditional carmakers like Volkswagen and China's BYD COMPANY is no longer its business plan.
"There's no fallback mechanism here," Musk told investors in January. "Like this car either drives itself or it does not drive."
Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco doesn't expect Tesla to sell many of the Cybercabs produced over the next few years, but to instead use them in its own Robotaxi ride-share service.
"I think it's going to take time for buyers to get accustomed to buying a car without a steering wheel," Percoco said.
People familiar with the matter say that Tesla is designing the production line to make hundreds of Cybercabs a week. At its Giga Texas factory in Austin, the automaker has been staffing up and bringing in new machines to begin making the Cybercab in April. Musk has warned that initial production will be "agonizingly slow."
Photos and videos posted from the factory on social media this week show Tesla loading more than a dozen Cybercabs onto transport trucks.
Tesla plans to use many of the vehicles itself as part of its Robotaxi ride-share service, which currently has limited operations.
But the company needs approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to sell the Cybercab, since it lacks a steering wheel, pedals and side mirrors. NHTSA grants exemptions to automakers to sell vehicles not fully in compliance with the rules but caps them at 2,500 cars a year.
Tesla hasn't yet applied for an exemption on the Cybercab, a spokesman for NHTSA said. If it doesn't get an exemption, the company has to certify that its vehicles still meet all of the federal vehicle safety standards.
If NHTSA finds the Cybercab isn't in compliance with those standards, the agency could order Tesla to recall the vehicles and fix them. Were Tesla to refuse such an order, the company risks major fines, and NHTSA could file litigation against the company to enforce the order.
Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment.
Other automakers and technology companies are also looking to accelerate deployment of fully autonomous vehicles on U.S. roads. Currently, driverless taxi fleets face a patchwork of state and local regulations; Musk has called this " incredibly painful" for the deployment of autonomous vehicles, and has pushed for a nationwide framework instead.
Musk has said that Tesla plans to manufacture two million Cybercabs annually, and proposed that it could have a material impact on Tesla's financials by the end of 2026.
Tesla needs the Cybercab to sell well. While its energy and services businesses grew last year, it is still dependent on vehicle sales to fund the next stage of growth. Tesla's automotive sales, which made up more than 73% of its revenue last year, fell 10% in 2025.
Meanwhile, some Wall Street analysts expect Tesla's total sales to fall again in 2026 for the third year in a row.