Tesla to sell Cybercab to customers by end of year

Tesla said on Wednesday that it will begin selling its Cybercab to customers by the end of the year, according to TechCrunch. The company expects the first deliveries to be small in number before scaling up.

Speaking on the third-quarter earnings call, Tesla vice president of engineering Lars Moravy said Cybercabs produced now go to Tesla's own robotaxi fleet. Tesla will start delivering fully designed autonomous vehicles to customers in small volumes and scale as it learns about delivery, ownership and fleet management, he said.

CEO Elon Musk said the Cybercab is primarily intended as transport as a service rather than a car for people to own, and that most Cybercabs will be Tesla-owned and offered as a service. He also said an unsupervised version of Full Self-Driving would be rolled out to customers in the second quarter of next year.

The sales plan comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has an open investigation into the Cybercab, announced last month. Tesla self-certified the vehicle's compliance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.

Earlier signals

Last month, around its Cybercab event in Austin, Tesla floated the idea of selling the autonomous vehicle to third parties and posted a form for people interested in buying robotaxis. The NHTSA investigation was announced hours after the vehicles began operating on public streets in Austin.

For years, Musk's robotaxi plans centered on turning privately owned Tesla vehicles into self-driving taxis with a software update. The Department of Transportation recently proposed removing manual-control requirements for vehicles designed to be autonomously driven.