Dozens of Tesla Cybercabs have been filmed parked in Dallas, according to videos posted on X on Saturday, more than three weeks after a company executive said the two-seat robotaxi would launch in the city in November.
“Over 50 badged Tesla Cybercabs now in Dallas,” X user Spencer (‘scotsrule08’) wrote alongside four videos. “Some of the vehicles appear to have integrated Starlink hardware.”
Tesla has not announced Cybercab rides in Dallas, where its Robotaxi service uses Model Ys.
The four clips show gold Cybercabs parked nose-out in rows in an outdoor lot.
A double-deck car transporter loaded with more Cybercabs is parked at the curb in three of the clips. The cars arrived on trucks, not under their own power, a point several replies to the post picked up.
Starlink
Tesla announced the satellite link on July 20. Ashok Elluswamy, its Vice President of AI Software, wrote the same day that it “is still not required for safe operation of the vehicle.” Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk wrote on August 9 that “all cars will have Starlink in the future.”
That is where the hardware sits on cars leaving the factory. Cybercabs have been coming off the line at Gigafactory Texas with a Starlink satellite terminal on the hatch since September, when drone footage of the plant first showed the panel in large numbers.
Tesla described the Cybercab’s cabin at its September launch as “soon to be equipped with V5 Starlink hardware,” and Starlink said the terminal “will soon be integrated directly into Cybercab.” Tesla has not said how many cars carry it or whether the terminals are switched on.
‘Next Month’ in Dallas
The sighting follows two statements by Elluswamy. “Two years since the 10/10 Cybercab WeRobot event, the cabs are everywhere in Austin now. Dallas soon,” he wrote on X on October 10. He gave no date.
Eleven days later, on Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, he put a month on it. “In fact, next month we’ll be launching in Dallas, and then the same software just scaled to lots of other cities along with the Model Y Robotaxis,” he said on October 21.
Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said on the same call that Tesla plans to bring the Cybercab to “some other cities before the end of this year.”
The Cybercab has carried paying riders only in Austin, where rides began on September 3. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on October 10 that it had “scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin.”
Elluswamy said on the October 21 earnings call that Tesla launched the car there because “we want to swarm Austin with Cybercabs.”
Tesla has run driverless Model Y rides in Dallas since April 18 and widened its service area there on August 29. A Cybercab with a Starlink cover was photographed in the city as early as August 8.
Austin remains by far Tesla’s largest operation. The company’s safety report counted 2,118,015 driverless miles there between January 22 and October 18, against 608,130 in Dallas.
A Delivery City for Buyers
Dallas is also one of five Texas cities where Tesla will hand over Cybercabs to private owners. The company began inviting select customers on Friday to buy the car for personal use at $29,990, with a required $299 monthly subscription and an estimated delivery date of December.
Buyers must take delivery in Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio or Fort Worth, and the cars will drive only inside Tesla’s existing service areas. Musk said on Saturday that the monthly fee was too high.
Every Cybercab in the footage is gold. Musk said on November 7 that Tesla plans a liquid silver version and a smaller 40 kWh battery pack.
What the State Registry Shows
The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles listed 1,303 vehicles under Tesla Robotaxi LLC’s automated vehicle authorization on Saturday. Of those, 573 carry Cybercab vehicle identification numbers and 730 are Model Ys.
That is up from 544 Cybercabs and 507 Model Ys in late October, when the registered fleet passed 1,000 vehicles. Nearly all of the growth since then has been in Model Ys.
The registry does not record where a vehicle operates, so it does not show how many Cybercabs are assigned to Dallas.
Registrations run ahead of the cars riders see in service. Outside Austin, Tesla’s cities had between a handful and a few dozen registered vehicles each as of this week, the tracker showed.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service now operates in eight cities, five of them in Texas. It began running 24 hours a day in all of them on Wednesday, after adding Fort Worth on November 2 and San Antonio on November 9.
Tesla shares closed at $390.22 on Friday, down 1.8% on the day and 13.2% this year.
