Tesla plans to fit its Cybercab robotaxi with a smaller 40 kilowatt-hour battery pack and offer the two-seater in liquid silver, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Saturday.
“There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack. We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous,” Musk wrote on X.
He did not say when the smaller pack would be introduced, what range it would deliver or what efficiency improvements would make it possible.
Nor did he say how the liquid silver finish would be applied. Tesla builds the Cybercab without a conventional paint line.
“One of the most expensive parts of a factory is a paint line,” Tesla executives said on the Munro Live tour. “Rule number one of Tesla, question the requirements. Why do you need paint?”
The current version of the Cybercab has a 47.6 kWh battery, an efficiency of more than 6.1 miles per kWh, and an estimated range of 293 miles. A 40 kWh pack would be about 16% smaller.
Batteries Are the Bottleneck
Musk was replying to X user Warren Redlich, who argued that in a “battery constrained world” Tesla earns far more from a Cybercab in its robotaxi fleet than from selling a larger consumer vehicle with a 120 kWh pack.
Tesla has itself said batteries, not demand, are limiting its output. “While battery availability continued to be the limiting factor in increasing auto volumes in the quarter, we have made additional progress in securing future supply,” it said in its third-quarter update, which also reported its largest passenger-car backlog in four years.
The company said it was increasing production of its 4680 cells “to support the ramps of both Cybercab and Tesla Semi along with higher Model Y volumes.”
Tesla engineers have described cost over the vehicle’s life as a design driver. “When you think of TCO as we’ve talked about, replacing an entire pack before half a million miles is a killer on cost,” one of them said during a Cybercab factory tour filmed by Munro Live and published late last month.
Making Room in Texas
The Cybercab comments came in the same reply in which Musk explained why Tesla will end the Cybertruck, whose line at Gigafactory Texas he said will be dismantled “around June/July next year” for Cybercab expansion.
“The biggest thing most people fail to understand is that there are a very limited number of smart, dedicated people! They can only do so many things,” Musk wrote.
“If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport!”
Tesla lists installed Cybercab capacity in Texas of more than 125,000 vehicles a year.
On the third-quarter call, Lars Moravy, VP of Vehicle Engineering, said that figure is “more of a rate at which we’re capable of running today” and that “the actual capacity of that vehicle line is significantly higher.”
“Right now, we’re building at the rate that the Robotaxi service needs the vehicles,” Moravy said.
On the Munro Live tour, a member of Tesla’s team said the line was ahead of the fleet. “We don’t run every day because the line can run so fast. It’s currently outpacing our deployments,” he said.
The line is 78% automated, with about 25 final assembly stations, and is designed to cut floor space per unit of output by 50%, according to Munro & Associates.
From Austin to Dallas
Tesla built its first production Cybercab at Gigafactory Texas on February 17 and began giving paid rides in the vehicle, which has no steering wheel or pedals, in Austin on September 3.
“One month after launch, we’ve scaled to 300+ Cybercabs serving Austin,” Tesla’s Robotaxi account wrote on October 10. “The Cybercab fleet in Austin, for example, has grown by a factor of 10 since launch about a month ago,” Musk said on the October 21 call.
By October 27, Tesla had registered 544 Cybercabs with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, alongside 507 Model Ys, for a robotaxi fleet of 1,051 in the state.
“In fact, next month we’ll be launching in Dallas,” Ashok Elluswamy, Vice President of AI Software, said on the call. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said Tesla plans to bring the Cybercab “to some other cities before the end of this year.”
Taneja said Tesla was not yet at its goal of $0.30 per mile for robotaxi operations but saw “a path to get to that.” “It’s all about scaling operations,” he said.
Elluswamy said software, not only regulation, still governs the pace of expansion, as Tesla extends operating hours, speeds and weather conditions. “It’s not purely regulatory or something like that, it is technology-driven, but we do see that pretty quickly become regulatory, perhaps in like Q1, Q2 time frames,” he said on the call.
Tesla’s Robotaxi website lists rides in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa for its combined fleet of Model Y and Cybercab vehicles.
Mostly Tesla-Owned
Tesla is aiming to deliver its first Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year. “In short, we’re trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026,” Moravy said on the call.
Musk said most will stay with Tesla. “The vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be essentially Tesla-owned and transport as a service,” he said.
Tesla has not given a price. The only buyer channel it has opened is an interest form for companies, covering “Cybercab fleet vehicle purchasing” among other options.
When he unveiled the Cybercab in October 2024, Musk said “you will be able to buy one” and that Tesla expected “the cost to be below $30,000.” Asked on X in February whether Tesla would sell a Cybercab to a customer for $30,000 or less before 2027, Musk replied: “Yes.”
Barclays analyst Dan Levy upgraded Tesla to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equalweight’ on October 26, raising his target to $450 from $370, according to Price Target, EV‘s sister publication that archives Wall Street analyst research on the EV, AI and semiconductor industries.
“We believe we are starting to see an inflection on Tesla’s Robotaxi business,” Levy wrote.
Regulation is also moving. A federal lighting proposal filed in October would remove the requirement for a turn signal that cancels when a steering wheel turns, a rule written for vehicles that have one.
