Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
Last January, three months after unveiling its fully autonomous Cybercab and Robovan models, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the first unsupervised self-driving rides would begin in Austin in June.
On Tuesday, the company showcased its Cybercab model in Austin to “critical operational stakeholders” from the Texas Department of Transportation and reaffirmed its goal of launching autonomous rides in June. However, it did not specify whether these rides will involve customers or be limited to Tesla staff during the initial phase.
“The future is autonomous & it starts in Austin, this June Thanks to Austin City & Texas DOT for hosting & supporting our efforts to unlock safe & low-cost premium point-to-point electric transport,” Tesla wrote on X.
Back in January, Musk said in the earnings conference call that other cities in America would follow “as shortly as possible” adding that he sees the company operating unsupervised activity “with our internal fleet in several cities by the end of the year.”
Last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the Cybercab production line “is like nothing else in the automotive industry.” Separately, he claimed that a Cybercab will roll off the line every five seconds — seven times faster than the Model Y, which takes 35 seconds — according to a recent interview with Tesla Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy.
“We’re going to be launching unsupervised full self-driving as a paid service in Austin in June,” Musk stated in the January call. “So, I talked to the team… we feel confident in being able to do an initial launch of unsupervised, no one in the car, full self-driving in Austin in June.”
Musk said last October that the robotaxi would “probably” enter production before 2027 and is expected to cost less than $30,000.
In its shareholder deck, the company said 2025 “will be a seminal year in Tesla’s history as FSD (Supervised) continues to rapidly improve with the aim of ultimately exceeding human levels of safety.”
