Tesla's official Robotaxi account announced on Friday that 'select customers are now being invited to purchase Cybercab for personal use.'

The steering wheel-free, pedal-free two-seater is listed at $29,990 before taxes — undercutting the Model 3 by $7,000 and making it Tesla's cheapest vehicle ever — with a $1,000 non-refundable deposit and estimated delivery of December 2026 in Austin, Texas.

InsideEVs notes this would make it the first Level 4 autonomous vehicle people can actually own, a milestone no rival has reached.

But the car is not usable as delivered: the order page pre-checks a $299-per-month 'Autonomy Subscription' (first month included), and the fine print states 'Subscription and regular vehicle maintenance required to operate.'

The subscription is not the only catch. The Cybercab can operate only inside Tesla's Robotaxi service areas — Austin, Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth and San Antonio in Texas, plus Miami, Orlando and Tampa in Florida.

According to Electrek, independent tracker Koby Pierce tested thousands of addresses and found Tesla actually accepts pickups and drop-offs in only 59% to 78% of the advertised geofences across six cities, with Austin at roughly 59%.

Electrek also reports the Houston app once quoted about 40 minutes to travel two blocks downtown because the vehicle appeared to route around railroad crossings, and that San Antonio's airport is inside Tesla's polygon but not served.

Outside those zones, the car is effectively a $30,000 sculpture in your driveway.

Musk promised a Cybercab 'below $30,000' when he unveiled it in 2024, and Tesla technically hit that figure — but Electrek calculates the required subscription adds about $3,588 a year, or roughly $47,600 over five years for a two-seater, before insurance, maintenance, taxes and charging.

There is also a regulatory cloud: InsideEVs reports NHTSA questions how Tesla determined the vehicle complies with safety standards given its lack of a steering wheel, pedals and side mirrors, and notes federal exemptions for noncompliant vehicles are capped at 2,500 per year.

Electrek reports NHTSA ordered Tesla to prove under oath that a car with no brake pedal meets federal standards; Tesla answered on October 30 but asked that the response stay confidential, and NHTSA has not ruled while Tesla sells the car anyway.

The announcement raises almost as many questions as it answers. InsideEVs notes Tesla never said whether owners can add their cabs to the Robotaxi fleet to earn passive income — a longtime Musk promise — or when sales will expand beyond hand-picked buyers.

Meanwhile, the Cybercab runs on the same AI4 computer as the Model Y that already operates unsupervised in these same zones, and Electrek asks why Model Y owners who already paid for Full Self-Driving still have to wait until around Q2 2027 for unsupervised operation.

Many of those owners are expected to be frustrated watching a new two-seater get what their cars have not. Whether this rollout breaks Tesla's long streak of missed self-driving deadlines is still to be determined.