Tesla Cybercab Project Manager Departs Amid Early Production Challenges

The first production Cybercab rolled off the line at Tesla’s Texas Gigafactory on February 18, and shortly afterward, project manager Viktor Nekita announced his departure. Nekita joined Tesla in 2017 as a Model 3 intern and, over nearly nine years, rose to become the head of the entire Cybercab vehicle program, also contributing to the Model 3 Highland refresh. On LinkedIn, he stated he would be moving to Boston for a new chapter but did not disclose his next destination. His exit continues Tesla’s recent trend of frequent executive turnover—none of the original project leads remain on any of Tesla’s current mass-produced models. The Cybercab is a fully autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, relying entirely on its self-driving system. However, the current AI4 hardware has yet to achieve true unsupervised autonomy, and the Robotaxi service was paused after only one week of trial operations, still requiring remote human oversight. Elon Musk has also acknowledged that initial production will be extremely slow.