Tesla Cybercab, First Steering-Wheel-Free L5 Robotaxi, Enters Mass Production at Texas Factory

On April 26, Tesla announced that its Cybercab autonomous vehicle has officially entered production at the Texas Gigafactory. The Cybercab is the world’s first mass-produced Level 5 autonomous vehicle designed from the ground up without a steering wheel, pedals, or side mirrors, and is positioned specifically for shared mobility Robotaxi services. Featuring a two-door, two-seat layout with gull-wing doors and a stainless-steel body, the vehicle operates entirely on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system. The Cybercab employs Tesla’s pure-vision TeslaVision platform, equipped with eight high-definition cameras and the end-to-end FSD V14 neural network model. Its hardware architecture is fully redundant, and Tesla claims the vehicle is ten times safer than human-driven cars. The interior is minimalist, containing only two seats and a central touchscreen display—no instrument cluster or traditional driver’s seat is present. Targeting a manufacturing cost of $25,000 to $30,000 (approximately RMB 170,000–210,000), the Cybercab offers an estimated range of about 320 kilometers and is primarily aimed at high-frequency, short-distance urban travel scenarios. The first production unit without a steering wheel rolled off the line in February, and volume production began in April. Tesla leverages a self-certification compliance pathway, exempting it from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) annual cap of 2,500 autonomous vehicles eligible for regulatory exemptions, thereby enabling unlimited production scaling. The company noted that initial production ramp-up will be gradual but expects exponential growth by year-end, with a long-term target annual capacity of 2 million units.