Tesla’s biggest bet is no longer a car you drive. It is a car that drives itself. In September, Tesla began giving rides in its purpose-built Tesla Cybercab, and in October it told investors that the service is about to spread to more cities. At the same time, a federal safety regulator is asking tough questions, and the company’s latest profit figures show how much is riding on this plan.<\/p>\n
In its third-quarter update, Tesla said it started providing robotaxi rides using Cybercabs in Austin on September 3. The company also reported nearly two million cumulative unsupervised robotaxi miles by the end of the quarter, a figure that counts miles whether or not riders were paying.<\/p>\n
According to TechCrunch’s report on the earnings call, Tesla plans to launch the Cybercab outside Austin, with Dallas next month and other cities by the end of the year. Tesla already runs small robotaxi fleets using the Model Y in Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando and Tampa. The company also said it wants to begin selling Cybercabs to fleet operators by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
That puts Tesla up against Waymo, which TechCrunch says leads the U.S. market with more than 4,000 vehicles in more than a dozen cities.<\/p>\n
The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals, and that is where the trouble lies. According to TechCrunch, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened an investigation in September, hours after the formal Austin launch, into whether the vehicle complies with federal safety standards. The report says the car lacks features that current rules require, including a brake pedal and side mirrors. Tesla says the Cybercab is compliant.<\/p>\n
Regulators have proposed removing some of those requirements, but the rule change is likely to be at least a few months away. A report from Claims Journal said Tesla had until October 30 to respond to the agency. Tesla’s chief financial officer said the main challenge is getting “all the regulatory approvals,” though autonomy chief Ashok Elluswamy said the remaining bottlenecks are not purely regulatory and also involve technology.<\/p>\n
Tesla’s results show a company funding a big change with a flat core business. Revenue for the third quarter was about $28.0 billion, roughly unchanged from a year earlier. GAAP net income was $787 million, down 43%, and operating income fell 56% to $718 million. Capital spending more than doubled to $4.7 billion, while free cash flow was $1.5 billion. The company ended the quarter with $45.4 billion in cash and investments.<\/p>\n
On the car side, Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles, about 2% fewer than a year earlier but well above the company-compiled analyst consensus of 461,974. Tesla gave no numeric delivery or financial guidance. Elon Musk said the robotaxi business will not show up clearly in the financials until the second quarter of 2027 and could become “a big deal” by the third or fourth quarter of that year.<\/p>\n
The software side looks stronger. Tesla reported 1.74 million active Full Self-Driving (Supervised) subscriptions, up 67% from a year earlier, and said the feature is attached to more than 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America. Those subscriptions give Tesla steady revenue and a large fleet from which to collect driving data.<\/p>\n
Coverage of the earnings call said unsupervised FSD could reach customer cars around the second quarter of 2027, because the Cybercab and the Model Y run the same software. That is a company target, not a promise. Tesla’s robotaxi service also has clear limits today: it does not operate on highways or in some conditions, and the company says it plans to handle harder driving situations by year-end before scaling further. Service hours have been extended, with a 2 a.m. closing time planned.<\/p>\n
One note of caution comes from how Tesla reports its results. TechCrunch noted that an earlier chart showing paid robotaxi miles, which had fallen, was replaced with a chart of unsupervised miles that includes unpaid rides. That makes the newer figure less useful for judging how much money the service really earns.<\/p>\n
The Tesla Cybercab has moved from showpiece to working service, and the plan to expand it is clear. But the road is not smooth: regulators want proof of compliance, rivals are far ahead in fleet size, and Tesla’s profits are under pressure while spending climbs. The real test will come over the next few quarters, when we find out whether robotaxis can turn into a business that pays for itself.<\/p>\n
Figures come from Tesla’s third-quarter update and press coverage including TechCrunch and Claims Journal, and may change.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tesla’s biggest bet is no longer a car you drive. It is a car that drives itself. In September, Tesla began giving rides in its purpose-built Tesla Cybercab, and in October it\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91,93,94,92,90],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-cybercab","tag-full-self-driving","tag-nhtsa","tag-robotaxi","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luznews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}