Tesla Cybercab Orders Open: $29,990 Price, $299 Monthly Fee, Geofenced

Tesla is selling the Cybercab for $29,990 before taxes — with a $1,000 nonrefundable deposit, a mandatory $299-per-month Autonomy Subscription and estimated delivery in December 2026. The order page, opened to select invited customers, carries a list of conditions that shape the product as much as its hardware does.

Teslarati, TechCrunch, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, Notebookcheck and autoevolution all reported the launch with a consistent picture: a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, no manual controls, a 21-inch center touchscreen and 20.1 cubic feet of storage.

What are the confirmed terms?

• Price: $29,990 before taxes
• Deposit: $1,000, listed as nonrefundable
• Software: Autonomy Subscription at $299 per month, first month included
• Delivery: estimated December 2026
• Operation: supported service areas only
• Controls: no steering wheel, no pedals

The pattern across the terms is clear: every money figure is confirmed, while operational details — insurance, registration, parking, charging, cleaning, towing, maintenance — remain unconfirmed by Tesla. Tesla has also not said whether the $1,000 deposit counts toward the final price, and a reported one-per-customer cap is unconfirmed.

How heavy is the $299 subscription?

Tesla's subscription agreement states plainly: "Your Cybercab will not operate without an active Autonomy Subscription." That makes the fee a condition of use, not an option. Because the vehicle has no manual controls, an owner who stops paying has no fallback.

The math compounds fast. At $299 per month, holding the vehicle for five years costs $17,641 in subscriptions on top of the $29,990 sticker, for a total of $47,631 — the fee accounts for 37 percent of everything spent. By year seven, the subscription share reaches 45.3 percent, and after roughly 100 paid months the cumulative fee matches the car's price. Tesla has not said whether the monthly rate can change.

Where can owners actually drive it?

Reporting says the Cybercab operates only in supported service areas. Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of AI software, put a firm boundary on it: privately owned Cybercabs will "work unsupervised inside all the same geo locations as" Tesla's existing Robotaxi service. Ownership does not widen the map; the owner's usable territory tracks Tesla's own Robotaxi expansion rather than the owner's plans.

Elon Musk, quoted by Yahoo Finance, framed the wider ambition with a condition attached: "It will be available nationwide, as we receive regulatory approval."

Can owners earn money with it?

The subscription agreement states: "Your Cybercab is for personal, non-commercial use only." A Tesla support page simultaneously lists commercial purposes under individual-purchase inquiries. How those fit together is not spelled out, and the rules for running an owned Cybercab as a Robotaxi earner remain unconfirmed. Until Tesla publishes terms, the safe reading is that the vehicle is a personal asset.

Why the structure matters

The shift from a fleet-only model to personal sales moves capital cost and risk from Tesla's balance sheet to buyers, while Tesla keeps the software revenue and the operating rules. Over five years, one vehicle yields $17,641 in subscription income on top of the sticker price. The invitation-only start limits Tesla's exposure: the company controls who orders, and buyers outside the invite list have nothing to purchase yet.

For rivals that sell rides rather than cars, the model tests a different bet. Ride-hail operators keep the fleet and charge per trip; Tesla now offers customer-owned vehicles with recurring software fees. The two models will compete for the same urban miles.

Before deliveries begin, the open questions — insurance for a car with no human driver, commercial-use rules, delivery cities, whether the deposit applies to the price — carry more weight than the headline number. A buyer committing $1,000 today is doing so with partial information.