Home Grown: Cybercab Is Built in the Same City Where Riders Hail It

AUSTIN, Texas - Here is a fact worth knowing: the Cybercab is built in the same city where riders hail it. Tesla makes the two-seat robotaxi at Giga Texas, its factory on the eastern edge of Austin, and Austin is the only place where the public can pay for a Cybercab ride today.

The car comes off an assembly line that Tesla calls Unboxed, which builds large sections of the vehicle side by side and joins them near the end. Tesla designed the Cybercab as a robotaxi from the start, with no steering wheel and no pedals.

That is not how every robotaxi gets made. Waymo's Ojai, its first purpose-built robotaxi, starts life in Ningbo, China, where Zeekr, a brand owned by Geely, builds the base vehicle, including the chassis, body, battery and motors, according to the trade publication Electrive. The vehicle is then shipped to Waymo's plant in Mesa, Ariz., where Waymo and its partner Magna install the sensors, computers and software that let it drive itself.

On Tuesday, Nic Cruz Patane, a Tesla commentator on X, put the contrast plainly: "The Waymo Zeekr is made in China, while Cybercab is made in Austin, Texas."

Waymo is growing its own lineup too. The company said on Tuesday that a new silver version of the Ojai is ramping up production at its Mesa "driver integration plant" and will begin serving rides in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the coming weeks.

For Tesla, the short trip from factory to street shows up in plain sight. On Tuesday evening, a tracking account spotted a carrier of decaled Cybercabs heading west out of Giga Texas.

So the next time a gold Cybercab pulls up to the curb in Austin, there is a good chance it was built across town.

Riley Cho covers Cybercab product details and the numbers behind the rollout. Based in Austin.