Robotics · 4 November 2026 · 6 min read

A Cybercab line tour puts the repairs and the automation on a video. Detroit is still a test with a driver

Munro Live walked Tesla’s Cybercab line at Giga Texas with Lars Moravy, the vice president of vehicle engineering. The account of that tour has a battery that can be swapped in modules, no paint shop, no pyro fuse, a line described as about 78 per cent automated, and a final assembly of 25 stations. Separately, about two dozen Cybercabs have been reported on Metro Detroit roads, with temporary steering wheels and human drivers. Tesla has not called that a service.

Two gold Tesla Cybercabs with Texas plates driving on a city street while people film them from the pavement. — Cybercabs on a street in Austin, from pictures of an earlier running. Texas plates are in the frame. It is not Metro Detroit. The Detroit cars are reported to be carrying temporary steering wheels, which this picture does not show.

The line tour is not a Tesla release. It is Munro Live, with Lars Moravy and the Cybercab lead Eric Earley, as written up by Not a Tesla App on 3 November. What that account attributes to the tour is a battery that can be serviced in pieces. The cells are still 4680s, but they are potted in separate modules, so a failed module can be swapped without the whole pack. The tour does not, in that account, put a number on the modules. A post that says four is ahead of the write-up. Moravy is quoted as saying the car is going to run half a million miles at least. That is an engineer’s line on a video. It is not a warranty.

The same account says the Cybercab skips the paint shop. Moravy is reported to have put a paint line at a few hundred million dollars, and about a million hours of work, to build. The pyro fuse is described as deleted, with contactors that can cut power under load. Final assembly is put at 25 fully automated stations, and the whole line at about 78 per cent automated, working toward 100 per cent. A percentage on a tour is not a counted week of the line. The account also says the line is already ahead of the permits, so it does not have to run every day. A factory that can sit is not a factory that is shipping.

An inverter, and a car with a wheel

Nick Verzani, described as the head of drive units, is reported to have said the new inverter’s circuit board and power stage will ship from Fremont this year, and that the unit can go straight into a Model Y drive unit. Asked whether that means the Model Y, Moravy is reported to have said he would plead the fifth. A line on a tour is not a product announcement.

Detroit is a different fact, and a thinner one. The Detroit News, as reported on 3 November, says about two dozen Cybercabs are running from Tesla’s collision-repair site in Southfield, and have been seen on I-696, M-10, Telegraph Road and Eight Mile Road. They have temporary steering wheels and human test drivers. Analyst Stephanie Brinley told the paper that Tesla has not officially said it is testing there. Tesla has not announced public Cybercab rides in Detroit. A car with a driver and a wheel is a test mule. It is not the robotaxi the production design is drawn without either.