A Missoula-based sovereign AI infrastructure firm has recently applied to buy six Cybercabs for the price of about $30,000 each from Tesla and a date has yet to be determined on the approval of and the delivery from Tesla. The plan here is to run them as cheaper autonomous rides in the Garden City first, then expand across Montana.
Chief Community Officer Drew Surratt of CubCloud AI says he uses his Tesla self driving features more than 90% of the time and trusts it with family members. He argues Cybercab rides could cost about a quarter of a typical Uber or Lyft trip and would not require tipping.
Here-in lies the rub — neither Uber or Lyft requires tipping and as far as only costing roughly a quarter of what Uber and Lyft charge per trip? Well, since people in general behave poorly enough under supervision I could just imagine how much more poorly they might behave without any supervision at all. Without supervision the overhead costs for damages and cleaning could be cost prohibitive — ride rates might actually end up having to be higher in order to help cover these costs.
Cybercabs are a fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, designed for future transportation, while the Robotaxi currently operates using regular Tesla Model Ys with human oversight. The Cybercab is still in production, whereas the Robotaxi service is already available in several cities.
Is Missoula’s market strong enough to support autonomous rideshare? Probably not, but yet here we are with Missoula being Missoula — again.
It’s not likely that Missoula is going to see the Cybercab any time soon or even at all at the rate Tesla is going on with production and with how totally minuscule the Missoula market is.
Elon Musk has repeatedly said unsupervised service could cover 25–50% of the U.S. population by the end of 2026, pending regulation, and that Cybercab volume production would ramp in 2026.
In the Q2 2026 update Tesla dropped Cybercab from the “volume production this year” list so chances are pretty good that Missoula won’t be seeing the Cybercab, or even the Robotaxi, any time in the near future.
Here we are in September 2026 and actual Cybercab service is still a small Austin-only fleet; Model Ys still make up most of the network. Geofences remain limited even in live cities (Austin is the largest, recently expanded to roughly 288 square miles).
Phoenix and Las Vegas were H1 2026 targets and still haven’t launched.
Cybercab expansion beyond Austin has no public date. Tesla is also touring static Cybercab displays in Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Beijing/Shanghai) without a China robotaxi launch. Consumer sales of Cybercabs were still described as a 2026 goal, but the company has not confirmed volume timing.
The pattern so far
New cities open with small geofences and Model Ys; Cybercab is being added later and more slowly than the original 2026 volume rhetoric.
September 2026
Unsupervised Robotaxi (no safety monitor in the car) has been approved and is live in six metros: Austin, Dallas, and Houston in Texas, plus Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in Florida.
The San Francisco Bay Area still requires a safety driver.
Cybercab public rides are only available in Austin so far.
Montana autonomous vehicle legislation
Montana’s 2025 Senate Bill 67 created a state-level framework for automated driving systems and gave the Department of Transportation and Department of Justice rule making authority, especially for Level 4/5 vehicles. That law is what opened the door for this bid. Some local critics have raised privacy and public-process concerns.
