CapEx
What the vehicle costs
Company target Tesla / Musk have repeated a Cybercab price under $30,000 since the October 2024 unveil. That is not a confirmed MSRP you can order, and federal passenger-sale rules for a wheel-free car are still evolving.
Analyst estimate Some ramp analyses put early-build unit costs around ~$240,000 for the first thousand — a manufacturing S-curve, not steady-state. Use that only as a stress case in the calculator (drag CapEx up), not as a sticker.
The worksheet amortizes CapEx in a straight line. Residual value, battery replacement, and crash write-offs are unknown.
OpEx / mile
Energy, upkeep, risk
Company target Musk has described ~$0.20/mi “full considered” at scale — energy, maintenance, cleaning, depreciation, and insurance (Teslarati coverage of those comments; ARK 2030 used the same $0.20 vs Waymo ~$0.40).
Analyst estimate Morgan Stanley is often cited as more conservative: Model Y robotaxi ~$0.81/mi vs Waymo ~$1.43; some secondary summaries put Cybercab ~$0.37 by 2035 (The Hep Fund). Cite as secondary, not a Tesla filing.
Default calculator OpEx is $0.35/mi excluding CapEx amortization — between the Musk target and nearer-term realism. Musk’s $0.20 already includes depreciation; stacking it on top of amort would double-count.
Revenue / mile
What a rider might pay
Observed fare anecdote Austin Robotaxi coverage has described roughly $3 base + ~$1.40/mi after 2026 price tweaks (Not a Tesla App / Robotaxi Tracker; repeated in Longbridge-style secondaries). That is a pilot anecdote, not a Cybercab tariff sheet, and it is mostly Model Y service.
Observed fare anecdote Uber/Lyft rider prices often land ~$1–$4/mi all-in — a wide band.
Illustrative scenario Motley Fool used ~$50k/year gross fares per vehicle as a “generous” young-fleet assumption. At $1.50/mi that implies ~33k paid miles — below this page’s 60k base.
Utilization
Paid miles are the whole game
Analyst estimate Tesla Q2 2026 paid Robotaxi miles fell QoQ (~1.1M → ~0.7M) in TechCrunch’s reading of a cumulative chart, even as more cities were named. Utilization is not proven; Electrek read the same chart as roughly flat.
Texas authorized-fleet chatter of ~420 vehicles / ~45 Cybercabs comes from third-party DMV pulls. Registrations ≠ revenue miles, and Cybercab-specific paid miles are undisclosed.
Default 60,000 paid miles/vehicle/year is an illustrative scenario. Deadhead (unpaid repositioning) is modeled as a percent of paid miles and is charged OpEx, not fare.
Network fees
Who keeps the booking
If third-party owners put Cybercabs on Tesla Network, Tesla has historically discussed a network fee. The exact live take rate for Cybercab is unknown.
The calculator lets you set Tesla network take rate. Default 30% (range explored 25–40%) is an illustrative scenario / assumption — not a disclosed Cybercab contract.
Gross bookings are rider fares. After-take revenue is what remains for the vehicle owner (Tesla itself, or a hypothetical third party).
Sensitivity
What actually moves profit
In this worksheet, profit is most sensitive to paid miles, then take rate, then OpEx. CapEx only dominates if utilization is low or you use early-ramp unit costs.
- Bull preset: high miles, $0.15 OpEx ex-depreciation, 25% take
- Base preset: 60k miles, $0.35 OpEx, 30% take, $30k CapEx
- Bear preset: 25k miles, $0.81 OpEx, 40% take, $80k CapEx
A first-thousand ~$240k CapEx with bear utilization does not pay back in this model. That is the point of the slider.