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As of March 25, 2025, Tesla has begun circulating an interest form to fleet buyers, inviting them to purchase Cybercab vehicles and operate them on Tesla’s Robotaxi network. The pitch: buy the cars, let them earn income while you sleep, and split the revenue with Tesla. It’s a vision Elon Musk has been selling since 2019—yet the promised robotaxi income has never materialized for owners. A closer look at Tesla’s business incentives reveals why this offer is less an opportunity and more a transfer of risk.
The same broken promise, repackaged
At Tesla’s September 2024 Cybercab event, the company formally asked businesses to sign up for “Cybercab fleet vehicle purchasing.” The model is straightforward: a company buys the vehicles, runs them on Tesla’s network, and shares fare revenue. This mirrors Musk’s 2019 Autonomy Day pledge, where he claimed owners could earn $30,000 per year per vehicle by adding their cars to the “Tesla Network.” He famously called Teslas “appreciating assets” that would gain value as Full Self-Driving (FSD) improved.
None of that happened. Customers paid up to $15,000 for FSD on the promise of future taxi income, yet years later, not one has been able to operate a personal robotaxi. Tesla itself runs the service, and the individuals who funded the dream are still waiting.
MisterGreen: a cautionary tale
One company that bet heavily on Musk’s vision is MisterGreen, a Dutch leasing firm. It purchased over 4,000 Teslas, expecting the vehicles to hold value and eventually generate robotaxi income. Instead, Tesla slashed new-car prices over two years, causing used Teslas to depreciate at roughly three times the rate of the broader used-car market. The robotaxi income never arrived. MisterGreen filed for bankruptcy
