Elon Musk's electric-vehicle company will hold a launch event for the Cybercab autonomous vehicle on Thursday

Tesla plans to begin offering some autonomous rideshare services using the Cybercab, a purpose-built robotaxi.

Tesla's stock is making a sharp move higher on Thursday, with just hours to go before the company is scheduled to make a big robotaxi announcement.

At an event in Austin, Texas, the company is expected to welcome the first public riders of its Cybercab, a two-seater autonomous vehicle. Unlike the Model Y SUVs that Tesla (TSLA) has previously deployed for ride-sharing services, the Cybercab lacks a steering wheel or pedals.

Tesla's event is expected to kick off after the market closes, and investors appear optimistic. The stock was up 7% in recent action on Thursday as the company continued to hype the event. Tesla CEO Elon Musk forecast a "storm of Cybercabs" in a post on X.

While Tesla has been telegraphing its plans to begin rolling out the Cybercab for rides in Austin, the full extent of its plans is still unclear. Several experts have said they expect Tesla to reveal little that wasn't previously known, while others are predicting a bigger show of growth.

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Tesla currently offers some autonomous ride-sharing services in six cities across Texas and Florida. In California's San Francisco Bay Area, it provides trips supervised by a human safety rider. Tesla has also said it plans to expand to Nevada and Arizona.

The company's robotaxi service, which kicked off in Austin in June 2025, has been expanding more slowly than some investors had hoped. Announcing both a geographic expansion and plans to deploy more than just a few Cybercabs on Thursday could rally investors, Canaccord analyst George Gianarikas told MarketWatch. He rates Tesla's stock a buy.

Morgan Stanley's Andrew Percoco, who rates Tesla's stock at the equivalent of neutral, laid out both a bullish and a bearish case for the event. Launching a fleet of Cybercabs across Tesla's three markets in Texas could push shares up, while a more tame event would likely do the opposite, he said.

"With past events, tangible evidence of commercial deployment tends to be an important differentiator for stock performance," Percoco wrote in a note to clients this week. "If Thursday's event is merely an unveiling with limited vehicles committed to the road, we expect the stock to sell off through the event."

The Cybercab is the first attempt by a U.S. company to target a similar cost structure to that of Chinese companies, StoneX analyst Mickey Legg said in a client note. Tesla is targeting a cost per mile of less than 30 cents for the Cybercab, less than that of domestic rivals. However, Legg noted that Waymo, which is backed by Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), generates more revenue per mile in at least two cities, despite higher costs.

The "open question" is whether the Cybercab can "can generate the fare per mile required to make the cost advantage translate into contribution margin," said Legg, referring to the revenue a company retains after removing variable costs. He called that view the "most useful lens for Thursday," questioning what Tesla can charge for fares after it eventually loses a "novelty premium."

-William Gavin