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Tesla Cybertruck factory: Tulsa’s underdog campaign is giving Austin’s bid a run for its money
The site of Tesla’s Cybertruck Gigafactory has not been finalized yet, though reports suggest that there are now only two cities under consideration: Austin, Texas and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Between the two cities, it initially appeared that Austin may be a shoe-in for the electric car maker considering Texas’ ties with SpaceX, Musk’s private space venture. But if there is something that has become evident in recent weeks, it is the fact that Tulsa, Oklahoma will not give up its shot to net Tesla’s next factory without a fight.
The final decision about the site of Tesla’s next electric vehicle factory is expected to be related in a few weeks, perhaps during the company’s upcoming second quarter earnings call. As the days count down to the fateful date, the Tulsa vs Austin race is heating up, with the underdog from Oklahoma seemingly gaining some momentum against Austin, which seems to be encountering some speed bumps in its efforts to secure the Cybertruck Gigafactory.
Travis County, which is home to Austin, is expected to vote this week on a portion of 10 year tax rebates that total over $65 million. However, not everything is going smoothly. Similar to its experience in Gigafactory Berlin, Tesla’s impending arrival has received resistance from a number of local groups. Doing a hearing with the Travis County Commissioners Court last week, for example, representatives from local churches, workers groups, and unions, expressed their concerns about the electric car maker and its proposed incentives.
These issues, at least for now, do not seem to be present at Tulsa. As noted in a Reuters report, Oklahoma has signed a nondisclosure agreement about its incentives package for Tesla, though Commerce Secretary Sean Kouplen noted that its bid is comparable and at parts even better than Austin’s. The bid includes business and personal tax breaks, and most of them are already guaranteed under state law. This meant that the approval of the incentives in Tulsa will not require the kinds of public votes that have already caused several delays in Austin.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Online, the city’s Big F*cking Field Twitter account is on high gear, and all over Tulsa, Tesla fever has pretty much set in. Tulsa’s famous Golden Driller statue has been fitted with a Tesla logo on its chest and a face that eerily resembles CEO Elon Musk. The city has also secured thousands of signatures from engineers who have pledged to move to Tulsa if Tesla decides to set up shop in the city. Local retailers have caught the Tesla bug as well. In a statement to the publication, Kouplen noted that his children came home the other day with a photo of a Tesla-themed snow cone, and a local pizzeria has pledged to give away free pizzas for the city’s would-be Tesla employees.
“The response here continues to be overwhelming. In the time that we’re in, having something positive to hold on to or grab is really making a difference,” Kouplen said.
Quite interestingly, Tesla appeared to have been set on Austin for the site of its Cybertruck Gigafactory. But following reports last month that the company had purchased land in Texas, CEO Elon Musk clarified that Tesla has not made a final decision yet. With this, Tulsa seemed to have put the pedal to the metal, culminating in Musk actually visiting the city earlier this month and being hosted by Oklahoma officials at a massive field that would be the potential site of the upcoming factory. Pictures of the meeting, which featured the CEO candidly speaking with officials, were shared online by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.
Oklahoma officials were scheduled to make their pitch to dozens of Tesla executives in a Zoom call on Monday afternoon. Regardless of the results of this, however, one cannot deny the admirable grassroots push that Tulsa has done to make it this far in the race for the Cybertruck Gigafactory. In a previous comment, Kouplen noted that even if Tulsa loses to Austin this time around, it does not mean that the city will never get a Tesla facility. “This won’t be the last factory they build or the last investment they make. We’re building a relationship with Tesla that will continue regardless of what happens this time,” Kouplen said.
Tesla has taken home the “Overall Loyalty to Make” award from S&P Global Mobility for the fourth consecutive year, reinforcing Tesla owners’ willingness to come back. The 2025 awards are based on S&P Global Mobility’s analysis of 13.6 million new retail vehicle registrations in the U.S. from October 2024 through September 2025. The complete list of 2025 winners includes General Motors for Overall Loyalty to Manufacturer, Tesla for Overall Loyalty to Make, Chevrolet Equinox for Overall Loyalty to Model, Mini for Most Improved Make Loyalty, Subaru for Overall Loyalty to Dealer, and Tesla again for both Ethnic Market Loyalty to Make and Highest Conquest Percentage.
Tesla’s streak in this category started in 2022, and the brand has now won the Highest Conquest Percentage award for six straight years, meaning it keeps pulling buyers away from other brands at a rate no competitor has matched. Tesla’s retention among Asian households reached 63.6% and among Hispanic households 61.9%, rates that significantly outpace national averages for those groups. That breadth of appeal across demographics adds a layer of significance to a win that some might dismiss as routine.
The timing matters too. After several consecutive quarters of decline, Tesla’s share of U.S. EV sales jumped to 59% in Q4 2025. That rebound, arriving just as competitors were flooding the market with new models and incentives, suggests Tesla’s loyalty numbers are not simply the result of limited alternatives. Buyers are still choosing it when they have plenty of other options.
What keeps Tesla owners coming back has a lot to do with the and convenience of charging. The Supercharger network is the most straightforward example. With over 65,000 Superchargers globally, it remains the largest and most reliable fast-charging network in the world, and owners who have built their routines around it face a real practical cost when considering a switch. Competitors have made progress, but the consistency, speed, and availability of Tesla’s network is still the benchmark the rest of the industry is chasing. Then there is the software side. Tesla has built a model where the car you own today is functionally different from the car you bought two years ago, through over-the-air updates that add continuous game-changing improvements such as Full Self-Driving that has moved from a driver-assist feature to an increasingly capable autonomous system. For many Tesla owners, leaving the brand means starting over with a car that will not get meaningfully better over time, and that is a trade-off fewer and fewer are willing to make.
Tesla Robotaxi services in Austin have been operating since last Summer, but Tesla has admittedly been delayed in its expansion of the geofence, fleet size, and other details in a bid to prioritize safety as new technology rolls out.
But those barriers are being broken with new guardrails being removed from the program.
Tesla has achieved a significant advancement in its autonomous ride-hailing program. As of May 4, the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, Texas, has begun operating unsupervised during evening hours for the first time. This expansion moves beyond previous limitations that restricted unsupervised service to daylight hours, typically ending in mid-afternoon.
Tesla Robotaxi in Austin is operating unsupervised in the evenings for the first time today.
Previously in Austin, unsupervised operation ended mid-afternoon
— Robotaxi Tracker (@RtaxiTracker) May 4, 2026
The change brings Austin in line with operations in Dallas and Houston. Those cities have supported evening unsupervised runs since their initial launches in April, and both recently received additions of new unsupervised vehicles to their fleets. This coordinated progress across Texas strengthens Tesla’s regional presence and provides a broader testing ground for the technology.
This milestone carries substantial weight in the development of autonomous vehicles. Extending operations into low-light conditions meaningfully expands the Robotaxi’s operational design domain (ODD)—the specific environments and scenarios in which the system is approved to operate safely without human intervention.
Nighttime driving presents unique technical demands: diminished visibility, headlight glare from oncoming traffic, reduced contrast for identifying pedestrians and lane markings, and greater variability in camera sensor exposure.
Tesla’s pure vision approach, powered by neural networks trained on vast real-world datasets rather than lidar or pre-mapped routes, must handle these variables reliably. Demonstrating consistent unsupervised performance after sunset validates the robustness of the end-to-end AI stack and its ability to generalize across diverse lighting conditions.
Beyond technical validation, the expansion holds important operational and economic implications. Evening hours often coincide with peak urban demand for rides, including commutes, dining, and entertainment outings.
Enabling service during these periods increases daily vehicle utilization, allowing each Robotaxi to generate more revenue while gathering additional high-value training data. Higher utilization accelerates the virtuous cycle of data collection, model improvement, and further ODD growth.
Looking ahead, this step paves the way for more ambitious rollouts. Success in low-light environments positions Tesla to pursue near-24-hour operations, potentially integrating highways and expanding into varied weather patterns. Regulators worldwide frequently demand evidence of safe performance across day-night cycles before granting wider approvals.
Proven capability in Texas could expedite deployments in planned cities such as Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas during the first half of 2026.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi expansion plans with new cities and aggressive timeline
Moreover, scaling evening service supports Tesla’s long-term vision of a high-efficiency robotaxi network. Greater fleet productivity lowers the cost per mile, making autonomous mobility more accessible and competitive against traditional ride-hailing.
As the company iterates on software updates informed by nighttime data, reliability is expected to compound rapidly, unlocking denser urban coverage and longer-distance trips.
In summary, the introduction of an unsupervised evening Robotaxi service in Austin represents more than an incremental schedule adjustment. It signals a critical maturation of the underlying technology and sets the foundation for broader geographic and temporal expansion.
With Texas operations gaining momentum, Tesla is steadily advancing toward transforming urban transportation at scale.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Tesla owners keep coming back for more
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
