Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced a major delay for a significant software update ahead of the company's planned Cybercab launch in 2026.
What's happening?
According to Not a Tesla App, Tesla's highly anticipated Gen AI5 chip won't launch until 2027; the company has just begun work on its AI6 chip.
Yup. Just wrapped up the AI5 Saturday chip design review a few hours ago. We're starting to do some work on AI6 too.@MichaelDell and I happened to be meeting just beforehand, so I invited him to join. Hopefully, he found it interesting.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 15, 2025
Btw, AI5 will not be available in…
"[It] keeps getting later and later," one user commented on the post about the delay.
The problem, Musk said, is one of production volume and availability. While the AI5 is ready for production, priority for produced chips will go to testing for full self-driving and to supercomputing for the electric vehicle and robotics company.
Why is this delay important?
The delay in implementing the AI5 chips means that the Cybercab, the newest model and first to focus on self-driving, will start to ship next year without Tesla's AI5 chips installed. That means the first versions of Tesla's latest car will be coming off the lot with current-gen hardware to run its FSD program.
Why is that a problem? Well, for one, Musk himself has touted the incredible capabilities of the AI5, saying it's 40 times more capable of many tasks than the AI4, and improves the efficiency and productivity of the car's brain, while also drawing in less power. That could mean improved charge efficiency and even slightly greater range.
However, of more importance is the fact that the AI4 hasn't exactly had a clean slate when it comes to its FSD launch. The robotaxi service is only operational in Austin, Texas, after nearly a year, and that rollout has been plagued with issues like crashes, while still not gaining approval to function without a safety driver despite looser Texas regulations. On top of that, the company is under investigation by the NHTSA over its program's issues in fog and low-visibility conditions, according to PBS.
For a car as dependent on self-driving as the Cybercab will be (initial designs showed that it didn't even have a traditional steering column), rolling off the lot with an AI chip that has yet to prove it can handle all the rigors of self-driving safely is less than ideal, and it could push many buyers to wait until the AI5 chip rolls out the following year.
What's being done about the delay?
Unfortunately for Tesla, there's not much to do but wait. You can't speed up microchip production or push the outside companies you're partnering with, and the EV giants lack the facilities to handle chip production themselves.
For a company that has struggled throughout 2025 with flagging sales and inconsistent stock prices, this latest delay could prove incredibly costly.
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