Tesla said on Thursday that it had begun offering paid rides in a car that has no steering wheel and is designed to transport passengers with no direct human intervention. Tesla said in July that it had begun producing the vehicle, the Cybercab, at its factory in Austin, Texas. But the two-seat vehicle will probably not be available to the general public for some time. It lacks the human-operated controls found in other cars and would be difficult or impossible for private citizens to operate legally in the United States.

On Thursday, Tesla said on its website that people could hail the Cybercab and “use it for errands, commuting and more.” The company said that in addition to two passengers, the vehicle would have room for “luggage, golf clubs, scooters and more.” The Cybercab embodies the longtime ambition of Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, to create fully autonomous cars.

The company’s stock market value of $1.5 trillion, which makes Tesla the world’s most valuable car company by far, worth several times the value of Toyota, is predicated on the idea that the company will dominate a future market for this technology. The shares have fallen almost 20 percent this year as some investors have begun to doubt whether Tesla could compete with Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. Waymo already has 4,000 autonomous vehicles offering paid rides in 14 U.S. cities.

Initially Tesla will probably be the only buyer for the Cybercab, which the company will use for its Robotaxi service, which operates in six U.S. cities, including Austin, Dallas, Houston and Miami. Most states require special authorization to operate vehicles without steering wheels or brake pedals, if they allow them at all. Investors are watching whether Tesla can quickly deploy significant numbers of Cybercabs.