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Tesla Robotaxi

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Tesla Robotaxi is the ride-hailing service, and the smartphone app of the same name, that Tesla, Inc. operates with vehicles it owns and runs on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. The service began on June 22, 2025 in a small part of South Austin, Texas, with invited riders, a flat $4.20 fare, about ten Model Y SUVs, and a Tesla employee in the front passenger seat as a "safety monitor."[1][2] Tesla started letting members of the public take rides in Austin with nobody in the car on January 22, 2026, launched unsupervised service in Dallas and Houston in April 2026 and in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa in July 2026, and added its purpose-built Cybercab to the Austin fleet on September 3, 2026.[3][4][5][6] A separate Bay Area operation that Tesla lists under the same Robotaxi heading uses employees in the driver's seat under a California charter-party carrier permit, because Tesla holds no permit to carry passengers in an autonomous vehicle in that state.[7][8]

Tesla reports the service in cumulative "paid Robotaxi miles" (about 2.5 million through June 2026) and, since July 2026, in unsupervised miles (380,000 on July 22, 2026 and 1 million on September 3, 2026, according to Tesla).[6][9][10] It has not disclosed ride counts, fleet size, intervention rates, or per-trip economics.[11] Independent counts of the driverless fleet through mid-2026 ran in the dozens, and the gap between those counts and the targets CEO Elon Musk has announced is a recurring theme of coverage.[12][13] Waymo, the largest US operator, was giving more than 500,000 paid driverless rides a week with over 4,000 vehicles in 14 cities as the Cybercab launched.[14]

Name and scope

Tesla writes "Robotaxi" as a capitalized brand. Its shareholder decks refer to "our Robotaxi service," chart "Cumulative Paid Robotaxi Miles," and list "Announced Robotaxi Coverage" by state and metro, while describing the California operation as a "ride-hailing service" whose status is "Safety Driver."[4][15] The app is published on Apple's App Store as "Tesla Robotaxi" by Tesla, Inc. and describes itself this way: "Robotaxi combines our automated driving technology and vehicle hardware to create a safe and convenient driverless experience." Riders sign in with a Tesla Account.[16] The service's X account, @robotaxi, carries the display name "Tesla Robotaxi" and was created on November 5, 2024.[17] In Texas and Nevada filings the operating company is Tesla Robotaxi LLC.[18][19]

The vehicles are Tesla's own, not customer cars. Musk's 2016 "Master Plan, Part Deux" described a "Tesla Network" in which owners would add their cars to a shared fleet; that has not happened, and Tesla's first responder plan for the Cybercab states that "all Robotaxi vehicles are owned and operated by Tesla at this time."[20][21] The fleet ran on modified Model Ys from launch until the two-seat Cybercab joined it in Austin in September 2026; the vehicle is described on its own page.[5]

Two words carry weight in Tesla's disclosures. "Unsupervised" means no Tesla employee inside the car; Tesla's remote staff can still advise or, at low speed, drive the vehicle, and the company does not publish how often that happens.[22][23] "Supervised" covers both the Austin monitors of 2025 and the Bay Area drivers, whom California's regulator treats as ordinary chauffeurs.[8]

Background

Tesla sells FSD (Supervised), a driver-assistance product that requires a person at the wheel, to owners of its cars. The Robotaxi program is Tesla's first attempt to run the same camera-only stack without that person, on a company fleet inside a defined service area, which is the approach autonomous driving rivals took years earlier.[1][24]

Musk had been promising a driverless Tesla service for a decade. At the 2019 "Autonomy Day" he predicted a million robotaxis on the road in 2020; none appeared.[25][26] On the October 23, 2024 earnings call he said employees in the Bay Area had been summoning autonomously operated Teslas with safety drivers "for the past few months" through a prototype ride-hailing app, and that he expected a paid service in California and Texas in 2025.[20] Two weeks earlier, at the "We, Robot" event, Tesla had shown the Cybercab and Musk had said he expected "unsupervised FSD in Texas and California next year."[27] Tesla's fourth-quarter 2024 shareholder letter, published in January 2025, said the company expected "to begin launching" the Robotaxi business "later this year in parts of the U.S.," and the first-quarter letter in April said it was "on track for pilot launch of Robotaxi in Austin by June."[28][29] Tesla applied for a California charter-party carrier (TCP) permit in November 2024, a permit that lets a company carry passengers in vehicles it owns with employee drivers; the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted it in March 2025.[30][31]

Austin launch (June 2025)

Rides began on Sunday, June 22, 2025. Tesla had sent early-access invitations during the previous week, largely to owners, investors, and social media supporters, who downloaded a new Robotaxi app to hail the cars. A support page published the same day said the service ran every day from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, "may be limited or unavailable in the event of inclement weather," and that a Tesla employee would sit in the right front seat as a safety monitor. Musk had said the fleet would start at about ten 2025 Model Ys in a narrow part of South Austin, and the fare was a flat $4.20 per ride.[1] Tesla's second-quarter letter described the launch as "our Robotaxi service in the first city, Austin, with a safety rider" and said the company had "launched the Robotaxi mobile app," which reuses Tesla app features such as profiles, remote climate settings, phone-as-key, and stored payment.[2]

Videos posted by early riders drew federal attention within a day. Bloomberg and TechCrunch reported on June 23 that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had contacted Tesla after clips showed a robotaxi swerving into the wrong lane and others exceeding posted limits. NHTSA told TechCrunch: "NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information," adding that it "does not pre-approve new technologies or vehicle systems" and investigates "incidents involving potential safety defects."[24][25] CNBC counted fewer than two dozen vehicles in the pilot, which ran in daylight and good weather on roads with a 40 mph limit, with remote supervision by Tesla employees in addition to the monitor in the passenger seat.[25][7]

Tesla had also tried to keep records of the program out of public view. Before the launch it asked the Texas Attorney General to block a TechCrunch records request to the Texas Department of Transportation, and Reuters reported a similar effort with the City of Austin.[1]

Service areas and pricing

Tesla has grown the service by drawing larger geofences, a term the industry uses for the area in which rides can start and end, and by adding metros. The Austin area is the most expanded.

DateAustin service areaNote
June 22, 2025About 20 square miles of South Austin, bounded by Ben White Boulevard and U.S. 290, Loop 1, Cesar Chavez Street, and U.S. 183.Launch.[18][34]
July 14, 2025About 42 square miles, adding downtown, the University of Texas, and a corridor north along I-35.Musk joked about the map's shape.[18][32]
August 3, 2025Nearly 80 square miles.Came after Waymo expanded its Austin area to 90 square miles.[18]
August 26, 2025173 square miles, announced by @robotaxi on X, with availability raised "by 50%."Rides still invite-only.[18]
November 2025About 245 square miles, more than 12 times the launch area.Reported by Not a Tesla App and Electrek from the app map.[33][34]
June 3, 2026"Unsupervised Robotaxi now in the entire Austin Metro area," per @robotaxi.Until then driverless cars had been limited to part of South Austin.[35]

New metros opened with small zones: Dallas at roughly 30 to 35 square miles around the urban core and Park Cities, Houston at a 12 to 25 square mile pocket in the Jersey Village and Willowbrook area (estimates differ), Miami in a slice of West Miami toward Doral and Sweetwater that Not a Tesla App put at about 20 square miles, Orlando at 12 to 15 square miles in the Conway and Lee Vista districts, and Tampa at 4 to 5 square miles north of downtown.[36][37][38][39][40] The Bay Area zone, by contrast, has been large from the start: Tesla's July 2025 notice to the CPUC covered the region from Sausalito and Berkeley to Los Gatos, and the app has shown coverage from San Francisco to San Jose.[41][42]

Fares started as memes and became metered. The $4.20 flat fare rose to $6.90 with the first Austin expansion, and with app version 25.7.10 at the end of July 2025 Tesla moved to distance-based pricing; one rider's log showed a trip of under a mile at $2.10 and an 11-mile ride at $13.71.[18][43] In March 2026 Tesla changed the Austin formula twice within about a week, from $1.00 base plus $1.00 per mile to $3.25 plus $1.00, then to $3.00 plus $1.40 per mile, according to data compiled by the crowdsourced Robotaxi Tracker; Electrek later reported Dallas at $3.00 plus $1.40 and Austin at $3.25 plus $1.00.[44][37] Tesla's website says "we want Robotaxi pricing to be simple and easy for you to understand," that an "introductory program" charges "a simple, affordable rate plus applicable taxes and fees," and that "pricing is subject to change."[45] A KRON4 reporter's Bay Area trip from the Embarcadero to SFO in July 2026 cost about $33 against $43 quoted by UberX.[42]

The app

The Tesla Robotaxi app appeared on Apple's App Store on the night of September 3-4, 2025 for anyone in the United States (and, shortly after, Canada), but new users could only join a waitlist; Tesla's third-quarter letter described it as "now available to everyone in the U.S. and Canada" to "join the waitlist."[15][46][47] It reached the top of the App Store's travel category on download velocity, required iOS 18, and was built in React Native, which observers took as a sign that an Android version would follow.[47] Tesla removed the waitlist on November 19, 2025, so that any iOS user in the US or Canada could sign in, although rides remained limited to the Austin and Bay Area zones; the fourth-quarter letter confirmed that "the Robotaxi iOS app no longer has a waitlist in the areas we serve."[4][33] The Android app followed on April 24, 2026, nearly a year after iOS, with Google Pay support and a US-only listing.[37]

In the app a rider enters a destination, states the number of passengers, and, once the car arrives, taps "Start Ride." The app shows the license plate of the approaching car and lets riders adjust climate and seats, play music, change the drop-off, request a pull-over, and reach support.[16][45][37] The September 3, 2026 update added a choice between a Cybercab (two passengers) and a Model Y (four) in Austin, and the App Store release note for version 26.8.0 reads "Supports Cybercab in Austin, Texas."[16][48]

From safety monitors to driverless rides

Monitors and drivers (2025)

For the first two months the monitor sat in the front passenger seat with, as Electrek put it, a finger on a kill switch. When Tesla added highway routes in Austin on September 1, 2025, it moved the monitor into the driver's seat for those trips, a change Electrek tied both to speed and to Texas Senate Bill 2807, which took effect the same day and governs driverless deployment.[49][50] The Austin fleet never grew past about 25 to 30 cars by fan counts during 2025, and riders reported "High Service Demand" messages and waits over 40 minutes.[3][13]

Musk repeatedly said the monitors were temporary. In September 2025 he wrote on X, "Should be no safety driver by end of year."[51] On the October 22, 2025 earnings call he said Tesla expected to have no safety drivers in large parts of Austin by year end and to be in eight to ten metro areas, and on the All-In podcast on October 31 he said Tesla would "probably" have "500 or more in the greater Austin area" and "a thousand cars or more in the Bay Area" by the end of 2025.[52][53][13] On November 25 he said the Austin fleet "should roughly double next month," which Electrek noted implied about 60 cars rather than 500.[13]

Driverless testing and the first customer rides (December 2025 to January 2026)

Videos of a completely empty Model Y circulated on the weekend of December 13-14, 2025, and Musk confirmed on December 14 that Tesla was testing "with no occupants"; Tesla's account posted "Slowly, then all at once."[3] In late December Musk said a monitor-free robotaxi had carried him around Austin, but rides ordered by the Austin American-Statesman in January 2026 still arrived with a monitor.[51]

On January 22, 2026, Musk posted: "Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car. Congrats to the @Tesla_AI team!" Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla's AI and Autopilot software work, added that the company was "starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time." Tesla's shares rose 4.2 percent that day.[54][55] Rider videos showed the empty cars being followed closely by black Teslas, and Electrek and Not a Tesla App reported that the monitors had effectively moved to chase vehicles.[56][57] A week later Electrek reported that one enthusiast had taken 42 Austin rides without getting a driverless one.[58] On the January 28 earnings call Musk said "as of yesterday or so, we actually do not even have a chase car or anything like that," and that Tesla was "well over 500" vehicles carrying paid customers "between the Bay Area and Austin," a count that included the human-driven California cars; independent trackers put the total near 200.[59][12] The fourth-quarter letter's wording was narrower: Tesla "began testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin in December and began removing the safety monitor from customer rides in January on a limited basis."[4]

Through the spring, driverless cars were a minority of the Austin fleet. Electrek counted between four and a dozen unsupervised Model Ys in Austin in March 2026, out of a total it put at roughly 40, and Bloomberg reporters found monitors in three of ten Austin rides in the weeks before June 11.[26][60] Electrek's reading of Robotaxi Tracker data was that the unsupervised fleet climbed from single digits in January to 25 vehicles across Texas by late April, then fell to about 20 in May.[61][62]

Texas expansion (April 2026)

On April 18, 2026, four days before first-quarter earnings, @robotaxi posted "Robotaxi now rolling out in Dallas & Houston" with two maps and no fleet, pricing, or supervision details. Riders confirmed that the cars arrived empty; crowdsourced data showed one vehicle per city at launch, growing to about three each.[36][37][62] Tesla's first-quarter letter recorded that it "launched unsupervised rides in both Dallas and Houston in April" and that paid miles "nearly doubled sequentially" in the quarter.[63] On the April 22 call Musk said Tesla planned to reach "a dozen or so states" by year end, that "the limiting factor for expansion is really rigorous validation," and that robotaxi revenue "will not be super material this year."[64] The same letter moved Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas from a "1H 2026" target to "Preparations Underway."[4][63]

Florida and full unsupervised operation (June to September 2026)

Tesla extended unsupervised coverage to the whole Austin metro on June 3, 2026, launched in Miami on July 3 with no one in the car, and added Orlando and Tampa on July 21, the day before second-quarter earnings, again without saying how many cars were in each city.[35][38][40][65] The second-quarter letter listed seven metros, six "Ramping Unsupervised" and the Bay Area under "Safety Driver."[6]

By August the Austin fleet appeared to have gone fully driverless. Robotaxi Tracker's creator, Ethan McKanna, told The Verge that all 170 Austin rides it logged over two weeks in August were unsupervised, across 54 different cars, and that roughly 30 driverless Teslas had been running in Dallas and Houston; The Verge noted that McKanna had interned with Tesla's Robotaxi team that summer, and the tracker records what riders and observers happen to log rather than the whole fleet.[66][67] Rider complaints continued: Electrek collected August accounts of a 66-minute estimate for a 2.3-mile trip, drop-offs miles from the destination, and support staff "manually" driving a car to finish a ride, and Tesla's account issued at least one public refund.[68]

Cybercab rides (September 2026)

Tesla began carrying members of the public in the Cybercab, a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, on September 3, 2026 at an invitation-only Austin event that was not livestreamed and that Musk did not attend. Tesla's launch video says "our Robotaxi vehicle lineup now includes Cybercab" and that rides are "only available in the Robotaxi app"; Tesla said the public could hail Cybercabs in limited areas of Austin from 5 p.m. Central the next day.[5][69][70] At the event Elluswamy said, "I'm happy to announce that we have achieved 1 million miles of unsupervised Robotaxi operation," up from the 380,000 reported six weeks earlier.[10] Forty-five Cybercabs had been registered with the Texas DMV in the days before, out of 420 Tesla vehicles authorized for driverless operation in the state as of the evening of September 2 (314 earlier that day), and NHTSA opened audit query AQ26002 the same day into how Tesla certified a vehicle without manual controls to federal safety standards. Tesla's shares rose 5.4 percent on September 3 and fell about 6 percent on September 4.[71][72][73][69] Details of the vehicle, the event, and the audit are on the Cybercab page.

Bay Area service

Tesla's California operation is a taxi service with drivers, and the state's regulators have said so repeatedly. On July 24, 2025 Tesla notified the CPUC that it would "extend operations" under its TCP permit to "friends and family of employees and to select members of the public" across the Bay Area. The commission told CNBC and ABC7 the next day: "Tesla is not allowed to test or transport the public (paid or unpaid) in an AV with or without a driver," and "Tesla does not hold a Drivered Pilot AV permit from the CPUC, so it cannot use a drivered AV in passenger service." The California DMV added that Tesla had held a drivered testing permit since 2014, which allows testing with an employee at the wheel but not fees.[7][41] Rides began by invitation on July 31, 2025 with an employee in the driver's seat, in a zone from San Francisco to San Jose that also covered Berkeley, Hayward, and Fremont.[74][75]

Tesla has nonetheless reported the operation under its Robotaxi heading and counted its miles. The third-quarter letter said Tesla "launched our Bay Area ride-hailing service," the fourth-quarter letter said the service "began serving the San Jose Airport in October" 2025, and the 2026 letters footnote the Bay Area row to "CA TCP permit # TCP0046782 - A."[15][4][63] Business Insider reported in November 2025, citing the company, that the California service had completed more than 40,000 rides since July, and Business Insider later reported that Tesla had registered 1,655 vehicles and 798 drivers for it.[76][52] In March 2026 Pat Tsen, the CPUC's deputy executive director for consumer policy, transportation, and enforcement, said on a podcast that "Tesla is not operating an autonomous vehicle service," that the person in the driver's seat "is the driver," and that Tesla is "not subject to the autonomous vehicle program reporting requirements."[8] Tesla's own February 2026 comments to the CPUC referred to "Tesla's ADAS-equipped TCP vehicles" and said its remote operators are located in the United States.[77]

On July 21, 2026 Tesla's AI account posted, "Our Bay Area rideshare service now goes to SFO." San Francisco International Airport said Tesla had been issued a limousine permit, which requires a human driver, and that "Tesla has not been issued for any autonomous operations at SFO."[42][31] In August 2026 the CPUC told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Tesla "has not requested nor been granted any changes to their TCP permit since it was approved," and the DMV said Tesla Robotaxi LLC held a permit to "test with a safety driver."[78]

Regulation and permits by state

StateWhat Tesla holdsNotes
TexasA transportation network company license from the Department of Licensing and Regulation (August 2025) and, since the DMV's automated vehicle registry opened on May 28, 2026, driverless authorizations for vehicles it self-certified as SAE Level 4.Senate Bill 2807 took effect September 1, 2025; rules became enforceable May 28, 2026. The registry showed 42 Tesla vehicles that day against 577 for Waymo and 317 for Avride.[18][50][79][80]
CaliforniaA TCP permit (March 2025) and a DMV permit to test with a safety driver.No CPUC autonomous passenger permit and no DMV driverless permit, so every ride has a driver.[8][30][78]
ArizonaA TNC permit from the Department of Transportation, applied for November 13 and granted November 17, 2025; Tesla had applied in July 2025 to test autonomous vehicles in Phoenix with and without safety drivers.The TNC permit does not allow driverless operation; Tesla listed Phoenix as "Preparations Underway" through July 2026.[6][81][82]
NevadaAn Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit from the Nevada Transportation Authority.Tesla Robotaxi LLC applied on June 5, 2026 for up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County; the NTA first approved 10 vehicles on July 27 with a 45 mph cap and no airport pickups, then on August 20 unanimously approved up to 5,000 in the first year, alongside 1,000 each for Waymo and Uber's Aviari unit. Tesla's Cybercab chief engineer Eric Earley told the authority "the 5,000 has always been a ceiling for us" and that reaching 2,500 in a year would be satisfying.[19][83][84]
FloridaService in Miami, Orlando, and Tampa since July 2026.Tesla has not described its Florida permitting in its shareholder letters.[6][38]

At the federal level NHTSA does not pre-approve vehicles or software. Tesla files crash reports under the agency's Standing General Order (below); NHTSA's July 2026 letter to autonomous vehicle developers, which cited "a clear pattern of driverless AVs interfering with law enforcement or other first responders," named Tesla among the companies required to meet the agency; and the Cybercab audit query covers that vehicle's certification.[69][85][86]

Incidents and NHTSA reporting

Companies operating automated driving systems must report crashes to NHTSA within days under Standing General Order 2021-01. Tesla filed its first three Robotaxi reports for July 2025 incidents, and for nearly a year it redacted every narrative as "confidential business information," the only operator to do so; Waymo, Zoox, Avride, and others publish descriptions.[87][88] The count grew to seven by November 2025, 14 by February 2026, 15 by March, and 22 unique incidents by July 2026.[53][89][90][34][23]

In May 2026 Tesla refiled its reports with the narratives visible. The 17 incidents then on record, all in Model Ys with a monitor present, ran from July 2025 to March 2026: 13 with property damage only, two with no injury, one minor injury, and one minor injury with hospitalization. Most involved other vehicles hitting a stopped Tesla. Two were caused by Tesla's own remote operators: in July 2025 a teleoperator who took over a stuck car drove it "up the curb and made contact with a metal fence," and in January 2026 another drove into a construction barricade at about 9 mph.[22][88] TechCrunch noted that Tesla had told lawmakers earlier in 2026 that it allows remote operators to drive a vehicle as long as they stay under 10 miles per hour, to move a car "that may be in a compromising position."[22] A third remote-operator crash, in Houston in May 2026, was the first Tesla coded as "Remote (Commercial / Test)" in the operator field: the car "entered a grassy slope" while being "supported remotely out of the dead end road" and hit a tree stump at 2 mph.[23] Other narratives describe the system hitting a metal chain across a parking-lot entrance (twice, in Austin and Dallas), a dump trailer's hitch, a curb, and a wooden pole while reversing, and one July 2025 report was later revised from property damage to a hospitalization.[88][23][90]

Local reporters have tracked the same filings by city. The Austin American-Statesman counted 20 Tesla crashes in Austin by mid-July 2026 and 21 by late August, against 113 to 126 for Waymo, whose Austin fleet was roughly 300 vehicles; the one new Tesla crash in the August period was a car hit while stopped at a red light.[91][92] Electrek has repeatedly divided Tesla's report count by its cumulative paid miles to argue that the crash rate is several times the human average; Tesla does not publish the mileage denominator that such a calculation needs, and the outlet's figures are its own.[90] Tesla's position, given by Elluswamy on the July 22, 2026 call, is that over 380,000 unsupervised miles the program had "zero notable incidents" and "any reports have been of other actors impacting us when we were stationary"; he did not define "notable."[9] Less than a month later a rider filmed a driverless Model Y in Austin stopping at a row of plastic bollards, creeping back and forth, and then pushing through them.[93]

Two Texas lawsuits touch the service: a proposed securities class action filed in the Western District of Texas that argues Tesla's robotaxis operate at Level 2 with monitors and that FSD is not autonomous, and a Southern District suit by a former lead at a Houston FSD testing hub alleging retaliation after he raised staffing concerns. Tesla did not comment on either to the Statesman.[94]

Fleet size and disclosed metrics

Tesla discloses one cumulative chart per quarter and occasional round numbers on calls. What it has said, and what others have counted:

DateTesla's figureIndependent or regulatory figure
October 22, 2025Fleet had driven 250,000 miles since launch (Q3 call).[87][53]About two dozen robotaxis in Austin (Statesman); 29 to 32 plates seen (trackers).[53][13][12]
January 28, 2026Cumulative paid miles chart to about 700,000 through November; "well over 500" vehicles carrying paid customers in the Bay Area and Austin combined (Musk).[4][90][59]Roughly 42 cars in Austin and about 130 in the Bay Area, almost all supervised (Electrek).[12][26]
April 22, 2026Paid miles "nearly doubled sequentially" in Q1; chart to about 1.8 million.[63]25 cumulative unsupervised vehicles across Austin, Dallas, and Houston (tracker, late April).[61]
May 28, 202642 vehicles authorized for driverless operation in Texas (DMV registry).[79]Waymo 577, Avride 317 in the same registry.[80]
June 9-10, 2026Not disclosed.59 vehicles in the whole robotaxi fleet, limited to three Texas cities (Bloomberg, citing the registry).[60]
July 17, 2026Not disclosed.175 Tesla vehicles registered in Texas; Waymo 642 (Statesman).[91]
July 22, 2026Nearly 2.5 million cumulative paid miles; more than 380,000 unsupervised miles in six cities; seven metros; miles growing more than 10 percent a week (Q2 letter and call).[6][9][11]About 21 active unsupervised cars across Austin, Dallas, Tampa, and Orlando (Electrek); Waymo more than 500,000 paid rides a week.[95]
September 2-3, 20261 million unsupervised miles (Elluswamy).[10]45 Cybercabs among 420 Tesla vehicles authorized in Texas; Waymo 988 (state records via Reuters); a tracker's count of just over 200 Tesla vehicles registered as unsupervised (CNBC).[72][71]

The quarterly chart has been read two ways. TechCrunch calculated that paid miles fell from about 1.1 million in the first quarter of 2026 to about 700,000 in the second, a 36 percent decline; Electrek read the same curve as roughly 900,000 miles in each quarter with a slowdown in May and June.[96][97] Either way the paid-mile line includes the human-driven Bay Area trips.[96] Tesla's chief financial officer, Vaibhav Taneja, told analysts in January 2026 that robotaxi costs were "not material" and that "revenue and cost per mile metrics are not meaningful to discuss at the moment"; in July he said Tesla expected "the ramp of the fleet to accelerate throughout the year."[59][98]

Tesla frames the small fleet as deliberate. Asked on the July 2026 call why it kept adding cities instead of scaling Austin, Elluswamy said the company wanted "to make sure that our stack is a very general one" and that because robotaxis "drive basically continuously," "even for a few vehicles, you can get a lot of miles out of them."[9] Musk said on the same call: "If we injure even one person, it will be worldwide headline news, and regulators will immediately clamp down on our activities. ... So we're going as fast as humanly possible in scaling robotaxi while trying to ensure that we do not harm anyone at all and ideally do not even run over a pet."[9][94]

Rider experience

Independent tests describe a service that works when a car is available and often is not. Reuters reporters who used it in Austin, Dallas, and Houston in April and May 2026 found waits over 15 minutes about half the time in Austin and no cars at all in 27 percent of checks; a Dallas trip from Southern Methodist University to City Hall took nearly two hours, including more than 50 minutes waiting for a car; the car then avoided the expressway and dropped the reporter a 15-minute walk away.[99] Bloomberg's reporter in Austin met waits up to 30 minutes, "high service demand" lockouts, a ride that failed to start, and drop-offs in alleys or across the street.[60] Wells Fargo analysts, writing after the Cybercab launch, said the Austin service was "facing early execution issues," referring to rider videos of routing errors, missed destinations, and long waits.[69]

Tesla employees in Austin and the Bay Area can remotely support and operate the cars, and Tesla's CPUC filing says those operators are US-based; the company does not say how many cars each covers.[60][77] Austin first responders have reported robotaxis of several brands blocking scenes; a December 2025 report described a Tesla vehicle blocking a downtown intersection during a fire response, with firefighters saying they could not see its robotaxi markings.[100]

Comparison with Waymo, Wayve, and Uber

Waymo served more than 14 million trips in 2025 through early December, said it was on track to exceed 20 million lifetime trips by the end of that year, and by September 2026 was giving more than 500,000 paid rides a week with over 4,000 vehicles in 14 US cities, with a target of one million weekly rides by the end of 2026.[14][101] It has driven more than 200 million fully autonomous miles, uses lidar, radar, and cameras, and in an August 26, 2026 blog post wrote that "cameras are incredible, but they aren't enough" and that improving a driver-assist system into full autonomy is "a false summit." Neither line names Tesla.[102][103] Tesla's counter, from Elluswamy in July 2026: "the so-called experts have always claimed that you need LiDARs, radars, HD maps and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely. Here, we show that such is not true."[9] In Texas the DMV registry showed Waymo with roughly 14 times Tesla's driverless authorizations in May 2026 (577 to 42); by July the Statesman counted 642 Waymo vehicles to Tesla's 175, and by September 2 state records showed 988 to 420.[79][91][72]

Uber, which has no driving stack of its own, offers Waymo rides in Austin and Atlanta and was told in July 2026 that Waymo would launch its own app in both cities in January 2028; it also holds a 1,000-vehicle Nevada permit to be operated through partners Motional and Zoox and has lobbied for rules requiring robotaxis to run on networks that also use human drivers.[83][104] On September 3, 2026, the same day as the Cybercab event, Uber and Wayve began supervised autonomous rides in London in Ford Mustang Mach-E cars with a licensed private hire driver on board; Wayve said more than 140,000 Londoners had opted in and that the Uber deal covers 12 markets beginning with London.[105] Asked in July 2026 about third-party distribution, Musk said "we expect to be vertically integrated with robotaxi as we are in the rest of our business."[9]

Musk's claims and outcomes

DateClaimWhat happened
July 2016"Master Plan, Part Deux": owners would add their cars to a shared "Tesla Network."[20]No owner cars in the fleet; all Robotaxi vehicles are Tesla-owned.[21]
April 22, 2019A million robotaxis on the road in 2020.[25][26]No service until June 2025.[1]
October 23, 2024Paid ride-hailing in California and Texas in 2025, pending approval.[20]Texas yes (June 2025, supervised); California only with human drivers.[1][8]
January 29, 2025Robotaxi business to "begin launching later this year in parts of the U.S."[28]Austin launched June 22, 2025 with monitors.[1]
April 22, 2025"On track to be able to do paid rides fully autonomously in Austin in June."[52]Rides began in June with a monitor in the passenger seat; first monitor-free customer rides January 22, 2026.[1][54]
July 23, 2025"Half of the population of the US will be covered by Tesla's Robotaxi by the end of the year."[106]Two metros (Austin and the Bay Area) at year end; seven by July 2026.[6][52]
September 2025"Should be no safety driver by end of year."[51]Monitor-free customer rides started January 22, 2026, at first as a few cars mixed into a supervised fleet.[54][57]
October 22, 2025No safety drivers in large parts of Austin by year end; eight to ten metro areas.[52][53]Tesla obtained ride-hailing permits in other states but launched no new metros in 2025.[52]
October 31, 2025"500 or more" cars in greater Austin and "a thousand cars or more" in the Bay Area by year end.[13][52]Trackers counted about 35 to 42 in Austin and about 130 in the Bay Area.[12][26][52]
November 25, 2025Austin fleet to "roughly double next month."[13]About 42 in Austin in February 2026 (tracker).[12]
January 28, 2026"Well over 500" vehicles carrying paid customers; fleet doubling monthly.[59]Texas registry showed 42 driverless authorizations on May 28, 2026; Bloomberg counted 59 in June.[79][60]
April 22, 2026"A dozen or so states" by the end of 2026.[64]Three states (Texas, California, Florida) with service and Nevada permitted as of September 4, 2026.[6][83]
July 22, 2026Miles growing "more than 10% a week"; fleet ramp "to accelerate throughout the year."[9][98]Unsupervised miles reported at 1 million on September 3, 2026, up from 380,000.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^Tesla launches robotaxi rides in Austin with big promises and unanswered questions - TechCrunch (Sean O'Kane, Kirsten Korosec), June 22, 2025.
  2. ^Q2 2025 Update - Tesla, July 23, 2025.
  3. ^Tesla starts testing robotaxis in Austin with no safety driver - TechCrunch (Sean O'Kane), December 15, 2025.
  4. ^Q4 and FY 2025 Update - Tesla, January 28, 2026.
  5. ^The Future Has Arrived | Cybercab - Tesla (YouTube), September 3, 2026.
  6. ^Q2 2026 Update - Tesla, July 22, 2026.
  7. ^Tesla plans 'friends and family' car service in California, regulator says - CNBC, July 25, 2025.
  8. ^California regulator confirms Tesla is 'not operating an autonomous vehicle service' - Electrek, March 25, 2026.
  9. ^Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript - The Motley Fool via The Globe and Mail, July 22, 2026.
  10. ^Tesla announces Robotaxi has driven 1 million unsupervised miles - Electrek, September 3, 2026.
  11. ^We have more numbers on Tesla's Robotaxi progress. Here are the 7 that matter most. - Business Insider (Lloyd Lee), July 23, 2026.
  12. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' status check: 8 months in, 19% availability, and all of Musk's promises are missing - Electrek, February 16, 2026.
  13. ^Elon Musk slashes Tesla Robotaxi fleet goal from 500 to ~60 in Austin - Electrek, November 26, 2025.
  14. ^Waymo and Zoox expand into more U.S. markets as robotaxi race heats up - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), September 1, 2026.
  15. ^Q3 2025 Update - Tesla, October 22, 2025.
  16. ^Tesla Robotaxi on the App Store - Apple App Store listing (Tesla, Inc.), version 26.8.0, accessed September 4, 2026.
  17. ^Tesla Robotaxi (@robotaxi) on X - X profile, accessed September 4, 2026.
  18. ^Tesla expands its Austin robotaxi area to 173 square miles - Austin American-Statesman, August 27, 2025.
  19. ^Nevada caps Tesla's Vegas 'Robotaxi' fleet at 10 - it asked for 5,000 - Electrek, August 17, 2026.
  20. ^Tesla has been testing a robotaxi service in the Bay Area for most of the year - The Verge (Andrew J. Hawkins), October 23, 2024.
  21. ^Robotaxi First Responder Interaction Plan: Cybercab, Version 1.2 - Tesla, September 3, 2026.
  22. ^Tesla reveals two Robotaxi crashes involving teleoperators - TechCrunch (Sean O'Kane), May 15, 2026.
  23. ^Tesla remote operator crashed a 'Robotaxi' in Houston, NHTSA data shows - Electrek, July 20, 2026.
  24. ^Tesla's robotaxis have already caught the attention of federal safety regulators - TechCrunch (Kirsten Korosec), June 23, 2025.
  25. ^Tesla robotaxi incidents caught on camera in Austin draw regulators' attention - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), June 23, 2025.
  26. ^Tesla expands unsupervised 'Robotaxi' area in Austin with only a handful of cars - Electrek, March 31, 2026.
  27. ^Tesla reveals 20 Cybercabs at We, Robot event, says you'll be able to buy one for less than $30,000 - TechCrunch, October 10, 2024.
  28. ^Q4 and FY 2024 Update - Tesla, January 29, 2025.
  29. ^Q1 2025 Update - Tesla, April 22, 2025.
  30. ^Tesla applies for ride-hail permit in California - but there's a catch - TechCrunch (Kirsten Korosec), February 28, 2025.
  31. ^Tesla says its ride-hail service goes to SFO. Here's what the company is allowed to do - San Francisco Chronicle (Rachel Swan), July 22, 2026.
  32. ^Tesla's Robotaxi geofence in Austin grows, and its shape is hard to ignore - Teslarati, July 14, 2025.
  33. ^Robotaxi Opens Up to the Public: Tesla Removes Waitlist for iOS Users - Not a Tesla App (Karan Singh), November 19, 2025.
  34. ^Tesla launches 'Robotaxi' in Houston and Dallas with tiny geofences - Electrek, April 18, 2026.
  35. ^Tesla expands 'Robotaxi' to entire Austin metro - but still has only ~20 vehicles - Electrek, June 3, 2026.
  36. ^Tesla Launches Unsupervised Robotaxi Service in Dallas and Houston - Not a Tesla App, April 18, 2026.
  37. ^Tesla finally launches 'Robotaxi' app on Android, nearly a year after iOS - Electrek, April 27, 2026.
  38. ^Tesla Launches Unsupervised Robotaxi Rides in Miami - Not a Tesla App (Nehal Malik), July 3, 2026.
  39. ^Tesla maps a tiny Robotaxi zone in Miami while it still can't scale Texas - Electrek, July 3, 2026.
  40. ^Tesla Robotaxi Launches Unsupervised Rides in Orlando, Tampa - Not a Tesla App, July 21, 2026.
  41. ^Tesla's Bay Area Robotaxi launch: California regulators say company has no AV permit - ABC7 San Francisco, July 25, 2025.
  42. ^Tesla Robotaxi service now goes to SFO - KRON4 (Josh Palefsky), via AOL, July 22, 2026.
  43. ^Tesla introduces dynamic fare pricing for Robotaxi rides in Austin - Drive Tesla Canada (Darryn John), July 30, 2025.
  44. ^Tesla Raises Robotaxi Price Again With 40% Increase - Not a Tesla App, March 12, 2026.
  45. ^Tesla preps Cybercab launch. What to know about the newest robotaxi - USA Today, September 2, 2026.
  46. ^Tesla Robotaxi: anyone with iPhone can now download the app and join a waitlist - Electrek, September 4, 2025.
  47. ^Tesla Robotaxi App Tops iOS Charts As It Hits the App Store, Tesla Adds Waitlist - Not a Tesla App, September 4, 2025.
  48. ^Tesla Updates Robotaxi App to Add Support for Cybercab Rides - Not a Tesla App, September 3, 2026.
  49. ^Tesla moves 'Robotaxi' safety monitor from passenger to driver's seat - Electrek, September 3, 2025.
  50. ^Automated Vehicles Regulatory Program - Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, accessed September 4, 2026.
  51. ^Tesla Robotaxis in Austin still have safety monitors in 2026 - Austin American-Statesman, January 21, 2026.
  52. ^Elon Musk made a lot of promises for Tesla Robotaxi in 2025. Here's what he missed. - Business Insider (Lloyd Lee), January 1, 2026.
  53. ^Tesla has 7 robotaxi crashes since services launched in summer - Austin American-Statesman, November 18, 2025.
  54. ^Tesla launches robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver - TechCrunch (Rebecca Bellan), January 22, 2026.
  55. ^Elon Musk says Tesla taking safety supervisors out of some Robotaxi vehicles in Austin - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), January 22, 2026.
  56. ^Tesla didn't remove the Robotaxi 'safety monitor' - it just moved them to a trailing car - Electrek, January 22, 2026.
  57. ^Tesla Launches Unsupervised Robotaxi Rides in Austin - Not a Tesla App (Karan Singh), January 23, 2026.
  58. ^Tesla's 'unsupervised' Robotaxis vanish a week after pre-earnings announcement - Electrek, January 28, 2026.
  59. ^Tesla (TSLA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript - The Motley Fool via The Globe and Mail, January 28, 2026.
  60. ^Tesla's Robotaxi Falls Short With Long Waits and Stalled Rides - Bloomberg, via Insurance Journal, June 11, 2026.
  61. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' unsupervised fleet finally shows some signs of ramping up - Electrek, April 30, 2026.
  62. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' fleet is actually shrinking, not growing, new data shows - Electrek, May 26, 2026.
  63. ^Q1 2026 Update - Tesla, April 22, 2026.
  64. ^Tesla plans to expand Robotaxi to a 'dozen or so' states - USA Today, April 22, 2026.
  65. ^Tesla spins up robotaxi pilots in Orlando and Tampa ahead of Q2 earnings - TechCrunch (Sean O'Kane), July 21, 2026.
  66. ^Tesla Robotaxis appear to go fully unsupervised in Austin ahead of Cybercab launch - The Verge (Rani Molla), August 20, 2026.
  67. ^Tesla's Austin robotaxis are now fully driverless, tracking shows - TNW, August 20, 2026.
  68. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' sold a 66-minute 2.3-mile ride and left a rider 3 miles from his destination - Electrek, August 24, 2026.
  69. ^Tesla's stock drops as Cybercab update 'underwhelms' Wall Street - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), September 4, 2026.
  70. ^Tesla opens Cybercab rides to public in Austin, and there's no steering wheel or pedals - KPRC Click2Houston (Ninfa Saavedra), September 4, 2026.
  71. ^'No steering wheel, no pedals': Tesla teases fans ahead of long-awaited Cybercab update - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), September 3, 2026.
  72. ^Tesla starts Cybercab rides in Austin, drawing US safety agency interest - Reuters (Chris Kirkham, Norihiko Shirouzu, Abhirup Roy), via Investing.com, September 4, 2026.
  73. ^OVSC Resume, Investigation AQ26002: Tesla Cybercab FMVSS Certification - NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation, opened September 3, 2026.
  74. ^Tesla launches Robotaxi service in Bay Area with drivers, as questions surround AV permitting - ABC7 San Francisco (Zach Fuentes), July 31, 2025.
  75. ^Tesla Robotaxi Expands To San Francisco - With Drivers Behind The Wheel - InsideEVs (Iulian Dnistran), July 31, 2025.
  76. ^These are the states where Tesla is racing to hit Elon Musk's end-of-year Robotaxi goal - Business Insider (Grace Kay, Tom Carter), November 8, 2025.
  77. ^Reply Comments of Tesla, Inc., CPUC Rulemaking 25-08-013 - Tesla, Inc., filed February 17, 2026 (PDF mirrored by Electrek).
  78. ^Is Tesla poised to enter the San Diego robotaxi business? - The San Diego Union-Tribune (Noelle Harff, Rob Nikolewski), August 7, 2026.
  79. ^Tesla Robotaxi fleet in Texas less than one-tenth size of Waymo's, filings reveal - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), May 28, 2026.
  80. ^Waymo dominates autonomous vehicle registrations as Tesla trails behind - TechCrunch (Kirsten Korosec), May 28, 2026.
  81. ^Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona - CNBC, November 18, 2025.
  82. ^Tesla obtains permit for its 'Robotaxi' with a safety driver in Arizona - Electrek, November 19, 2025.
  83. ^Tesla, Uber, and Waymo all get the OK to operate thousands of robotaxis in Nevada - TechCrunch (Kirsten Korosec), August 20, 2026.
  84. ^Nevada opens roads for Tesla, Waymo and Uber's Aviari driverless rides in Las Vegas - Las Vegas Sun, August 21, 2026.
  85. ^Austin, San Antonio robotaxi incidents cited in NHTSA warning - Austin American-Statesman, July 14, 2026.
  86. ^Robotaxis are scaling now, fixing problems later - Business Insider (Lloyd Lee), August 8, 2026.
  87. ^Tesla 'Robotaxis' keep crashing despite 'safety monitors' - Electrek, October 29, 2025.
  88. ^Tesla finally reveals what happened in 17 'Robotaxi' crashes - Electrek, May 15, 2026.
  89. ^Tesla robotaxis involved in 14 crashes since launching in Austin, Texas, in 2025 - CBS News (Mary Cunningham), February 17, 2026.
  90. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' adds 5 more crashes in Austin in a month - 4x worse than humans - Electrek, February 17, 2026.
  91. ^Texas robotaxi operators report 21 new crashes to federal regulators - Austin American-Statesman, July 17, 2026.
  92. ^Waymo, Tesla among operators reporting new Austin crashes - Austin American-Statesman, August 25, 2026.
  93. ^Tesla 'Robotaxi' rams through bollards weeks after 'impeccable' claim - Electrek, August 18, 2026.
  94. ^Tesla's Full Self-Driving tech is at the center of two Texas suits - Austin American-Statesman (Andrea Guzman), July 30, 2026.
  95. ^Tesla adds Robotaxi in Tampa and Orlando as Austin stalls at 17 cars - Electrek, July 21, 2026.
  96. ^Tesla's robotaxis are moving in reverse - TechCrunch, July 23, 2026.
  97. ^Tesla says 'Robotaxi' is expanding - its own chart shows it's not - Electrek, July 22, 2026.
  98. ^Musk worries about 'Robotaxi'-crash headlines as Tesla expands service - USA Today (Keith Laing), July 23, 2026.
  99. ^Tesla Robotaxi's 'convenience issues' are hiding the real safety bottleneck - Electrek, May 12, 2026 (summarizing Reuters' May 12, 2026 tests).
  100. ^Police and emergency crews say Austin robotaxis keep causing problems - Austin American-Statesman, accessed September 4, 2026.
  101. ^Delivering more for our riders in a year of incredible growth - Waymo, December 10, 2025.
  102. ^10 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million Fully Autonomous Miles - Waymo (Srikanth Thirumalai), August 26, 2026.
  103. ^Waymo takes a shot at Tesla's self-driving: it's a 'false summit' - Electrek, August 27, 2026.
  104. ^Uber and Waymo to end exclusivity arrangement in Atlanta and Austin - CNBC (Lora Kolodny), July 24, 2026.
  105. ^Wayve and Uber Launch First-Ever Autonomous Rides in the UK - Wayve, September 3, 2026.
  106. ^Elon Musk with a straight face: Tesla Robotaxi will cover half of US population by end of the year - Electrek, July 23, 2025.

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