The expected surge of Tesla’s robotaxi service in Texas isn’t happening so far. The number of vehicles on the road pales in comparison to ones under the Waymo and Uber banners. That could be a painful truth for investors who were promised a strong autonomous vehicle push from the automaker.
Austin-based Tesla had just 42 registered robotaxis as of the end of May, according to a Texas Department of Motor Vehicles database. The same registry showed 577 vehicles registered to Waymo and 317 to Avride and another 47 to Nuro, both Uber partners in that company’s robotaxi expansion.
A recently enacted Texas law requires AV operators in that state to self-certify that their vehicles comply with Level 4 SAE standards. The rules became enforceable on Thursday. The law and the release of the numbers also follow Tesla’s ramp-up of the long-delayed Cybercab, which Musk posted on X on Thursday rolling out of Gigafactory Texas in Austin.
Cybercab driving itself out of the GigaTexas factory pic.twitter.com/EwAMVVDjYy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 28, 2026
After launching about a year ago, Tesla’s slow robotaxi launch also casts new light on the expectations Tesla CEO Elon Musk set last year when he claimed there would be 500 robotaxis in Austin by the end of 2025. He slashed that to 60 shortly after.
The expansion has run into issues not only with regulators—along with the admission that driverless cars have been human supervised in different ways—but also among shareholders who say they were duped by Tesla when it comes to the vehicles’ level of autonomy. Electrek also reported this week that Tesla’s robotaxi fleet has shrunk, not grown, from April to May.
Musk says the robotaxi program is waiting on various safety improvements coming to supervised Full-Self Driving. These improvements are apparently due later this year, or in early 2027, but the fact remains that rivals are pressing forward rather than retreating.
It’s worth noting the various safety hiccups by companies like leader Waymo, like a recall over issues with flooded roads earlier this month.
And investors are no doubt anxious after Tesla’s shifted its emphasis from human-operated EVs. There’s much stiffer competition in that segment lately in the U.S., Europe and, especially, China.
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