Tesla (TSLA) is due to launch its long-awaited robotaxi on June 12 in Austin, showcasing a technology that’s been promised by CEO Elon Musk for years and years. Now, finally it looks like the robotaxi is ready to roll, though the debut comes amid Musk’s sudden and very public feud with U.S. President Donald Trump, following Musk’s recent departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk has long promised an autonomous Tesla vehicle, with estimates of delivery that were always “two or three years away.” Now a hand-selected group will be able to see the potentially game-changing car in action in the Texas capital for themselves.
However, the robotaxi event is being overshadowed by Musk’s spat with President Trump, after the Tesla CEO criticized Trump’s budget bill, which slashes credits for electric vehicles. Trump has threatened retribution, including cuts to government contracts with Musk-helmed companies. The EV maker’s stock is down more than 20 percent year to date, while the S&P 500 has gained 2 percent during that time frame.
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Tesla’s robotaxi faces significant competition in autonomous vehicle race
Tesla’s robotaxi launch, which the company is more modestly calling a “pilot,” will start small, though Musk — true to form — points to a future of thousands of Tesla robotaxis soon. In a late May interview with CNBC, Musk said its fleet will begin with just 10 vehicles, but that it could expand to thousands and move to other cities if the results in Austin are favorable.
Despite the fanfare, Tesla’s invite-only robotaxi launch will be in a controlled environment, according to reports. While the event will occur on public roads, “tele-operators” will be able to take control of the cars at any moment in case the vehicles find themselves in a tough spot.
A fleet of 10 semi-autonomous cars with “training wheels” doesn’t sound quite as splashy as the “debut of Tesla’s robotaxi.” But Musk is showing up, after years of promises.
Of course, Tesla isn’t the only one with its eyes on the robotaxi prize, and it has some well-heeled competitors that have flocked to the Texas capital and its “lighter” regulatory touch.
Austin is already a hotbed of autonomous vehicle (AV) activity, with Alphabet’s Waymo debuting robotaxis in March. Amazon’s Zoox, Volkswagen-owned ADMT, and startup Avride all have some level of AV experimentation going on there, too. Uber, which is working with Waymo cars, says clients are opting for robotaxis over human-driven cars and that it has about 100 cars on the road now.
Tesla uses a different approach for its robotaxis than other rivals such as Waymo, however. Musk’s company employs cameras as the primary input for driverless cars, whereas Waymo uses lidar and radar. Tesla’s approach is cheaper, so if the company can get the car right, it could scale up the solution more cost-effectively and faster. But is it just another big Musk prediction?
Musk makes big prediction for 2026: Millions of Tesla AVs on the road
On the company’s first-quarter earnings call in April — a quarter that saw deliveries plummet to multi-year lows — Musk returned to classic form: making bold predictions that keep investors firmly focused on a bright future while the current moment looks much dimmer. He stated:
The acid test is, can you go to sleep in your car and wake up in your destination, and I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the U.S. by the end of this year. I predict there will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously — fully autonomously — in the second half of next year.
— Elon Musk
Those are the kinds of claims Musk has been making in some form or another for basically a decade. As before, investors are being asked to believe — much like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football as Lucy holds it — that self-driving cars will finally arrive if they trust him just a bit longer.
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Supporting Musk’s prediction of millions of autonomous Teslas on the road in 18 months is the fact that the company’s newly revamped Model Y will be able to download a software update and be fully self-driving. The promise of just-around-the-corner autonomous driving may help power up Model Y sales, especially in Europe, where 2025 figures have been notably down due to the previous incarnation’s aging design and Musk’s political activities.
Of course, Musk is well incentivized by his stock compensation to keep these promises coming, and he’s done a fine job of keeping investors focused on a bigger, brighter future that’s always just over the horizon in “a year or two.” And it’s one reason — maybe the key reason — why Musk is so valuable to Tesla and its shareholders: because in the past, his promises have kept the stock price up.
But investors shouldn’t for one minute be surprised if Musk once again overpromises and underdelivers at what’s being termed the Austin debut of robotaxis.
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