Tesla robotaxi rollout stalls at 59 vehicles, far below Musk's promises

Tesla launched its Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, with Elon Musk pledging rapid expansion—promising 1,000 vehicles within months and a fleet of 500 in Austin by the end of 2025, later claiming half of the U.S. population could book a ride by year‑end. In reality, Bloomberg reports only 59 Robotaxis are operating across Austin, Dallas and Houston, many still supervised by human monitors; roughly one in three rides has a human observer in the car.

Customers have experienced long wait times of up to 30 minutes, erroneous drop‑offs sometimes hundreds of metres from the intended destination, and erratic vehicle behavior. Tesla has reported 17 incidents to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, two of which involved the autonomous driving system directly. Competitor Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, already runs more than 600 autonomous vehicles in Texas, ten times Tesla’s reported fleet, and continues to expand testing in other markets such as London.

Musk has defended the slow progress by citing a “paranoid about safety” stance, but analysts note the disparity between the hype that helped lift Tesla’s market valuation and the limited, supervised deployment on the ground.