AUSTIN, Texas, March 10, 2026, 08:01 CDT
Tesla’s ambitions for its robotaxi business are facing a sharper test, as Amazon’s Zoox announced plans to take its autonomous vehicle pilots into Dallas and Phoenix. That ramps up the pressure on Tesla to show it can scale beyond Austin. The timing coincides with U.S. auto-safety regulators convening a national forum Tuesday to hash out standards for monitoring and measuring driverless tech. Waymo, for its part, is running close to 400,000 rides each week and claims 200 million autonomous miles. Zoox, meanwhile, has tallied up more than 1 million self-driven miles and carried 300,000 riders.
Tesla’s electric-car unit is feeling the squeeze, but investors are still betting on whatever autonomy might deliver down the road. “Investors are largely looking past the near-term fundamentals,” Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told Reuters in January. Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, pointed to 2026 as the deadline for artificial intelligence to actually generate “revenue + profit.” Shay Boloor at Futurum Equities said Tesla is trading away short-term margins now, aiming to later cash in on its fleet with software upgrades and robotaxi services. Reuters
Back in January, Tesla revealed it was running robotaxi rides in Austin with no safety monitors onboard—a first for Texas and, crucially, a real-world trial of the robotaxi push Elon Musk has long touted as Tesla’s next major revenue stream.
Tesla puts it plainly: thanks to its manufacturing scale and grip on its own AI software, it thinks it can catch up fast—assuming the tech delivers. Other players have been at this longer, sure, but none have the same shot at rolling out self-driving software fleetwide like Tesla, if the system proves itself.
The challenge for driverless expansion isn’t just software—regulations are a hurdle, too. Tesla, according to Reuters, recorded zero autonomous test miles on California roads in 2025, marking the sixth year in a row. The DMV says Tesla hasn’t even applied for the next-level permits, which are mandatory to progress from tests with a safety driver to operating paid, fully driverless rides. Current draft regulations call for 50,000 safety-driver miles before moving on; by contrast, Waymo notched more than 13 million miles before getting the green light to charge passengers. Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who has advised California’s DMV, points out that Tesla keeps suggesting “they are ready and regulators are not,” when really “regulators are ready, and they are not.” Despite Elon Musk’s assurances that Tesla is “paranoid about safety” and “cautious” about entering new markets, the regulatory gap hasn’t closed. Reuters
So, Austin ends up bearing more of the burden than a typical pilot run. Should the rollout go smoothly, Tesla gets to claim its bargain model is viable—and that it’s ready to pick up speed as soon as regulations lock in.
If progress falters—or if California and others drag their feet—Waymo and Zoox could lose their early-mover sheen and end up as the yardstick instead.
Tesla holds the largest manufacturing presence in this space. But its track record on driverless operations hasn’t caught up. That gap may shrink over the next few months—or become tougher to justify.
