NEW YORK, June 3, 2026, 14:00 (EDT)
Tesla shares fell Wednesday afternoon after the company announced it is launching unsupervised robotaxis across the Austin Metro area. The move puts new attention on Wall Street’s expectations for profits from Tesla’s self-driving push. Tesla’s official robotaxi account posted, “Unsupervised Robotaxi now in the entire Austin Metro area.” Reuters
The stock dropped around 0.5% to $421.63. The Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq-100, lost 0.3%, and SPDR S&P 500 ETF was off 0.6%. Tesla’s price-to-earnings ratio hovered near 387, making the shares vulnerable to worries about execution.
Tesla’s Austin news is getting attention. The company still makes most of its money from car sales, but its stock trades at a high value because investors see upside in software, AI and robotaxis bringing in higher-margin revenue later.
Tesla’s latest rollout comes just after China posted stronger numbers. The China Passenger Car Association said Tesla sold 85,982 China-made EVs in May, including exports, up 39.4% from a year ago. That’s the seventh month in a row of higher sales for the Model 3 and Model Y.
Bulls could point to signs that China demand is picking up, and autonomy tech is getting out of the lab. But the stock barely moved, showing traders still want to see real evidence that robotaxis can grow past the talk.
Tesla has company on the roads. Alphabet’s Waymo is running over 250 vehicles in Austin, while Tesla has about 50, Austin officials told Reuters in a presentation. In China, BYD is still Tesla’s main competitor and is pushing ahead on driver-assistance tech. Tesla is waiting for the go-ahead to bring its top features to China.
CEO Elon Musk is sticking to ambitious goals. Last month he told reporters that “probably 90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI” within five to 10 years, talking about self-driving car artificial intelligence. Reuters
Wall Street struggled Wednesday as U.S. indexes slipped, weighed by a jump in oil after new Middle East tensions and some profit-taking from recent highs. “Markets have come so far, so fast that just about any shock could sap momentum from this rally,” said Eric Parnell, chief market strategist at Great Valley Advisor Group. Reuters
Tesla’s robotaxi story may be getting ahead of the tech. Last week, Reuters said some former Tesla data labelers and safety researchers doubt the Full Self-Driving system is anywhere close to running safely at scale. Phil Koopman, an engineering professor and autonomous-vehicle safety expert at Carnegie Mellon, told the outlet that Tesla’s safety comparisons were flawed, saying, “any new car is dramatically safer than a 12-year-old car.” Reuters
Tesla is seeing a split setup. China sales are coming back, and Austin delivers another autonomy data point. But at this price, investors want more than a larger service network. They are looking for shorter waits, more transparent safety numbers, and some real signs that robotaxis can deliver revenue, not just stretch out hopes for the shares.
