A vehicle used by Tesla for robotaxi testing purposes on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, USA on Sunday, June 22, 2025. The launch of Tesla Inc.’s driverless taxi service on Sunday is expected to start modestly, with a handful of vehicles in limited areas of the city. Photographer: Tim Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Nearly six months after launching a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, with safety drivers in the car, the company says it is testing self-driving vehicles in the city without humans on board.
“The test is running without any passengers in the car,” wrote CEO Elon Musk in a post on his social network X over the weekend.
Shares of Tesla rose 3.6% to $475.31 at Monday’s close. The stock is now up 18% for the year and is about 1% below its record set in December 2024.
For more than a decade, Musk has promised Tesla investors and customers that the company’s electric vehicles will soon be upgradeable to self-driving cars that can serve as unmanned robotaxis or complete a cross-country trip without human intervention.
While that still hasn’t happened, the company unveiled a ridehail app and service under the Robotaxi brand in Austin in June, and a separate car service in the San Francisco Bay Area shortly after.
On Sunday, Tesla’s official account wrote in two posts
“And so it begins!” wrote Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of AI software, in a post on X in response to a video posted by someone else of what appeared to be a driverless vehicle in Austin.
Tesla hasn’t said when it will be able to operate a ride-hailing service without human safety officers or drivers on board. But there may still be a long way to go.
Interviews with Elon Musk on CNBC from Tesla headquarters in Texas.
CNBC
Tesla reported that there had been seven collisions involving vehicles in its Austin fleet as of mid-October. The cars have ADS (automated driving systems), which are not yet widely available, as well as human safety officers in the passenger seat or behind the steering wheel.
Self-reported data Tesla filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggests the collisions were not serious.
Philip Koopman, a professor emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University and an autonomous systems safety researcher, said in an email that with such a small fleet there should have been fewer than seven reportable accidents, “especially given that each has a safety officer whose job it is to prevent accidents.”
Tesla’s robotaxi fleet in Austin consisted of 30 or fewer vehicles as of October. Musk said the company wants to double that number to 60 by the end of 2025.
Koopman noted that Tesla chose to hide the “narrative description” of all accidents in reports to NHTSA so that the public could not learn what happened in each collision.
Tesla did not respond to a request for further information.
In Texas, autonomous vehicle manufacturers are currently allowed to test or use their cars on public roads as long as they comply with traffic laws under the state’s traffic code. The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles told CNBC in an email that it has “no direct authority regarding the regulation of autonomous vehicles and therefore cannot comment on current activities” related to Tesla.
Regulatory requirements in Texas will change in 2026 with the implementation of Senate Bill 2807, which the Texas legislature passed earlier this year. Beginning May 28, 2026, autonomous vehicle operators in Texas will require approval from the DMV to commercially use their self-driving vehicles on Texas roads.
The California DMV and Public Utilities Commissions confirmed that Tesla has not yet applied for permits needed to conduct driverless testing in the state without a human behind the wheel or to operate a commercial robotaxi service.
Tesla is lagging behind in the autonomous vehicle market alphabet Waymo in the USA and Baidu-own Apollo Go and WeRide in Asia. These companies all operate commercial ride-hailing robotaxi services in major markets.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported an incorrect closing price for Tesla stock.
REGARD: We traveled to Texas to introduce Tesla’s robotaxi
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