Musk sounds cautious tone on robotaxis amid slower-than-expected rollout
* Musk takes a more cautious stance on the rollout of robotaxis, citing safety and technical issues
* Analysts point to delays and slower-than-expected progress on Tesla’s autonomous vehicle goals
* Most analysts are signaling patience as Tesla says safety is the most important issue
By Chris Kirkham and Abhirup Roy
LOS ANGELES – The rollout of Tesla’s startup robotaxi business is moving slower than expected, several Wall Street analysts said, following an unusually pessimistic update from CEO Elon Musk.
Musk last year outlined an aggressive expansion plan for Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing operation. Tesla struck a more cautious tone during its first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
Musk told investors he hopes to have robotaxis and driverless vehicles in “a dozen or so states” by the end of the year, and said the company is taking a “cautious approach” to avoid injuries or deaths. Tesla did not offer any new details about its robotaxi expansion to Dallas and Houston, which it announced on social media last weekend.
That’s a change from last July, when shortly after Tesla launched a small-scale pilot robotaxi network in Austin, Texas, the CEO said robotaxis would be available to “half the US population by the end of the year” and would grow at a “hyper-exponential rate.”
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Analysts have said Tesla will likely struggle with the challenge of rolling out driverless vehicles at scale; Problems that rivals like Alphabet’s Waymo have been grappling with for years as they test the technology across the country. Much of Tesla’s $1.5 trillion market value depends on investors’ belief that Tesla will soon operate a large robotaxi fleet and sell millions of autonomous driving software subscriptions.
Analysts at William Blair called Wednesday’s earnings forecast “low energy” and said Musk was “using an unusually reserved and cautious tone, as always, on his favorite topics.”
“Robotaxis rollout has been much slower than expected,” they wrote.
Musk has a long history of unfulfilled promises regarding driverless vehicles, dating back a decade. In January 2025, he acknowledged that he was known as the “boy who cried wolf” when it came to driverless technology, adding: “This time there’s a frickin’ wolf and you can drive it.”
It was clear from Wednesday’s call that expected timelines for a large-scale robotaxi expansion have been delayed.
During his earnings call in April 2025, Musk said robotaxis would become important to Tesla’s profitability “by the middle of next year.” He said on Wednesday that robotaxis probably “won’t be super material this year” but “probably will be significantly material next year.” Tesla plans to build its robotaxi business around the Cybercab, a two-seat vehicle designed to be fully autonomous with no steering wheel or pedals. Musk said Wednesday that Tesla has started production of the Cybercab, but reiterated that initial production “will be very slow.” He said Cybercab’s “exponential” growth would occur “towards the end of the year and certainly next year,” adding that it would eventually account for “the majority of our production in the long term.”
Musk has also faced serious challenges in rolling out driverless technology at scale. In the conversation last April, he said he was confident “millions of Teslas will be operating autonomously” in the second half of 2026. This time around, he said, it didn’t make sense to distribute the technology widely ahead of a future software update that would improve security.
“The factor limiting expansion is really stringent verification to make sure everything is completely secure,” Musk said.
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Some analysts downplayed the delays.
Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said he believes Tesla is being cautious because “the risks are too high.” “They don’t want to risk an incident because they’re extremely unsafe and they’re not 100% confident,” he said.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley, who are optimistic about Tesla’s autonomous driving ambitions, wrote after Wednesday’s call that robotaxi was “moving more slowly than investor expectations,” limiting the “short-term upside” to Tesla’s stock price.
Tesla shares were down more than 3% in afternoon trading Thursday.
Barclays analysts noted that Tesla still has only a nominal number of driverless vehicles and “investors expect a more significant increase.”
Garrett Nelson, an analyst with CFRA Research, said he believes investors will continue to give Musk a pass if he misses some of his lofty robotaxi expansion targets as long as the company shows the business is “scalable” in several markets.
“People who have been following the story for years know that things happen in Elon’s time,” Nelson said.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
