Elon Musk stated that Tesla will roughly double its robotaxi fleet in Austin next month, increasing it from about 30 vehicles to around 60. This comes amid user complaints about long wait times and high demand making the service nearly unusable. The expansion falls far short of Musk's earlier goal of 500 vehicles by the end of 2025.
Tesla's robotaxi pilot in Austin, launched in June 2025, uses Model Y vehicles equipped with Hardware 4. These rides are supervised, with a Tesla employee monitoring from the front passenger seat and ready to intervene using a killswitch. The service has faced availability challenges, including frequent 'High Service Demand' messages and wait times exceeding 40 minutes, leading users to describe it as 'essentially unusable' due to limited supply.
On November 25, 2025, Musk responded on X to complaints from Tesla enthusiast Joe Tegtmeyer, posting: 'The Tesla Robotaxi fleet in Austin should roughly double next month.' Community trackers estimate the current fleet at around 29 to 30 vehicles, based on spotted license plates and VINs. Doubling this would bring the total to approximately 60 by December, a significant increase for riders but well below the 500 Musk targeted during his October 31 appearance on the All-In Podcast, where he said: 'probably 500 or more in the greater Austin area' by year-end.
This shortfall highlights delays in Tesla's autonomous ambitions. In contrast, competitor Waymo operates about 200 fully driverless robotaxis in Austin as part of its 2,500 nationwide fleet. Musk had dismissed Waymo's scale as 'Rookie numbers' earlier in November. Tesla plans to expand to eight to 10 U.S. metro areas by the end of 2025, with recent approvals in Arizona and preparations for Nevada and Florida. The company also aims to introduce unsupervised operations in parts of Austin by year-end, though current services require human oversight.
Despite the pilot's issues, Tesla continues hiring to support growth and data collection for its autonomy systems.
