Tesla chief executive Elon Musk addressed the slow rollout of the company's robotaxi service during a quarterly earnings call on July 22. He emphasized safety as the primary constraint on scaling the fleet. The company has logged more than 380,000 unsupervised miles without incidents.
Musk said the firm aims to expand quickly while ensuring no harm to people or animals. He noted that even one injury would generate global headlines and regulatory action.
"We don’t want to injure anyone," Musk said during the call. "We’re going as fast as humanly possible in scaling Robotaxi, but while trying to ensure that we do not harm anyone at all, and ideally do not even run over a pet."
Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy added that Tesla is testing in multiple cities rather than concentrating vehicles in one location. The approach ensures the software stack works generally across varied environments, he said.
Bank of America analyst Colin Langan had questioned the limited number of vehicles added per city. Tesla maintains the strategy supports broader reliability before larger deployments.