Tesla (TSLA 3.56%) CEO Elon Musk is going all in on robotaxis. He predicts "millions" of Tesla robotaxis to be on the streets of America in 2026. Much of Tesla's valuation is likely tied up in its robotaxi ambitions. But investors should be hesitant about Musk's predictions given the data below.
NASDAQ: TSLA
Key Data Points
Waymo's growth casts doubt on Tesla's robotaxi dreams in 2026
Waymo, the autonomous taxi service operated by Google parent company Alphabet, has been in operation since 2009. It completed its first fully autonomous ride on public roads in 2015. In 2020, it began offering a fully autonomous taxi service without safety monitors to the general public in Phoenix.
Today, Waymo operates roughly 1,500 self-driving vehicles. The company plans on adding around 2,000 more by the end of 2025. Put simply, Waymo is nearly a million vehicles short of the 1 million mark. It's several million short of reaching Musk's 2025 target for Tesla.
Image source: Tesla.
Tesla does have important advantages over Waymo, including the ability to build and scale its own fleet internally. But Waymo is well funded, with more than a decade of additional ride-sharing experience than Tesla. Its very gradual ability to scale over the years should give investors caution about trusting Musk's 2026 predictions. I'm betting Tesla's true robotaxi growth next year comes in far below Musk's expectations. I predict Musk will be wrong.
