Tesla shares closed at a 2025 high after CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the EV automaker is now testing robotaxis in Austin with no one inside.
No driver. No safety monitor. Not even a brave passenger clutching the grab handle.
The excitement kicked off when a video surfaced on X showing a Tesla robotaxi cruising through Austin streets entirely on its own.
Fans went feral, reposting the clip as proof that the long-promised future had finally arrived.
Musk jumped in to confirm it, posting simply that testing was underway with “no occupants in the car”.
Tesla’s AI boss Ashok Elluswamy chimed in with a dramatic “And so it begins!”, while the company’s official account sprinkled in some Silicon Valley poetry: “Slowly, then all at once.”
Investors seemed to have loved what they saw with Tesla shares climbing around 3.5% to close at US$475.11, pushing the stock up roughly 18% this year and closer to its all-time high from late 2024.
Wall Street took the update as another sign that autonomy — a cornerstone of Tesla’s sky-high valuation — is inching closer to reality.
However, the breakthrough comes with a few caveats.
These driverless tests don’t include passengers yet, and Tesla hasn’t said when it plans to remove human supervision from a commercial ride-hailing service.
Its Austin robotaxi programme is still small, with just over 30 vehicles on the road, and the company has acknowledged that several collisions have occurred during testing.
While those incidents weren’t serious, critics point out that the numbers look high for such a limited fleet, especially when safety supervisors were previously involved.
There’s also the competitive reality check.
While Tesla’s fans are celebrating a single driverless video, rivals like Waymo have been operating fully autonomous ride-hailing services at scale for years, logging hundreds of thousands of paid rides each week across multiple cities.
Regulation adds another layer of complexity.
Texas currently allows autonomous testing under existing traffic laws, but tougher rules for commercial driverless vehicles kick in next year.
In California, Tesla hasn’t yet secured approval to run driverless tests or a robotaxi service without a human at the wheel.
Nevertheless, optimism is running high with analysts at Wedbush claiming Tesla’s robotaxi and AI ambitions could unlock enormous value over the next decade, with some eye-watering projections for market capitalisation if autonomy and robotics take off as planned.
Meanwhile, Musk has said he expects large parts of Austin to be free of safety drivers by the end of the year — a deadline that’s rapidly approaching.
For now, Tesla has given markets exactly what they crave: a glimpse of the future, a slick video, and just enough progress to keep the belief alive.
Whether that future arrives smoothly or hits a few more speed bumps remains to be seen.
