According to a CNBC report on May 28, Texas’ “Autonomous Vehicle Regulatory Law” took effect that day, and the state’s DMV subsequently published the first batch of registered vehicle data, revealing that Tesla’s Robotaxi service is actually far smaller than the outside world had expected: Tesla has only 42 authorized self-driving ride-hailing vehicles across the state, less than one-tenth of Waymo’s 577, and even trailing the smaller AV Ride fleet (317 vehicles), only slightly ahead of Amazon’s Zoox at 35. Tesla has been running its Robotaxi service in Austin since June 2025 but has never disclosed how it self-certified its vehicles as Level 4. According to NHTSA documents, its Austin fleet was involved in 17 known accidents between July 2025 and April 2026, two of which caused minor injuries and one required hospitalization—all occurring while safety drivers were present.
The fleet size of 42 stands in stark contrast to the large-scale Robotaxi vision Musk has repeatedly described. Waymo’s nationwide commercial fleet is nearly 4,000 vehicles and is steadily expanding into new cities. Tesla has applied for self-driving test permits in Arizona, Nevada, and Florida but has yet to launch paid services in those states. The latest developments show that Tesla expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston in April this year and cited Robotaxi scaling as a core growth driver in its Q1 earnings report—but the gap in operational data compared to competitors is unlikely to close in the near term.