Tesla Has Secretly Been Testing Robotaxis

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Tesla has been secretly testing fully autonomous robotaxis in the Bay Area for several months, CEO Elon Musk revealed during the carmaker’s earnings call this week.

According to the billionaire, only Tesla staffers are authorized to use a prototype app that can summon vehicles running the company’s Full Self-Driving software.

Current Testing Limitations

The vehicles still require a safety driver behind the wheel, underscoring that Tesla has considerable work ahead to match competitors. Alphabet’s Waymo has already been operating driverless ride-hailing services for years.

The company is also pushing to meet Musk’s characteristically ambitious timelines. He promised that Tesla would launch a robotaxi service in California and Texas as soon as 2026.

Yet even setting technical challenges aside, the company has yet to obtain a commercial operating license from regulators—an extensive process that could significantly postpone Musk’s plans.

Musk Mobile

Tesla’s driver-assistance technology still requires substantial refinement. The controversial Full Self-Driving system currently mandates that drivers remain ready to intervene at any moment, placing it far from the unsupervised autonomy a true robotaxi service would demand.

Musk stated that an “unsupervised” version of FSD would arrive in 2026, though his repeated predictions of fully self-driving capability over the past decade suggest a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted.

Long-Term Vision

Tesla’s robotaxi concept, outlined in Musk’s “Master Plan Part Deux,” envisions a “Tesla Network” of autonomous vehicles that can earn money for their owners when not in use. Musk has described it as “some combination of Airbnb and Uber.”

“This really is a profound change,” Musk said during the latest earnings call, as quoted by The Verge. “Tesla will become more than a vehicle and battery manufacturer company at that point.”

At the company’s “We, Robot” event earlier this month, Musk unveiled an early prototype of the “Cybercab”—a compact two-seater without a steering wheel or charging port.

Given Tesla’s focus on autonomous ride-hailing, secret testing is unsurprising. However, the scale of remaining development suggests a mature, widely available service is still several years away.

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