Tesla Robotaxi Launch: 0-2% Availability Before Earnings
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Tesla launched Robotaxi service in Dallas and Houston with 0-2% availability over the first 24 hours, per Robotaxi Tracker data, with only a single vehicle reported by riders in each market
- Geofenced zones are tiny: Houston covers roughly 12-15 square miles and Dallas 30-35 square miles, compared to the Houston metro area's 10,000+ square miles
- Tesla ran the same playbook in January 2026 with "unsupervised" Austin rides that pushed the stock up 4% pre-earnings before the service vanished within a week
- Q1 2026 earnings land Wednesday April 22, with deliveries of 358,023 vehicles missing analyst consensus and down from Q4 2025's 418,227 units; analyst EPS estimates range from $0.24 to $0.40
- Austin's unsupervised fleet remains capped at roughly a dozen vehicles and has logged 15 NHTSA-reported crashes — a rate about 4x worse than human drivers
- Tesla stock trades near $400 at approximately 178x forward earnings versus 8-12x for the broader auto industry, a valuation the article says rests almost entirely on robotaxi and AI promises
Why it matters: For Tesla's April 22 earnings call, the article reframes the key investor question from city count to actual unsupervised ride volume: the Dallas and Houston launches show 0-2% availability, Austin's 15 NHTSA-reported crashes run roughly 4x the human rate, and Q1 deliveries of 358,023 missed consensus while falling from Q4 2025's 418,227 — all while Tesla trades at ~178x forward earnings versus 8-12x for the auto industry.
