Tesla Robotaxis Aren’t Hitting California Streets Any Time Soon, Says Data

Last updated: 2026/03/01 at 10:48 AM

News Room Published 1 March 2026

Fully driverless, unsupervised Tesla robotaxis are finally available in American cities, after rolling out in Austin, Texas, in June 2026. But if you were looking forward to fully driverless Tesla robotaxis coming to California, you may be waiting quite a while longer, Reuters reports.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promising that robotaxis would be hitting California roads once regulators provide their permission for some time now. In October 2025, he said the robotaxis would hit California “in a few months” and that Tesla was “waiting on regulatory approval in California,” after making the same promise in June. But the data may tell a different story.

According to previously unreported state Department of Motor Vehicles records unearthed by Reuters, the EV giant logged zero miles of autonomous test driving on California roads in 2025, for the sixth year in a row.

Under California State DMV regulations, set to come into play later in 2026, Tesla reportedly needs to rack up 50,000 miles of autonomous driving on public roads in California with a safety driver before it can apply for a permit to provide driverless robotaxi services.

Reuters notes that Tesla robotaxi rival Waymo logged more than 13 million testing hours in California between 2014 and when it launched driverless vehicles for commercial passengers in 2024.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at University of South Carolina , told Reuters that Tesla is implying that “they are ready and regulators are not,” but the reality is that “regulators are ready, and they are not.”

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Amid declining sales in the US, loss of EV tax credits, and a declining market share in Europe and Asia, the EV giant may be increasingly pinning its fortunes on future success of its robotaxi roll out. Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com, told Reuters earlier this year he thinks that the EV giant is “in a transition period” and asking investors to anticipate potential robotaxi and self-driving revenue .

Tesla is currently sticking to its aggressive current timeline for its robotaxi roll-out. During Tesla’s Q4 Earnings Call in January, the company confirmed it still aimed to launch robotaxis in seven US cities by the end of the year: Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas.