Autonomous vehicle predictions 2026

[mostlylong]

New year, new predictions.

Prediction 1
Carried over from last year:

@mostlylong

“By June 21, 2026, Tesla will not yet have in Austin,

• 50 autonomous robotaxis (no employee on board = unsupervised),
• driving the general public,
• for fares,
• in a geofenced area of at least 35 square miles.”

Prediction 2
New for 2026:
“By December 31, 2026, Tesla will not have a scaling Robotaxi business in the US:

• at least 100 autonomous/unsupervised Robotaxis
• in at least each of 3 different US cities (100+ per city), in at least 3 US states
• each with operational area of at least 50 square miles (about 7x7 miles)”

Prediction 3
New for 2026:
“By December 31, 2026, Tesla will not have a minimal autonomous vehicle business for retail customers in the US:

• at least 1000 consumer-owned truly autonomous/unsupervised vehicles in a single US city
• each with operational area of at least 50 square miles (about 7x7 miles)
• must be available for purchase by the general public
• Tesla must assume liability for all AI driving”

Prediction 4a,b,c
Carried over from last year:

@mostlylong

“By June 30, 2027 (in about 24 months [18 months, now]), Waymo will have

• more cumulative (lifetime) robotaxi miles
• more weekly (run rate) robotaxi miles
• more publicly disclosed robotaxi miles with incident data
  than Tesla.”

Fine Print

• must operate on 95% or more of all roads in a city (city streets, interstate, etc)
• must be technology internally developed (not obtained mainly by acquisition such as acquire Waymo or a Chinese AV company, etc)
• taxi must be available to the general public and collect fares
• taxi must operate at least 18 hours per day, 7 days per week
• each taxi must drive at least 30 miles per day on average

[mostlylong]

Another prediction, to evaluate sometime soon.

@Smorgasbord1

@mostlylong

Define autonomy.
Define soon.

Well, I said “driving autonomy” and “relatively soon,” so I find it telling that you mis-quoted me. And, no, I’m not going to define those for you. I’ll just prove my point by re-quoting myself:

@Smorgasbord1

The recent progress has convinced me driving autonomy is coming, and relatively soon.

[NailThatJello]

@mostlylong

New year, new predictions.

My bold prediction is:

Any predictions that E. Musk makes in 2026 will not come to fruition in the time frame that he specifies.

I know. I’m going waay out on a limb here.

[Smorgasbord1]

@mostlylong

Another prediction, to evaluate sometime soon.

I’m not playing your prediction game, and resent your attempt to drag me into it.

We’re investors, not Polymarket players. At least I am.

[Goofyhoofy]

@Smorgasbord1

I’m not playing your prediction game, and resent your attempt to drag me into it.
We’re investors, not Polymarket players. At least I am.

If you are betting on products which do not currently exist, which produce no revenue, whose company depends on the madness of crowds or promises which may or may not come true for its stock price, then you are surely gambling.

When you invest in companies with predictable revenue streams and can calculate expenses versus profits, then you are not.

[Smorgasbord1]

@Goofyhoofy

If you are betting on products which do not currently exist, which produce no revenue, whose company depends on the madness of crowds or promises which may or may not come true for its stock price, then you are surely gambling.

Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not doing that.

[mostlylong]

@mostlylong

Another prediction

Maybe.

@McLovin1981

Can the car achieve a minimal risk condition in that state? If the car is a Tesla, the answer is no, it can’t. Which means regardless of how good the software is/becomes, current Teslas can’t be L4 by definition due to hardware limitations.

Could it be that “No model year 2025 or earlier mass marketed Tesla will achieve autonomy without hardware modification?”

Not sure, but definitely wouldn’t surprise me based on minimal sensor coverage and redundancy. Maybe insufficient compute hardware as well.

[mostlylong]

@mostlylong

Prediction 1
Carried over from last year:

@mostlylong

“By June 21, 2026, Tesla will not yet have in Austin,

• 50 autonomous robotaxis (no employee on board = unsupervised),
• driving the general public,
• for fares,
• in a geofenced area of at least 35 square miles.”

According to robotaxitracker.com, which could be viewed as a sampler of unsupervised Tesla robotaxis, 28 unsupervised vehicle license plates have been observed by over 1500 riders (about 400 were unsupervised rides).

Over the last 90 days there have been 342 unsupervised rides. If there were 50 taxis all providing unsupervised fares, we would expect to see each unique plate about 342/50 = 7 times over the last 90 days, so we should have seen near 50 unique plates, or at least approaching 50.

Instead, the Robotaxi tracker shows about 28 unique plates in Austin, over all time.

Also, we would expect the number of unique plates observed over time to steadily increase to at least 50 vehicles.

Instead, the number of unique plates plateaus at 28.

Tesla doesn’t report much detail on their taxi demonstration projects, but many indications are that there are few vehicles doing small mileage in limited geographies and that the rides with no employees in the vehicle are remotely supervised.

I’m going to conclude that Tesla does not have a robotaxi fleet of 50 vehicles providing unsupervised rides most of the day covering a meaningful part of the Austin and doing real mileage like a real ride-hailing service.

After one year of very intense effort, and a decade of promises and work, Tesla does not yet have a commercial, unsupervised robotaxi fleet of even 50 vehicles in Austin, its most developed robotaxi market.

I look forward to the upcoming earnings call to learn about the latest milestones from the AI and robotics company.

2025 “Guidance”

”We’re going to be launching unsupervised Full Self-Driving as a paid service in Austin in June."

”The acid test is, can you go to sleep in your car and wake up in your destination and I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the US by the end of this year."

”I think we’ll probably have autonomous ride hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year. That’s at least our goal subject to regulatory approvals."

”I think [FSD] will be available for unsupervised personal use by the end of this year in certain geographies."

[mostlylong]

@mostlylong

New year, new predictions.

Here’s a “next year or two” prediction.

@captainccs

CyberCabs and Optimus robots are the main new products coming online over the next year or two.

[mostlylong]

@mostlylong

New year, new predictions.

@Smorgasbord1

What I think is important is that Tesla gets approval for paid driverless rides in both Austin and the Bay Area by EOY. With Waymo today running 1,000 cars in the Bay Area and only 200 in Austin, I’m expecting only a few hundred Tesla cars in operation in each (probably starting with even less). As they prove themselves, it’ll be interesting to see what the ramp up in both vehicles and area served is, but that’s for 2027.

1. Autonomous taxis in CA by EOY? Looks pretty doubtful.
2. Some kind of ramp up of robotaxi in 2027? Better aim for the end of 2027, because today they don’t yet have an AI driver that can safely scale.