Elon Musk announced last night that Tesla is planning to “roughly double” its Robotaxi fleet in Austin next month. While an expansion of the pilot sounds positive on the surface, a look at the actual numbers reveals that Tesla is missing its own “end of year” target by a massive margin.
What’s behind this announcement.
Pretty sure it’s not an autonomous vehicle:
Earlier this month, Tesla removed its waitlist for the robotaxi app and fully opened the service to the public. Since then, a number of Tesla fans have complained on X about increased wait times and shortages of available vehicles due to a deluge of new users.
29 different taxi license plates have been spotted in Austin, so if they are all in service, about 30 now, and maybe 60 next month.
Demand for taxi drivers is going up for the holidays in Austin.
If the taxi runs 18 hours per day, will need 2 employees per taxi, so another 60 taxi drivers.
Tesla robotaxis average about 50-60 miles per day. So easily accomplished in one shift