Tesla Robotaxi Operations Quietly Scaled Back, Waiting on FSD V15
A. Krivonosov
Tesla appears to have reduced its Robotaxi fleet in Texas and California, with active cars dropping sharply. The broader rollout now hinges on FSD V15, raising questions about the service's future.
Tesla has apparently scaled back some of its Robotaxi operations in Texas and California. Rather than expanding as promised, the service has gone much quieter: fewer cars are on the road, and the mass rollout is now essentially waiting on FSD V15.
Data from the public Robotaxi Tracker shows that users have logged nearly 700 Teslas making trips in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. But only 89 were still active in the past 30 days. That number dropped to 54 over the last two weeks and just 30 in the past seven days. For a project meant to scale fast, this looks less like growth and more like a cautious retreat.
The decline is most visible in Texas. On May 4, the service peaked with 19 driverless Robotaxis in Austin, six in Houston, and five in Dallas. Over the past week, Austin had 13 active cars, while Dallas and Houston each had just three. The situation in the Bay Area is even starker. Of the 133 supervised robotaxis spotted on February 20, only seven were still active a week later.
Elon Musk has said that a broad Robotaxi rollout won't start until FSD V15 arrives. But Tesla never warned that cars already on the road would begin vanishing from the network.
This is a painful sign for Tesla. The Robotaxi project was meant to demonstrate that the company could sell not just electric cars but also an autonomous ride service. For now, it looks more like a limited test, with the real launch once again pushed into the future.
