Musk tempers robotaxi rollout timeline

Elon Musk used Tesla’s April 22 earnings call to narrow the company’s robotaxi timeline, saying unsupervised Full Self-Driving may operate in only “a dozen or so states” by the end of 2026. (finance.yahoo.com 1) (finance.yahoo.com 2) He said Tesla is taking a “very cautious approach” to avoid injuries or fatalities, a more restrained target than his July 2025 comment that robotaxis would reach “half the population of the U.S.” by the end of this year. (finance.yahoo.com) Tesla’s own Q1 2026 update said the company launched unsupervised Robotaxi rides in Dallas and Houston in April and is ramping infrastructure and AI software behind the service. (assets-ir.tesla.com) Musk also said Tesla has begun Cybercab production at Gigafactory Texas, but Reuters reported he told investors the initial production rate “will be very slow.” The Cybercab is Tesla’s two-seat robotaxi designed without a steering wheel or pedals. (finance.yahoo.com) (techxplore.com) The slower language landed as Wall Street keeps treating robotaxis as central to Tesla’s valuation. Reuters reported analysts at William Blair called the earnings call “low energy” and said the rollout has been “far slower than expected.” (finance.yahoo.com) The same call brought a second constraint: Musk said Hardware 3 vehicles cannot achieve unsupervised Full Self-Driving with their current computers and cameras. Quartz, citing Musk’s remarks, said about 4 million Teslas may need new hardware to ever run that version. (finance.yahoo.com) For owners who bought the Full Self-Driving package, Musk said Tesla will offer either a discounted trade-in for a Hardware 4 car or a retrofit that swaps in newer computers and cameras. He said Tesla may need “microfactories” in major U.S. cities because service centers would be too slow for that volume. (finance.yahoo.com 1) (finance.yahoo.com 2) Tesla’s first-quarter business still showed scale in its core car operation: the company said it produced 408,386 vehicles and delivered 358,023 in Q1 2026. But the company’s investor materials framed 2026 as a year of heavier spending on AI, factories, batteries and robotaxi infrastructure. (ir.tesla.com) (assets-ir.tesla.com) (finance.yahoo.com) The result is a tighter timetable than Tesla’s earlier rhetoric: limited state-by-state expansion, a slow Cybercab ramp, and a hardware problem that reaches back to cars sold from 2019 into early 2023. (finance.yahoo.com 1) (finance.yahoo.com 2)