Musk’s ailing EV company to expand robotaxis to all Tesla car owners 

Elon Musk, whose automobile firm has misplaced $385 billion this 12 months, informed Tesla automobile homeowners they are going to be allowed so as to add their automobiles to the corporate’s robotaxi community someday subsequent 12 months.

“I’d say confidently subsequent 12 months,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla, mentioned on the decision. “I’m unsure when subsequent 12 months, however confidently subsequent 12 months.”

The world’s richest individual, regardless of Tesla’s staggering 2025 losses, made his announcement throughout a shareholders assembly, by which he made a stark prediction of a “few tough quarters forward”. Musk’s prediction didn’t sit nicely with Tesla buyers, as reported by Livemint. Musk mentioned the plan might doubtlessly enable a whole bunch of 1000’s of shoppers to become profitable by remotely renting out their automobiles as self-driving cabs.

Marking a serious growth

The Tesla proprietor’s plan might mark a major growth of the corporate’s robotaxi community, which Musk formally launched final month in Austin with a number of self-driving automobiles that Tesla immediately owns and operates, as lately reported by todaysviralmedia.

Tesla’s transfer is a bid to stage up and compete with trade chief Waymo, whose fleet of self-driving robotaxis ferries paying prospects in a number of cities throughout the USA.

Musk admitted that his Tesla crew has not but “thought onerous” in regards to the particulars of including automobiles that it doesn’t immediately personal to the robotaxi community. He mentioned that their precedence proper now could be security in Austin, Texas.

Ensuring they’re absolutely below management

“We want to ensure it really works when the automobiles are absolutely below our management,” Musk acknowledged.

Tesla reported that in Q2 2025, income fell 12 per cent year-over-year to $22.5 billion, the EV firm’s worst efficiency in at the least a decade. The corporate attributed the decline to an ongoing hunch in car deliveries and falling costs, traits exacerbated by Musk’s involvement within the Trump Administration and declining income from environmental credit.

The plan to permit personal Tesla customers to hire their automobiles inside the firm’s robotaxi community additionally raises the prospect of people managing their very own fleets.

Apart from the technological side of such a plan, it’s unclear how regulatory and legal responsibility points may come into play. As of now, Tesla has but to completely take away security drivers from the automobiles it owns and operates on its fledgling robotaxi service.

For its preliminary Austin rollout, Tesla has had somebody sitting within the passenger seat always. Tesla has regularly expanded its service radius in Austin (a map shared by Tesla on-line final week depicts the newest robotaxi service space in a distinctly phallic form), and Musk mentioned the corporate plans to develop it additional in a few weeks. 

Tesla seeks approval for robotaxi growth

Whereas Tesla’s robotaxi service is at present solely accessible by invitation, Musk outlined formidable growth plans for the robotaxi service throughout Wednesday’s earnings name, stating that Tesla is looking for regulatory approval to launch within the Bay Space, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. 

“As quickly as we get the approvals and we show our security, then we’ll be launching autonomous trip hailing in a lot of the nation, and I believe we’ll most likely have autonomous trip hailing in most likely half the inhabitants of the U.S. by the tip of the 12 months,” he mentioned. 

Up till now, Tesla’s robotaxis haven’t been concerned in any main security incidents, masking roughly 7,000 autonomous miles so far.