Tesla finally launched its robotaxis. Here's Wall Street's reaction so far

After years of ambitious promises and moving goalposts, Tesla finally turned the key on its decade-in-the-making robotaxi service this weekend, and Elon Musk’s autonomous dream got real — sort of. There’s no Cybercab. No nationwide launch. And certainly no fully autonomous fleet humming through city streets, unbothered by traffic or regulation. 

But Wall Street didn’t seem to care. Tesla shares jumped more than 7% in early Monday trading — a welcome boost for the automaker, even as the stock remains down 8.8% year to date.

Behind the bump was a quietly executed, relatively successful soft launch of Tesla’s long-awaited ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas. A fleet of 10 to 20 camera-only Model Ys began operating over the weekend within a tightly geofenced 10-square-mile zone. The service charges a flat $4.20 per trip (yes, really), available exclusively to a handpicked group of influencers and Tesla diehards. Each ride comes with a Tesla safety monitor riding shotgun, a remote operator on standby, and a gentle reminder: Truly driverless Teslas are still a vision in progress.

The rollout wasn’t the robo-revolution Musk once teased, but it wasn’t nothing, either. The debut was as uneventful as Tesla probably hoped: no crashes, no viral disengagements, no dramatic footage — just a handful of smooth, influencer-captured rides that looked indistinguishable from an Uber.

“Super congratulations to the Tesla AI software and chip design teams on a successful robotaxi launch!!” Musk posted on X, calling it the “culmination of a decade of hard work.” He emphasized that both the chip and software teams were built entirely in-house — one reason Tesla claims its approach can scale faster and cheaper than lidar-heavy competition such as Waymo and Zoox.

On the surface, Tesla’s launch was a win. But underneath all the noise, Wall Street is still deciding what exactly Tesla just proved — and whether it moves the needle at all. 

The initial reactions were positive, if a bit curated. “This is the future,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note. Others trip-takers described the rides as “smooth,” “great,” and “normal.” Bearded Tesla Guy described the app’s interface as “basically Uber” — although the service has been upgraded: Inside the robotaxis, passengers are greeted with personalized entertainment options built into Tesla’s app, including Spotify, Netflix, and Disney+.

But if the execution felt more like a proof-of-concept than a revolution, Wall Street wasn’t particularly rattled. “From our conversations with investors, feedback has been mostly neutral,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan said in a post-launch report, noting that expectations were already set for a geofenced Model Y rollout.

UBS analyst Joseph Spak bumped his price target to $215 from $190 but kept a “Sell” rating, writing, “The robotaxi opportunity… is already priced into shares.” Like many analysts, Spak sees the pilot as more of a long-tail thesis than a short-term catalyst.

Guggenheim analyst Ronald Jewsikow described Sunday’s launch as “a relatively uneventful Sunday in Austin, and uneventful is a good outcome.” In a Monday note, he wrote: “Based on our analysis of publicly available videos from the influencer community, the day was filled with almost entirely clean driving performance.” He kept his “Sell” rating and $175 price target, citing valuation.

Meanwhile, Tesla bull Ives, who attended the launch and took multiple rides, struck a predictably glowing tone. “Going into it, we expected to be impressed but walking away from it, all there is to say is that this is the future,” he wrote, calling it the beginning of Tesla’s “golden age” and reaffirming his “Outperform” rating and $500 price target. He added that the ride experience was “comfortable, safe, and personalized,” and praised Tesla’s vision-based system for handling narrow roads, traffic cones, and unpredictable human behavior.

Tesla’s current service operates within a mapped zone that excludes highways and airports, and the rides are available from 6 a.m. to midnight (weather permitting) and require safety monitors to verify rider identity and provide in-vehicle oversight. The company hasn’t said when — or whether — the service will be opened to the general public.

One major question hanging over Tesla’s plans: regulation. While Texas currently allows autonomous vehicle services without special permits, a law passed on June 22 — the same day as Tesla’s launch — will soon require companies to obtain approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating autonomous vehicles without a human driver. That rule takes effect on September 1 and could complicate any attempt by Tesla to scale its robotaxis.

For bulls, Tesla’s robotaxi strategy remains one of the company’s most important long-term bets. RBC Capital Markets has estimated that robotaxis could represent 60% of the company’s total valuation model — though it hasn’t assumed Tesla dominance in any particular regional market.

The bet is that Tesla’s vision-only, neural net-driven system will ultimately prove cheaper, more scalable, and more adaptable than any of the lidar- and radar-heavy approaches currently on the road. If Tesla’s approach works, the company could potentially activate autonomy features in its existing fleet via software updates, creating an on-demand robotaxi network without building new hardware from scratch.

Still, some analysts remain cautious. 

Baird, a typically Tesla-friendly firm, warned that Musk’s timelines on scaling may be “a bit too optimistic.” And while Wedbush sees the robotaxi pivot as the start of a massive market shift, others are concerned about how quickly Tesla can navigate technical, regulatory, and reputational hurdles; the company’s stock is vulnerable to any sign that autonomy is slipping further down the road. Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton told Barron’s that Tesla has strong support around $300 but upside resistance near $370-$380 — and the market could treat the robotaxi rollout as a “sell-the-news” moment if momentum stalls.

For now, the robotaxi rides in Austin appear to have gone off without major incident. Influencer videos posted over the weekend showed mostly uneventful trips: smooth braking, solid turns, no obvious errors. Riders were greeted by screens synced with their Tesla accounts and personalized entertainment options. Some noted long wait times for support, and others had difficulty locating their vehicles in real time — calling the experience “like Pokémon hunting.”

Behind the scenes, Tesla employees and engineers celebrated the launch with what appeared to be a live operations center monitoring camera feeds from dozens of vehicles. Ashok Elluswamy, head of Tesla’s Autopilot software, posted a photo of the team gathered in front of a bank of monitors on Sunday evening.

But even Musk has acknowledged the road ahead will be gradual. California, another key market, is expected to present a tougher regulatory path. And rivals aren’t waiting. Waymo currently operates more than 1,500 fully driverless vehicles across multiple U.S. cities, including Austin — with plans to expand to Washington D.C., Miami, and Atlanta in the coming year.

While Tesla didn’t launch a fully driverless future, it did put a version of it on the road. Whether this pilot is the beginning of a $2 trillion run or just another step in a long, slow climb depends on two things: whether Tesla’s AI-first, camera-only bet can actually work, and whether Wall Street is still willing to wait for it to pay off.