Tesla’s $100 Billion Robotaxi Rally

Tesla is celebrating an enormous win on Wall Road. Following the weekend launch of its long-awaited robotaxi service, the corporate’s shares jumped greater than 10% in Monday buying and selling session, including a staggering $104 billion to its market capitalization and pushing the entire worth of the Elon Musk-led firm to $1.14 trillion.

The surge was a direct response to the restricted debut in Austin, Texas, the place a small fleet of a few dozen Mannequin Y SUVs began working in a geofenced space. For buyers, the main target wasn’t simply on the automobiles, however on the know-how powering them. Tesla is betting its whole autonomous technique on its camera-based Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, a departure from opponents like Waymo that depend on costly sensors like LiDAR and radar.

For the launch, Tesla invited a handful of influencers and followers for the primary rides. Unsurprisingly, their critiques have been ecstatic.

“Screw it, I’m going to increase my keep in Austin one other day,” posted Sawyer Merritt, a Tesla investor and one of many first riders. “I need to take some extra Tesla Robotaxi rides.” When requested if he most popular the expertise to Uber, his reply was easy: “Robotaxi.”

Robotaxi.

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) June 23, 2025

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, was additionally invited. His takeaway was overwhelmingly optimistic. “There was a Tesla Operator sitting within the entrance passenger seat of the Robotaxi, however they weren’t permitted to touch upon something nor did they affect the automobile in any means,” Ives wrote. “To actually put it into perspective, there was a second the place we drove up a slender street going up a hill with automobiles parked on each side with oncoming site visitors and other people opening their automobile doorways into the street and the Robotaxi masterfully maneuvered with persistence and security amongst this chaos.”

Ives, who sees this as the beginning of a “$1 trillion autonomous journey,” concluded that Tesla “exceeded” his expectations and “has lit the spark for autonomous driving.”

🚨 Dan Ives of Wedbush has launched a brand new be aware after driving in Tesla Robotaxis in the present day in Austin:

“This afternoon we attended Tesla’s Robotaxi launch in Austin, TX and received the chance to take a number of rides in a Robotaxi. There was a Tesla Operator sitting within the entrance… pic.twitter.com/3cZ2UZKGAO

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 23, 2025

That is the end result of a promise Elon Musk has been making for years. He envisions a future fleet that might, in his personal grand predictions, increase Tesla’s market worth by an extra $5 trillion to $10 trillion. It’s a imaginative and prescient shared by believers like Cathie Wooden, whose ARK Make investments predicts robotaxis might account for 90% of Tesla’s income by 2029.

However beneath the hype, there’s an enormous downside: the competitors is already right here.

Waymo, Google’s self-driving unit, is the present market chief and already operates a bigger service in Austin, together with Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Zoox, backed by Amazon, is stay in Las Vegas and San Francisco. For critics, this actuality makes Musk’s projections appear overly optimistic.

Including one other wrinkle, Texas Governor Greg Abbott simply signed a regulation requiring corporations to acquire a state allow to function self-driving autos. Whereas the regulation doesn’t take impact till September 1, it underscores the regulatory hurdles Tesla should clear because it plans to develop to different cities.

The Austin launch was a masterfully executed occasion that captivated buyers and despatched the inventory hovering. The query now could be whether or not Tesla’s know-how can stay as much as the hype and overcome the entrenched competitors within the race to personal the autonomous future.