Elon Musk just dropped a tentative launch date for Tesla’s highly anticipated robotaxi service, which will compete with Alphabet’s Waymo in Austin.
Musk said on Tuesday evening, in response to a user on X, that Tesla will begin offering rides to the public “Tentatively, June 22.” However, he noted that it’s not a date set in stone.
“We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift,” Musk wrote. “First Tesla that drives itself from factory end of line all the way to a customer house is June 28.”
Musk previously said that the initial rollout would include 10 to 20 driverless Model Y vehicles and would remain within geo-fenced areas of Austin, meaning the vehicles wouldn’t be able to travel through every corner of the city. While Musk set June as a target month for the launch, the CEO has never specified a day until now.
Earlier today, Musk appeared to confirm one of the first sightings of a Tesla robotaxi in Austin by responding to a video floating around on X. The video showed a Tesla Model Y carrying a passenger without a human behind the wheel. The car was emblazoned with the “Robotaxi” logo on the right door panel.
“These are unmodified Tesla cars coming straight from the factory, meaning that every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised self-driving,” Musk said on X.
In a follow-up post on X, Musk suggested Austin was a better city than Los Angeles to start out a robotaxi service, writing: “Austin > > LA for robotaxi launch lol.”
The CEO didn’t specify yet why Austin is more preferable, but, in general, Texas has fewer regulations around autonomous vehicles, and is far less dense than Los Angeles, with about a quarter of the population of the southern California city.
A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
With Tesla tentatively set to offer driverless rides to the public later this month, Austin has become a sort of battleground for robotaxis.
Since March, Waymo has been offering autonomous rides through the Uber platform.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said during the first-quarter earnings call in May that the fleet of about 100 Waymo robotaxis is “now busier than over 99% of all drivers in Austin in terms of complete trips per day.”
In California, humans were quick to adopt robotaxis, as Waymo increased the number of paid rides from about 12,000 in August 2023 to 708,180 rides in March 2025.
In total, Waymo provided more than 5 million rides in three years, according to data from the California Public Utilities Commission.
A Waymo spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Musk said that the ramp-up for Tesla’s robotaxi service will be quick. In an interview with CNBC, the CEO said that there will “probably” be 1,000 robotaxis within a few months. By the end of 2026, Musk predicted there could be more than one million self-driving Teslas in the US.
Musk often misses his own deadlines. Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein previously told BI that Musk’s 2026 guidance is “a bit optimistic.”
“I think they’ll get there, but I think the software is going to take more iterations than they’re anticipating once they start testing a real robotaxi service,” he said.
