Elon Musk said Monday that he expects fully self-driving Tesla cars without human safety monitors to spread across the United States later this year, doubling down on a robotaxi timeline he has missed repeatedly over the past decade.



Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) currently operates monitor-free robotaxis in Austin, Dallas and Houston, and received a permit for a ride-hailing service in Arizona last November. 



Speaking by video link to the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv, Musk told the audience that nationwide expansion is coming this year.



<h2>The California Problem</h2>



The most liquid market on Musk’s near-term promises sits on Polymarket, where traders price just a 10% chance that Tesla launches unsupervised robotaxis in California by June 30. 



More than $105,000 has traded on the contract.



The skepticism is driven by hard regulatory math. 



Tesla has not filed for a California DMV autonomous vehicle deployment permit, the gating requirement for a driverless commercial service in the state. 



The Bay Area “robotaxi” service Tesla launched in April is operating under a Transportation Charter Permit, California’s designation for a human-driven taxi company.



<h2>Tesla Backpedals On Five Cities</h2>



The nationwide framing also sits awkwardly against Tesla’s own Q1 earnings letter, which softened the company’s January promise of seven new cities in the first half of 2026.



Five of the seven cities, including Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Las Vegas, were shifted from a hard “1H 2026” timeline to the looser “preparations underway” label, according to Electrek. 



Two months out from the H1 deadline, Tesla has launched in two of those seven.



Musk previously claimed Tesla robotaxis would cover half the U.S. population by the end of 2025, a target the company missed by an order of magnitude, with Austin the only city served at the time.



<h2>Two Bets, Two Recalls</h2>



The competing AV architectures are stress-testing themselves in real time. 



Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) owned Waymo recalled around 3,800 robotaxis last week after identifying a risk that vehicles could enter flooded roads on higher-speed routes, an edge case in its LiDAR-and-HD-map approach. 



Tesla, which has bet entirely on a vision-only neural network, is recalling 218,868 vehicles in the U.S. over delayed rearview camera images, according to a notice this month from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.



Musk also told the Tel Aviv summit that within a decade roughly 90% of all distance driven in the U.S. will be handled by autonomous cars. 



Image: Shutterstock

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Elon Musk predicts that Tesla's fully self-driving robotaxis will expand across the U.S. this year, despite skepticism from Polymarket traders who estimate only a 10% chance of this happening in California by June. Tesla's Q1 earnings letter has also tempered earlier promises of rapid expansion, with many cities now labeled as 'preparations underway.' Meanwhile, Waymo has recalled 3,800 robotaxis due to safety concerns, while Tesla faces its own recall of over 218,000 vehicles for camera issues.

- Elon Musk anticipates the rollout of fully self-driving Tesla cars without human monitors across the U.S. by the end of this year, despite previous missed timelines.  
- Tesla operates monitor-free robotaxis in Texas and received a permit for a ride-hailing service in Arizona, but skepticism lingers regarding their launch in California due to regulatory hurdles.  
- Musk's projections for expansion have been revised, as five of seven planned cities now fall under "preparations underway," while rival Waymo and Tesla face recalls due to safety concerns.

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Elon Musk Says Tesla Robotaxis Could Go Widespread This Year, But Prediction Markets Say 'Nah'