Elon has been promising a fully autonomous fleet for years and it's time we talk about what that actually means for the real world. His vision involves widespread robotaxis operating at around $0.35 per mile after a software cost cap of roughly $20 monthly, but there is a huge difference between marketing promises and current deployment. Right now most drivers run FSD Supervised — meaning they must remain attentive and take over immediately if anything goes wrong — which isn't true autonomy. He recently projected that Tesla could have tens of thousands of robotaxis on the road within the next few years, but independent estimates from analysts suggest it may be closer to 2030 at best for genuine level-4 driverless operation across multiple cities. The delta between his public statements and engineering realities is large enough to warrant some skepticism before we buy all in on FSD as a silver bullet solution.

While Tesla bets big on its proprietary software, several startups are building their own paths around it entirely. Torch EV recently raised $1M from angel investors like Brian Chrisman specifically for an electric fleet that avoids Tesla's ecosystem altogether, and Volta just announced plans to deploy 50 robotaxis in Phoenix by early 2026 with a reported raise of at least $64 million. Ford has also partnered with Lyft and committed up to $500 million through 2030 to develop its own autonomous ride services alongside their EV lineup, and Toyota is building out its Woven City testbed for hydrogen-based mobility solutions. Even companies like Waymo have raised hundreds of millions recently while Ford continues to build a separate fleet that has no reliance on Tesla's FSD software at all — which suggests the future may be more fragmented than Elon wants us to believe, with several independent players building real autonomous ride infrastructure regardless of what his latest forecast says.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/techcrunch-mobility-all-eyes-on-tesla-fsd/