For many Tesla investors, Sunday’s launch of its robotaxi pilot in Texas represented a historic day. After years of bold promises, Elon Musk’s company finally began ferrying passengers on their own without a human directly behind the wheel.
While the first impressions were heavily positive, that should come as little surprise. The selection of passengers in the invite-only test skewed towards Tesla bulls, including Dan Ives. The Wedbush tech analyst argues the stock should be worth double its current $1 trillion market value, and currently recommends it as a buy with a $500 price target.
“Overall, these Robotaxis exceeded our expectations and offered a seamless and personalized travel experience that has lit the spark for autonomous driving,” Ives told his clients in a research note on Sunday, summing up his experience as “very impressive.”
On the one hand, the day marked a historic milestone for Tesla, whose shares are set to open 1.7% higher in a flat market.
For the very first time, a manufacturer heavily reliant on hardware sales—the delivery of electric vehicles—demonstrated it was on the path to becoming a company that one day could earn a substantial share of its profits from high-margin software and services.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t anywhere near the “ChatGPT moment” the Tesla CEO has promised for the past two years.
No switch was flipped that suddenly made millions of Tesla vehicles capable of driving themselves without human supervision, as Musk has prophesied.
Tesla invited friendly out-of-town influencers to test the service
Instead rides were limited largely to a number of prominent Tesla-friendly influencers, most of whom had travelled from out-of-town to Austin just to participate in the launch.
The exact number of cars participating in the pilot on Sunday is unknown. Musk indicated he initially wanted only around a dozen or so to mitigate the risk and ensure maximum safety.
Tesla employees serving as safety monitors were seated at all times in the front passenger seat, though it was unclear what influence they had, if any, over the vehicle or whether the vehicle was, at times, being teleoperated remotely.
Since the rides were geofenced to an area of southern Austin, the trips charged for the symbolic price of $4.20 each (a marijuana reference Musk often uses) tended to be short. Two livestreams by Tesla promoters Farzad Mesbahi and Sawyer Merritt were just five and three minutes in length, respectively.
Tesla didn’t publish any figures from its first day, but in one picture of the Tesla robotaxi command center posted by the program lead Ashok Elluswamy, a screen indicated that 112 rides had been driven for a total of 499 miles, or roughly 4.5 miles per ride.
The company did not respond to a request from Fortune for comment.
Searching for robotaxi like ‘Pokemon hunting’
Even in this controlled environment, it didn’t go off entirely without a hitch. There was a slight two-hour delay initially, and once the service was activated, participants cited unusually long wait times and far-off pickup locations in some cases.
In one instance, this required Herbert Ong and Xander Sky to huff it in search of their Tesla vehicle since it would not collect them on the main road near their location.
“This is like Pokemon hunting,” Sky joked, as one of the guests on their livestream said “keep on running, keep on running”.
“Keep on running, keep on running”. – @TeslaBoomerMama as she watches @herbertong search for his first Robotaxi stopped to pick him up in Austin. Herbert got about a 1/4 mile of steps in but he finally found the Robotaxi. pic.twitter.com/7yXfeSqraf— Miss Jilianne (@MissJilianne) June 22, 2025
Sawyer Merritt, another tester on Sunday, heavily active in the Tesla community, said he hoped this inconvenience would be fixed soon.
“One thing I wish you could do is change the pickup spot for the Robotaxi,” he remarked. “Right now, you’re locked into whatever it chooses.”
‘Obviously we’re on the wrong side of the double yellow lines’
The biggest issue, however, arose during a trip that Rob Maurer took. The former Tesla Daily podcaster, who was in the backseat of a Model Y when it briefly attempted to make a left turn before then swerving back onto its previous path.
By that point, however, it was briefly driving in a lane reserved for oncoming traffic.
“Obviously we’re on the wrong side of the double yellow lines here. No vehicles anywhere in sight so this wasn’t a safety issue, [but] we did get honked at by the car that was behind us,” Maurer said.
In other words, Day One was largely the success many Tesla pundits expected, given the restrictions Musk put in place to ensure safety, but one that nonetheless leaves room for improvement even before service expands to more users.
