Tesla Inc TSLA shares are putting the pedal to the floor in Monday’s regular trading session following the company’s robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas.

What To Know: Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in a post on X that Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin was “successful.” The EV maker officially kicked off robotaxi rides on Sunday through an invitation-only event that involved a limited number of riders.

“Super congratulations to the @Tesla_AI software & chip design teams on a successful @Robotaxi launch!! Culmination of a decade of hard work,” Musk said in the post.

Some of the invitees included Tesla shareholders and long-time promoters of the company often seen posting on X. Riders were charged a flat fee of $4.20 per ride, Musk said in an X post.

Musk told CNBC’s David Faber in an interview last month that he expected the company to have about 1,000 driverless vehicles on the roads within a few months of launch. He further estimated that Tesla could have hundreds of thousands of vehicles capable of unsupervised full self-driving on the roads by the end of next year, “if not over a million.”

In a CNBC interview on Monday, Wedbush’s Dan Ives predicted that Tesla will quickly expand the robotaxi rollout to 25 to 30 cities within a year. He added that autonomous driving is worth $1 trillion alone for Tesla’s valuation.

Ives was among those who attended the robotaxi launch in Austin over the weekend. In a new note to clients, he said the launch exceeded his expectations.

“Going into it, we expected to be impressed but walking away from it, all there is to say is that this is the future,” Ives said in the note.

“To really put it into perspective, there was a moment where we drove up a narrow road going up a hill with cars parked on both sides with oncoming traffic and people opening their car doors into the road and the Robotaxi masterfully maneuvered with patience and safety among this chaos.”

Ives maintained an Outperform rating on Tesla shares with a 12-month price target of $500.

Other analysts don’t appear to be as impressed with UBS maintaining a Sell, while lifting its target to $215, and Guggenheim reiterating a Sell and price target of $175.

Guggenheim analysts believe robotaxi expectations are already embedded in the company’s “lofty” valuation. Guggenheim noted that it needs to see the rollout accelerate into the end of the year in order to justify Tesla’s stock price.

The Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares TSLL was up about 19.5% at last check, per Benzinga Pro.

TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares were up 9.83% at $354.22 at the time of publication Monday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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Photo: Shutterstock.

Tesla’s Robotaxis appeared to violate local traffic laws by exceeding the speed limit and swerving into the wrong lane – even as Elon Musk touted a “successful” launch of his long-delayed self-driving vehicles and shares popped as much as 11% Monday.

In one video posted by investor Rob Maurer, a Robotaxi appeared to struggle navigating a left-turn-only lane, briefly crossing over a double yellow line before returning to the proper lane. A human motorist honked at the Robotaxi during the glitch.

Meanwhile, Tesla investor and superfan Sawyer Merritt posted a video from his Robotaxi ride in which the driverless car accelerated past 30 mph speed limit during Sunday’s rollout in Austin, Texas.

YouTuber Herbert Ong described a similar experience in his video, according to Bloomberg.

4 About 10 Robotaxis were included in the initial rides. REUTERS

“It’s going at 39 right now, which is perfect, right, because I don’t want to drive at 35, and it’s driving at the same flow of traffic,” Ong said in the video. “If everyone else is driving at this speed, you want to be at the same speed.”

Despite the apparent hiccups, Tesla shares surged after a handpicked group of influencers who participated in the trial run uploaded positive reviews on X and other social media platforms.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, a Tesla bull, raved about his experience after taking two approximately 15-minute rides in the state capital.

“Going into it, we expected to be impressed but walking away from it, all there is to say is that this is the future,” Ives said in a note to clients.

4 Elon Musk congratulated his team on a “successful” debut. X/@philduan

“The ride itself was completely smooth, and it was indistinguishable that the car was driverless as there was never a moment in the vehicle where we felt as if it did something irrational.”

Ives maintained his “outperform” rating for Tesla’s stock and a $500 price target.

The electric car maker began offering driverless rides by invitation only on Sunday, with riders charged a $4.20 flat fee — a cheeky nod to marijuana use. About 10 driverless Tesla Model Y SUVs were reportedly on the road, with company “safety monitors” on board in the front seat to oversee the trips.

Bearded Tesla Guy, a social media influencer, compared the experience to “basically Uber.”

Farzad Mesbahi, a former Tesla employee-turned influencer, said his rides were “very smooth and comfortable.”

“Now Tesla needs to scale this service safely,” Mesbahi said on X. “As long as the system performance holds, they should be able to cover the US with Robotaxis virtually overnight.”

Robotaxi is set to directly compete with Google-owned Waymo and Amazon-backed Zoox in the autonomous vehicle market.

Tesla told US regulators that all of its answers to questions on the safety of its robotaxi deployment in Texas are confidential business information and should not be made public, according to a letter released Monday.

On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was reviewing answers given in response to the agency’s questions about the safety of its self-driving robotaxi in poor weather among other issues.

The agency said Monday that federal law “restricts NHTSA’s ability to publicly release what the companies label as confidential.” The agency added that “following an assessment of these responses and other relevant information, NHTSA will take any necessary actions to protect road safety.”

On Sunday, Musk shared “super congratulations to the @Tesla_AI software & chip design teams on a successful @Robotaxi launch!!”

“Culmination of a decade of hard work. Both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla,” Musk wrote on X.

4 The Robotaxis had a company safety officer in the front seat. REUTERS

Invitations circulated by Tesla said the initial Robotaxi service would be available from 6:00 AM to 12:00 AM local time and limited to a geofenced area, meaning anything outside the pre-set boundaries would be off-limits.

Tesla also said Robotaxi service would be limited or unavailable in the event of bad weather.

Musk has long touted the potential of Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” technology, though federal regulators and other critics have repeatedly raised safety concerns.

4 Musk has touted the Robotaxi program as key to Tesla’s long-term business. AP

He has suggested that autonomous driving technology can add $5 trillion to $10 trillion to Tesla’s market capitalization by transforming its vehicles into an instant productive fleet.

The billionaire had said the Robotaxi rollout was limited because Tesla was “being super paranoid about safety.”

The debut occurred at a critical time for Tesla, whose shares have been under pressure since Musk embarked on his controversial work with President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk and Trump had a very public falling-out earlier this month, though the two have since appeared to mend fences.

With Post wires

Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on the company’s launch of the Robotaxi platform, which officially went live to a small group on Sunday in Austin, Texas.

It is the first time Tesla has offered driverless rides through the ride-hailing platform it has worked to activate for several years, and it was overwhelmingly successful based on early reviews.

The launch was coupled with the release of the first-ever looks at the Tesla Robotaxi app, which does more than allow riders to summon vehicles for transportation. It also allows the rider to adjust climate settings in the car before it arrives for a comfortable ride, and it will sync entertainment and streaming settings to keep occupants entertained.

The first rides are being performed with a safety monitor in the passenger’s seat. These monitors have no control over the vehicle, and are there just to ensure smooth operation.

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The first reviews called rides “smooth” and “comfortable,” and commended Tesla for its hard work over the past few years to make this happen. Many were impressed with the cars’ ability to keep pedestrians safe, avoid congested parking lots, and the efficiency of the rides, as the time from the ride request to the Robotaxi accepting the ride was extremely fast.

Musk has been at the forefront of this operation for a decade, as Tesla has been working to release a version of the Robotaxi through the development of Full Self-Driving. This has been an effort that included seeking top-tier engineering talent and taking incredible leaps of faith, including switching to a Vision-only approach for Full Self-Driving.

Musk commended the Tesla team for its hard work:

Super congratulations to the @Tesla_AI software & chip design teams on a successful @Robotaxi launch!! Culmination of a decade of hard work. Both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla. Advertisement — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 22, 2025

It’s truly an incredible accomplishment, as many considered Robotaxi a “failure” despite it not even being rolled out. In May, we reported on media outlets calling the Robotaxi rollout a total failure, despite Tesla always maintaining the launch would happen in June:

Hundreds of rides have already been taken, and there have not been many complaints. It’s an incredible jump forward for Tesla.

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It was very small but not bad! Tesla bull Dan Ives loved it.

After years of delays, Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi finally launched yesterday in Austin. And by many accounts it was successful, with its stock surging more than 8% this morning.

The service was much less exciting than what normal people might consider a true autonomous ride service, since…

it was within a well-mapped subsection of the city,

there was a safety monitor in the front passenger seat,

it had remote operators ready to potentially step in as well as chase cars, in some instances following behind,

it only operates from 6 a.m. to midnight in good weather,

and only a chosen few pro-Tesla influencers were invited.

The circumscribed launch still got off the ground without a major hitch.

Here’s what we know about the launch from watching numerous livestreams from those lucky enough to get a backseat to the launch.

Invitees: 20+

Based on this X list by Australian tech writer Jason Cartwright, plus a couple we noticed not on the list, there were about 20 people who received invites to use the robotaxi at launch. The invites pretty much all went to pro-Tesla influencers, who livestreamed and posted about their experiences for their audiences.

Vehicles: >10

While a number of reports said there were 10 to 20 robotaxis available, it looks like as many as 35 Model Ys were on the road. Google’s Waymo, of course, is operating more than 100 driverless vehicles in Austin.

Cost: $4.20

The initial Tesla robotaxi riders were charged a flat fee of $4.20 per ride because CEO Elon Musk is gonna Musk. It didn’t allow tips. We don’t know what it will ultimately cost when the service is opened up to the public.

Coverage square milage: N/A

While we don’t know the exact square milage of the Tesla geofence, public screenshots show the geofenced area to be located south of the Colorado river in areas including South Congress and South Lamar — very popular tourist areas. Google’s Waymo, for comparison, covers 37 miles in Austin, including areas north of the Colorado River, where downtown Austin is located.

Other people in the car: 1

Tesla is obviously pushing the limits of what autonomous driving means, considering each robotaxi ride yesterday had a “Tesla Safety Monitor” sitting in the front passenger seat. While some of the riders tried to interact with the monitors to ask them questions about the service, they were mostly mum. A number of people pointed out that the safety monitors had their hands glued to the door button, presumably programmed to stop the car in case of an incident.

Software: not FSD (Supervised) 13.2.9

Musk has said the vehicles are unmodified, new Model Ys that are running a newer, “unsupervised” version of FSD (Supervised) 13.2.9 that owners of newer Teslas have. Musk says this robotaxi version will merge with the other branch “soon.”

A number of the robotaxi riders we watched said the software and ride felt very similar to what they’ve experienced in their own Teslas with the supervised software.

Major incidents: 0

While there were a number of small incidents, including this one (embedded below) where the robotaxi mistakenly got in the turning lane when it was supposed to go straight and then repeatedly veered left and straight in an intersection, overall it seemed like the first day of the robotaxi launch went off without any major hitches.

Tesla bull and Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, who expects autonomous to add $1 trillion to Tesla’s market cap, had a great experience. “We took two approximately 15 minute rides around Austin and the key takeaways are that it was a comfortable, safe, and personalized experience,” he wrote yesterday. “To really put it into perspective, there was a moment where we drove up a narrow road going up a hill with cars parked on both sides with oncoming traffic and people opening their car doors into the road and the Robotaxi masterfully maneuvered with patience and safety among this chaos.”

Of course, if Tesla expands any of its parameters — number of vehicles, who can ride, coverage area — the results may vary.

Stock price: +8%

As of 10:25 a.m. ET, Tesla’s stock was trading up more than 8% on the successful launch of the service, which Musk has said is integral to the future of the company.