Hello, and welcome to Robotaxi Weekly. My name is Ethan McKanna, and I’m excited to be writing here on what’s happening with autonomous vehicles. I’ll be covering news in the industry using my data and analysis, as well as including real on-the-ground coverage wherever possible.
If you’re subscribed, you’re likely at least somewhat familiar with Robotaxi Tracker, my project to help the public see how robotaxis are actually performing. I started tracking the industry because I was curious about what was happening, and I felt public statements from companies weren’t always enough.
My first encounter with AVs was back in 2018 when I heard about Waymo’s autonomous pilot in Phoenix. As someone who has grown up fascinated with technology, I was immediately captivated by the idea of a car with no driver. In 2024, I was finally able to take a ride for myself as Waymo expanded to Austin. I immediately became addicted to the experience, and spent much of the free early access period taking rides around Austin.
In 2025, as Tesla began their early pilot and Waymo continued to expand their operations in Austin, I increasingly became interested in understanding what was actually happening. And so that’s why I built Robotaxi Tracker, a way to understand what’s happening through the power of community combined with unique strategies to pull data from providers and public data sources.
As I’ve built up the tracker over the last year, I’ve realized that sometimes it can be confusing or hard to interpret what the data means. With Robotaxi Weekly, I’m trying to help put the numbers in context to provide a more complete picture of what’s actually going on. I hope this serves as a useful resource, and I’m excited to talk more about what’s happening in autonomy.
Tesla Expands Robotaxi Houston
On Monday, Tesla expanded their Robotaxi service in Houston by 10x, from a small 25-sq-mile service area in the suburbs to a large Starship-shaped region of over 254 sq miles. This makes it their second-largest geofence by area, surpassed only by Austin at 272 sq miles.
I was on the ground on launch day and took a handful of rides to see how things were operating in the new region. The new area felt familiar, with some of the same core weaknesses and strengths I’ve found across all Tesla Robotaxi areas.
As usual, the ride quality itself is incredibly impressive. Tesla’s self-driving is very smooth, and the entertainment experience and deep integration with the car remain best in class. I had recently taken Waymo’s next-generation Ojai vehicle in Houston, and the difference in ride comfort is stark (I’ve had my share of hard phantom braking and harsh maneuvers in the Ojai). Robotaxi wait times were reasonable, and prices were lower than the competition’s.
The new service is far from perfect, however, and I often found cases where the routing was adding significantly more time than the optimal route. In some extreme cases, this turned a trip of a couple of blocks into a 40+ minute ride. There’s no confirmed explanation, but I found the common denominator in many of these cases was a railroad line separating the pickup and dropoff.
Not only is the routing adding time to some trips, but some areas within the advertised service area aren’t even accessible at all, particularly on the southeast side of the geofence. Routing and reachability have long been problems with AVs, but I’ll be watching improvements here closely, since they should signal Tesla’s increased confidence in their system and their ability to serve new metros.
Based on Texas DMV registrations combined with Tesla’s lookup system, there are 114 Model Ys allocated to Houston. So far, 47 of those have been logged by riders on Robotaxi Tracker. This compares to Waymo’s fleet of 50+ cars as of their last public statement, with 31 logged on Robotaxi Tracker.
Despite these issues, the rapid growth is a promising first step, and if Austin is a good indicator, they’ll likely get ironed out over the next couple of months as Tesla dials in operations.
Waymo Expands by Almost 250 Sq Miles
A day after Tesla’s expansion, Waymo responded with a five-city expansion of almost 250 sq miles. Three are currently live in the app, with a small South Bay expansion and a large LA expansion rolling out soon.
Nashville
The service area expanded by 26 sq miles to 76 sq miles total.
Orlando
The service area expanded by 43 sq miles to 109 sq miles total. The airport is within the shaded region shown on Waymo’s site but is carved out of the geofence in the app.
San Diego
The service area expanded by 39 sq miles to 87 sq miles total.
LA & Bay Area
LA extends south to Torrance, while the Bay Area gets a small South Bay extension to cover the BART connection at Berryessa Station. These are not yet live in the app but are rolling out soon.
Other News
274 AVs were registered with the Texas DMV last week. Tesla has passed 1,000 vehicles, more than half of them Cybercabs. Waymo remains in the lead with 1,259 total registered.
Tesla expanded their Robotaxi service hours to 6am-2am in all markets, as they incrementally head toward 24/7.
Austin cameras: 12,557 Waymo vs 9,065 Cybercab detections (not including Model Y Robotaxis). Cybercab detections were up 15% week over week, and Waymo’s were up 7%.
Tesla may have surpassed Waymo in weekly miles in Austin, as growth accelerates to an increase of 438k miles per week.