Musk declares Robotaxi win over Waymo — but Waymo drives 7x more
Musk said the Robotaxi race with Waymo "was never a real contest" after Tesla logged 438,000 driverless miles in Austin in a week — but Electrek notes it compares Tesla's best week to Waymo's spring average, and Waymo still drives about 7x more per week nationally.
Per Electrek's analysis, Tesla's driverless fleet covered 438,000 miles in Austin with no safety monitor in the week ending October 18, up 30% from the prior week. Waymo averaged about 406,000 miles a week in Austin over Q2 (April–June). The key caveat is the mismatch in timeframes; Waymo publishes data about three months after each quarter ends.
Nationally the gap is wide. Waymo logged about 3.90 million rider-only miles a week in Q2 and 271.3 million since 2020. Tesla's best week was 558,000 miles, with 3.11 million driverless miles since January 22 — roughly 7x weekly and 87x cumulative by Electrek's math. Austin is 79% of Tesla's weekly total, with Dallas at 94,841 miles.
The Austin ramp is driven by Cybercab, which opened to public rides on September 3; the Texas DMV list shows 463 Cybercabs, 337 added in the last 30 days. On the Q3 call Ashok Elluswamy said Tesla wants to "swarm Austin with Cybercabs," and that service is limited by software, not regulators. The data comes from the community Robotaxi Tracker project, not official figures.
Summaries are prepared by the Tesla Briefing editorial team and may not capture every nuance of the original reporting. You are solely responsible for your own investment decisions.