Elon Musk expects Tesla Robotaxis to be “widespread” in the US by the end of the year

After an uncharacteristically clear-eyed earnings call where Elon Musk was cautious about the timing of the company’s many ambitious goals, the Tesla CEO is back to making his usual unlikely predictions:

“We already have some vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three cities in Texas, and it probably will be widespread in the US by the end of this year,” Musk said by video at the Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv on Monday. It’s a prediction Musk has made before, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

Tesla’s expansion of its Robotaxi service, which launched nearly a year ago, has been painstakingly slow. The vast majority of the Robotaxis — more than 500 in the Bay Area — have a person behind the wheel using a version of Supervised Full Self-Driving. In Austin, 12 of the 40 Robotaxis have been spotted driving unsupervised in the last week, according to Robotaxi Tracker. There are two more each in Dallas and Houston. Alphabet’s Waymo, by comparison, is already operating more than 3,000 of its driverless vehicles in cities across the country.

“Initially, we’re taking a very cautious approach to the rollout here,” Musk had said on the last earnings call, estimating the service would be in a dozen states by the end of the year. Today he was more bullish, estimating that in 5 or 10 years, “90% of all distance driven will be driven by the AI in a self-driving car.”