Tesla robotaxi expansion in Texas plagued by long waits, sparse service

Tesla’s Texas robotaxi push is colliding with the plain frustrations of a service that still looks far from ready for daily use. In test rides in Dallas and Houston, passengers faced long waits, repeated no-rides-available messages and drop-offs far from their destinations, even as Tesla markets autonomous rides as available in Austin, Dallas and Houston.

One Dallas trip from Southern Methodist University to Dallas City Hall stretched to nearly two hours on a route that would normally take about 20 minutes. The app first warned of high demand, then said no rides were available, before finally offering a vehicle after more than a half hour of searching. Once the ride began, the car took a circuitous path on surface streets instead of the more direct freeway option and left the passenger about a 15-minute walk from Dallas City Hall.

Tesla says the service is limited to certain parts of Austin, Dallas and Houston, and its support page says the app shows a visual service map based on location. That patchwork rollout matters because the company’s robotaxi effort is being sold as the start of a major new business, not a novelty for a narrow set of streets. Tesla’s first-quarter 2026 update said it launched unsupervised Robotaxi rides in Dallas and Houston in April, while its first-quarter financial results were released on April 22.

Elon Musk told investors on the April 22 earnings call that Tesla was taking a “cautious approach” to avoid injuries or fatalities. That caution stands in sharp contrast to his July 2025 prediction that Tesla robotaxis would serve half the U.S. population by the end of 2025. Tesla’s own delivery and production release showed the company produced more than 408,000 vehicles and delivered more than 358,000 in the quarter, underscoring how much of its valuation still depends on turning autonomous driving into a reliable, scalable service.

The gap is especially stark next to Waymo, Tesla’s closest U.S. benchmark. In February, Waymo said it had opened public rides in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, bringing its commercial metro areas to 10. Tesla’s Texas rollout, by comparison, remains confined and inconsistent, with service that can disappear when riders actually need it and drop them short of their destination. That leaves the bigger question hanging over the robotaxi race: whether the promise is moving faster than the roads, the oversight and the expectations built around it.