π UPDATE β September 3, 2026
Tesla's Austin Robotaxi program is accelerating fast. On September 2, tech reporter Sawyer Merritt confirmed he completed his first fully unsupervised Model Y Robotaxi ride in Austin β no one in the front seats β calling it "a pretty wild feeling" ahead of today's anticipated Cybercab event. The fleet has now grown to at least 420 registered Robotaxis in Texas, and early reports suggest units may be beginning to operate on highways for the first time. π
Crucially, Tesla's registered autonomous vehicle count in Texas has now surpassed every competitor except Waymo β a notable shift from the original article's finding that Tesla led all providers. Waymo has since pulled ahead or maintained a lead in total registrations, making the Texas AV race a two-horse contest.
@SawyerMerritt Β· Sep 2, 2026
"Just took my first ever Unsupervised @Tesla Model Y Robotaxi ride in Austin. To sit in the back seat of a car that I own, while nobody is in the front seats and it's driving itself, is a pretty wild feeling. Cybercab tomorrow is gonna take it to the next level."
View on X β
Tesla has topped autonomous vehicle registrations in Texas over the last 30 days, outpacing every other provider in the state. The data, surfaced by Whole Mars Catalog, points to an accelerating real-world deployment push from Tesla at a time when the AV race is heating up across the US.
Texas has become one of the most closely watched states for autonomous vehicle activity, in part because of its relatively permissive regulatory environment and the concentration of Tesla's own operations there β including the Gigafactory Austin campus. Leading the registration count in that state isn't just a symbolic win; it reflects vehicles that are legally authorized to operate autonomously on public roads.
For Tesla owners and observers tracking the self-driving rollout, this is a concrete data point β not a projection or a promise. Registrations are a prerequisite for deployment, and volume leadership in a major state suggests Tesla is moving faster on the ground than its competitors. Whether that translates into a broader supervised or unsupervised FSD expansion in the near term remains the key question to watch.
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Sources & reporting notes
The links below identify the material source records used for this report.
- @wholemars on X (2026-09-01T21:25:05.000Z) β Direct source
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