Tesla’s long-teased robotaxi ambitions are finally pulling into the spotlight, with the company preparing to launch a fleet of self-driving vehicles in Austin, Texas, as early as June. Operating under the codename “Project Alicorn”, the program is expected to begin with just 10 to 20 vehicles, each equipped with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software—a system that has stirred both fascination and regulatory scrutiny over the years.
If the numbers pan out the way Tesla loyalists hope, the business case could be eye-watering. According to one projection, 100,000 robotaxis driving 100 miles per day at $1 per mile, with Tesla keeping 80 cents of each dollar, would result in $2.9 billion in annual profit. That’s with just a fraction of the potential fleet. Scale that to a million cars, and the back-of-the-napkin maths suggests hundreds of billions in possible returns.
The comparison often drawn is with Waymo, Google’s sister company under Alphabet, which has logged years of autonomous vehicle testing and now runs 1,500 robotaxis across a few U.S. cities. Despite completing over 1.3 million rides a month, Waymo is still not turning a profit—pointing to the costs and technical headaches that continue to haunt the dream of driverless mobility.
Safety remains the core concern. U.S. regulators, particularly the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), have asked Tesla to provide detailed information about its robotaxi rollout. Previous incidents involving the FSD system—including fatal crashes—have drawn criticism and opened up questions about readiness. Critics argue that even if the software is approaching technical competence, public trust and regulatory backing are still trailing behind.
Tesla, however, is banking on its edge in vertical integration—owning the car, the software, the data, and now potentially, the ride-hailing layer—to outpace its rivals. Elon Musk has long promised that Tesla owners could one day monetise their vehicles by letting them operate as robotaxis while they sleep. That future may still be fuzzy, but Project Alicorn brings it one step closer to a public test.
Beyond America, the appetite for autonomy is also quietly building in Australia. The National Transport Commission estimates that by 2030, around 2.6% of new passenger vehicles sold will be either highly or fully automated. That share is tipped to rise to about 50% by 2046. Local firms like Applied EV are investing in autonomous technologies, while global players such as BYD and Uber are eyeing the Australian market for eventual rollouts.
Australia’s regulatory settings, however, remain a work in progress. Each state currently sets its own rules for autonomous vehicle trials, and the national legal framework is still catching up to the idea of cars without steering wheels or human drivers.
With cities like Melbourne and Sydney facing traffic pressure and rising rideshare costs, robotaxis could appeal as a solution. Yet whether they’re viewed as a public transport supplement or a tech gimmick will likely depend on how early deployments perform abroad.
Tesla’s entry into the robotaxi market won’t be the final word on autonomous transport. But it does push the conversation forward. Will robotaxis become the cash cows their backers predict, or are they simply the next moonshot in a sector full of overpromises? June may offer the first glimpse of which way things are heading.
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