Tesla Rows Back on Robotaxi Timetable

Tesla reported a 16% year-on-year increase in revenues for the first quarter of 2026 to 22.4 billion US dollars, thanks to growing demand for its vehicles in APAC and South America, and a rebound of demand in both EMEA and North America

Although Tesla expects to begin volume production of its self-driving Cybercab this year, it sounded a cautious note on the rollout of its robotaxi propositions.  "You should expect that initial production of Cybercab and Semi will be very slow, but then ramping up, and going exponential towards the end of the year and certainly next year," CEO Elon Musk said. "We certainly hope to have unsupervised FSD (full self driving) or Robotaxi operating in, I don't know, a dozen or so states by the end of this year. Initially, we're taking a very cautious approach to the rollout here. ... probably unsupervised FSD or Robotaxi revenue will not be super material this year, but I do think it'll be material probably in a significant way next year."

Asked when its FSD (unsupervised) software will be available for customers cars, Musk said: "I'm just guessing here, but probably in the fourth quarter. It's difficult to release this to everyone, everywhere, all at once because we do want to make sure that there are not unique situations in a city that particularly complex intersection. ... I think we would release unsupervised gradually to the customer fleet as we feel like a particular geography is confirmed to be safe."

Tesla reported that paid Robotaxi miles nearly doubled sequentially in the first quarter and it further expanded its unsupervised operation area in Austin and launched unsupervised rides in both Dallas and Houston in April.

Major step up in capex

Tesla's capital spending leapt 67% year-on-year in the quarter to almost 2.5 billion dollars, as it invests to ensure "access to key materials and componentry in each region across vehicle, energy and AI as trade and geopolitics become more uncertain."  

Tesla said it expects to spend more than 25 billion dollars in 2026 on capex, compared to about 8.5 billion dollars in 2025.  "We are paying for six factories which were going to go into operation," noted Vaibhav Taneja, CFO of Tesla. "Some have already started, some would go into operation later part of this year. We're further increasing our investment in AI-related initiatives, including the AI infrastructure to support Robotaxi and the launch of Optimus. We've already started placing orders for the research semiconductor fab in Austin and for solar manufacturing equipment."

In its energy generation and storage business, Tesla said it began meaningful customer deployments of a new solar panel, which has 18 individual power zones – 3x more than a conventional residential panel – enabling it to reliably produce more energy in shady conditions. 

Preparations for Tesla's first large-scale Optimus (robotics) factory are scheduled to start in the second quarter, with significant production set for 2027. "The first generation line, designed for one million robots a year, will replace the Model S and Model X lines in Fremont," Tesla said. "We are also preparing Gigafactory Texas for the second-generation line, which is being designed for long-term annual production capacity of 10 million robots."

Musk said it plans to put a lot of intelligence locally in the robot. "It needs to be enough intelligence that if the robot gets disconnected, like if it's a bad cellular signal or there isn't Wi-Fi, Optimus can't just get stuck. ...The car does not need any cellular or Wi-Fi connection to be able to drive safely." Source: Tesla collateral.