Tesla shares rose to their highest level in more than three months on Tuesday after the company’s registered robotaxi fleet in Texas passed 1,000 vehicles, with another 81 Cybercabs added to the state’s autonomous vehicle registry.
Tesla now has 1,051 robotaxis registered with the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, 544 Cybercabs and 507 Model Ys.
The stock climbed as much as 4.1% to $407.50 in midday trading, its highest intraday level since July 10, and was up 3.7% at $405.95. It has gained about 9% over two sessions, after closing up 5.2% on Monday.
The 81 new registrations brought Tesla’s Cybercab total to 544. Tesla had added nearly 200 of the two-seat robotaxis to its fleet in the last week alone.
Cybercabs now make up just over half of Tesla’s registered Texas fleet. The tracker counted 248 additions in the last seven days and 418 Cybercabs in the last 30, while Model Y registrations rose by 87 over the same 30 days.
Registrations run well ahead of the cars riders actually see in service. The tracker counts 415 Tesla robotaxis in service in Austin, more than half of them Cybercabs, 76 in Dallas and 39 in Houston.
Tesla’s Cybercab carries paying riders only in Austin so far. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said on the third-quarter call that Tesla plans “to bring it out in some other cities before the end of this year,” and Ashok Elluswamy, VP of AI Software, said on October 10 that it was coming to Dallas “soon.”
X user ‘scotsrule08’ wrote on X that had counted about 300 Cybercabs in Dallas on October 4, shared a video on Tuesday of a lot there packed with the vehicles.
Analysts turn more positive
The rally began on Monday, when Barclays analyst Dan Levy upgraded Tesla to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ and raised his price target to $450 from $370, according to the note archived by Price Target, EV‘s sister publication that archives Wall Street research word for word.
Levy argued that a widely expected combination with SpaceX should come at a premium for Tesla shareholders and that the carmaker’s core business and robotaxi program were turning a corner, EV reported on Monday.
Cantor Fitzgerald kept its ‘Overweight’ rating and $485 price target on the same day.
Tuesday’s level is still about 19% below the stock’s 52-week high of $498.83.
Musk promises beaches
“Coming soon,” Musk wrote on Tuesday under a post in which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said: “They need to have the Tampa and Miami ones include the beaches!” Musk gave no timeline.
DeSantis was quoting a list shared by Merritt of Tesla’s current geofences. It puts Austin at 272 square miles, Houston at 254, Dallas at 81, Miami at 31, Orlando at 26 and Tampa at 24, all served by unsupervised vehicles.
Tesla’s Robotaxi account announced the Houston expansion on Monday. “Houston, we have liftoff. Bigger service area now live,” it wrote, with a map whose new outline resembles a SpaceX Starship rocket. “I swear it’s just a coincidence 😂,” Musk wrote.
The Houston zone grew by 229 square miles, approximately tenfold, according to Robotaxi Tracker, which flagged the change. It now runs from northwest Houston through downtown to Bellaire and is about five times the 49 square miles Waymo serves in the city, though the tracker counts only 39 Tesla cars there.
Musk quoted a map from the Robotaxi Radar account setting the two Houston zones side by side under the caption “Waymo just got mogged by Tesla in Houston,” adding only “🤭.”
Waymo said on Tuesday it would add nearly 250 square miles across five cities over the next week, in a post on its website. It is extending service to Torrance in Los Angeles, La Jolla in San Diego and farther south in Nashville, nearly doubling eastern coverage in Orlando and adding a BART connection in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Robotaxi Tracker put Waymo’s Orlando area at 119 square miles after a 53-square-mile addition, against Tesla’s 26 in the city.
