Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he anticipated a "major rebound" for the automaker ahead of its long-anticipated rollout of a driverless taxi service in Austin, Texas, ABC News reported.
Musk made his prediction on CNBC in May after Tesla had a rocky start to the year. Global first-quarter deliveries dropped 13% year-over-year, while some European markets saw new registrations plunge by more than half, according to Yahoo Finance.
Most concerning, the decline in sales came as overall electric vehicle sales continued to climb, with 1 in 4 cars sold in 2025 expected to be an EV, per the International Energy Agency.
Analysts have ascribed the sudden drop largely to boycotts of Tesla dealerships and Musk's actions, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, where his support for far-right political causes has stirred controversy, especially among electric vehicle purchasers.
Still, Tesla remained by far the world's most valuable automaker by market capitalization, with its $1.1 trillion market cap exceeding the next nine most valuable car companies combined, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Despite the recent headwinds, Musk expressed optimism that the company soon would see a dramatic turnaround thanks to the robotaxi rollout.
"We'll probably have hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, Teslas doing self-driving in the U.S.," Musk said in the CNBC interview, per The Associated Press.
As analysts have pointed out, Musk has made such promises in the past but, to date, has failed to deliver. Meanwhile, driverless-taxi competitor Waymo has already completed millions of paid rides across multiple markets.
"How quickly can he expand the fleet?" questioned Garrett Nelson, an analyst with CFRA Research, per ABC News. "We're talking maybe a dozen vehicles initially. It's very small."
Indeed, Tesla's first rollout of its driverless taxis will be extremely modest, with just 10 to 12 test vehicles hitting the streets of Austin, Texas, per ABC News.
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Cost 💰 Meanwhile, experts have estimated Waymo's fleet of operational driverless taxis at roughly 700 vehicles, mostly operating in California, per the New York Post.
Competition for the burgeoning market is expected to be fierce, as analysts expect the global robotaxi industry to reach nearly $120 billion annually by 2031 and potentially as high as $1 billion by 2040, according to Fortune Business Insights.
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