Tesla Starts Driverless Robotaxi In Austin As Elon Musk Calls Autonomy 'Essentially A Solved Problem' At Davos

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) has finally rolled out driverless Robotaxis in Austin, with CEO Elon Musk reaffirming that the EV giant has solved autonomous driving during an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Tesla Begins Driverless Robotaxi Operations

Tesla, in an announcement on the social media platform X on Thursday, shared that the company has begun its driverless Robotaxi operations. "Full unsupervised @robotaxi ride in Austin," the company said in the post.

However, there could be a slight caveat to the claim. In the video that Tesla quoted with the announcement, Tesla cars with humans inside can be seen following the Robotaxis. At this moment, it was unclear about the purpose of the trailing cars.

Tesla didn't immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment.

It's worth noting that Tesla's stock has rallied by over 4% since Musk's EV giant shared the announcement. Musk had also shared earlier that, towards the end of last year, he was driven around Austin autonomously by a Tesla Model Y Robotaxi. 

The company's service, however, failed to reach the driverless operations goals by the end of 2025, set by Musk. The billionaire had predicted, on multiple occasions in the past, that Tesla's Robotaxi would be driverless last year.  

Elon Musk Claims Autonomy Is Solved

Speaking at the WEF, Musk shared that self-driving was "essentially a solved problem at this point," adding that the company was pushing to secure Supervised self-driving approval in Europe next month." Musk also shared that he wished for a similar timeline in China.

Tesla and the Dutch safety regulator RDW have both confirmed a February 2026 launch timeline for Supervised self-driving technology to receive approval in the European market, but this could be subject to change.

According to Benzinga Edge Rankings, Tesla scores well on the Quality and offers a favorable price trend in the Long term.

Price Action: TSLA rose 4.15% to $449.36 at Market close on Thursday, surging 0.51% further to $451.65 during the after-hours session.

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