Tesla just passed Waymo in Austin in weekly driverless miles. If its recent 20% weekly growth holds, it passes Waymo nationally in roughly 11 weeks and is doing the volume of Uber + Lyft across three Texas metros by mid-February.
📌 The Core Development
The accumulating unsupervised miles are already large enough to start answering the safety question versus humans and versus Waymo. That has implications for whether LiDAR is actually required.
I noted in my Q3 earnings summary that Tesla’s unsupervised robotaxi miles jumped from 250,000 last quarter to about 1.7 million, and then the same day the company said they were already at 3.3 million. That implies roughly 20% weekly growth on the recent run. I want to take that number seriously for a limited window and see where it goes relative to Waymo and to the actual ride-hail market in the Texas cities where Tesla is already operating. Then I’ll draw some conclusions.
🔍 Background & Sector Context
Tesla may have just passed Waymo in Austin. Tesla: 438K driverless miles in the week to Oct 18 Waymo: 406K/week (Q2 2026, its latest data) Different periods, so Waymo’s next release will give a better picture. https://t.co/NlnWEuhQUi pic.twitter.com/yYEy6JwAc0 — Robotaxi Tracker (@RtaxiTracker) October 22, 2026
Tesla may have just passed Waymo in Austin. Tesla: 438K driverless miles in the week to Oct 18 Waymo: 406K/week (Q2 2026, its latest data) Different periods, so Waymo’s next release will give a better picture. https://t.co/NlnWEuhQUi pic.twitter.com/yYEy6JwAc0
📊 Industry & Real-World Impact
It looks like Tesla has already surpassed Waymo in Austin. Next, let’s look at what it would take for them to pass Waymo nationally and for them to start to eat into Uber and Lyft marketshare.
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🔮 Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead
Tesla Unsupervised Weekly Miles Projection (20% compound weekly growth from current national unsupervised miles/week) :
From 558K/week, the rate crosses Waymo’s recent ~4 million weekly national total in around week 11. By week 16, the weekly rate would be roughly 10 million miles. That is the point where Tesla’s weekly volume would exceed half the current Uber + Lyft volume in Austin, Dallas, and Houston combined.
