Overview
- Texas’s public DMV tracker lists 577 Waymo robotaxis and 42 Tesla vehicles authorized for driverless ridehailing, showing Waymo’s fleet in the state is more than ten times larger than Tesla’s.
- The state law behind the tracker requires operators to declare that their vehicles meet SAE Level 4 automation, a standard for high automation without a human driver in specified conditions.
- Tesla has told regulators that most of its cars are equipped with Level 2 driver assistance and has not explained how any vehicles were certified as Level 4 under the new rule.
- Federal safety records show 17 incidents involving Tesla’s Austin fleet between July 2025 and April 2026, including two minor injuries and one hospitalization, all occurring while human safety supervisors were on board.
- The tracker also highlights broader market differences, with Avride and Nuro showing larger Texas registrations than Tesla and Waymo operating an expanded national commercial fleet of roughly 4,000 vehicles, a gap that shapes competition and regulatory scrutiny.