Nevada’s Transportation Authority granted Tesla a permit to run driverless vehicles in Las Vegas last month and capped the fleet at 10 cars. Tesla’s application had asked for 5,000.
The permit also confines Tesla to an approved stretch of the Strip, bans pickups at Harry Reid International Airport, and limits the vehicles to 45 mph.
Tesla asked for all of Clark County
Tesla Robotaxi, LLC filed docket 26-05015 with the Nevada Transportation Authority in early June, seeking an Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit. The application covered all of Clark County and requested authority for up to 5,000 vehicles during the first 12 months. It specifically named Harry Reid International Airport and Henderson Executive Airport as pickup locations.
The Authority signed off on July 27. Ten fully autonomous vehicles, operating only inside a geofence the regulator has to approve, with a 45 mph ceiling and no airport service.
There are conditions beyond the fleet cap. Every vehicle has to be labeled “robotaxi,” passengers have to be told they’re riding driverless, and the trips require “appropriate human supervision.” Growing the fleet past 10 means going back to the Authority for a new approval.
Nevada regulators haven’t publicly explained how a 5,000-vehicle request became a 10-vehicle permit.
Zoox is authorized for 100
Amazon’s Zoox holds AVNC Permit 001 in Nevada. Its most recent amendment, issued July 16, eleven days before Tesla’s, authorizes a “fleet limited to no more than one hundred (100) vehicles.” Zoox is currently running roughly 50 on the Strip and started charging for rides this month after clearing its federal hurdle.
Waymo filed its own Nevada application in June, docket 26-06007. Uber’s Aviari Services subsidiary filed in July. Both are pending, and Waymo already went fully driverless in Las Vegas in early July.
Tesla is the third autonomous operator to reach the Strip, and it showed up asking for the biggest allocation by a factor of 50.
10 cars in Vegas would grow Tesla’s fleet by half
Here’s the number that puts the whole thing in perspective. Tesla’s entire unsupervised “Robotaxi” fleet across the United States is roughly about 20 vehicles operating at the same time. Austin peaked near 25 in late April and has drifted down since.
Nevada’s cap isn’t the binding constraint. Tesla doesn’t have 5,000 driverless cars. It doesn’t have 100. Ten more in Las Vegas would be a 50% increase in its national fleet.
The software is the bottleneck, not the permit and not the hardware. Tesla is already building Cybercabs faster than it can deploy them, and Elon Musk has said the program won’t see material revenue until at least 2027 and he has been pushing that timeline for roughly a decade.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is funny. Asking for 5,000 permits. That’s about 1,000 more vehicles than there are taxi permits in Vegas.
It doesn’t make any sense for the market, nor for Tesla’s capacity to deploy self-driving vehicles.
If Tesla could operate robotaxis unsupervised at scale, it would start by maxing out its existing markets in Texas and Florida, where there are little to no regulations. But it can’t. That’s why there are only about 20 Tesla robotaxis operating at any given time.
Even 10 Tesla Robotaxis in Vegas is a stretch for the company’s current capacity. The request for 5,000 was just another piece of evidence to support the fact that Tesla, and especially Elon Musk, is delusional about its autonomous driving capability.
Tesla will soon launch Robotaxi in Las Vegas with a handful of vehicles, and it will just be one more demonstration as they wait for another supposed breakthrough to enable scaling.
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