By Al Root

Safety is a concern with robo-taxis, but the data show the robots are the better drivers.

"Survey data from AlphaRoc shows that 47% of consumers still do not trust self-driving vehicles at all," wrote BofA Securities analyst Alexander Perry in a recent report. That's almost half, but a two-percentage-point improvement over the past years.

It's still early for scalable robo-taxi technology. People aren't used to them. They may need to rethink their position, though. Tesla has a reportable incident -- robo-taxi operators are required to report incidents to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration -- every 101,000 miles driven, noted Perry. Alphabet's Waymo has an incident every 108,000 miles.

It might take eight or 10 years for a typical car owner to drive 100,000 miles. That's one bump or scrape over that span. What's more, Tesla hasn't reported any serious injuries. Waymo data indicates a serious incident every 19.3 million miles, "which is about 90% better than our rate for human drivers at a serious incident for every 1.9 million miles driven," wrote Perry.

Solid early safety data is very good news for Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has essentially bet the company on AI applications, including robo-taxis. Tesla launched a robo-taxi service in Austin, Texas, about a year ago and started producing a purpose-built robo-taxi, Cybercab, this year.

Tesla robo-taxis are now in four cities, including three in Texas. Data from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles show that Tesla's robo-taxi fleet consists of 69 cars as of June 16. Waymo's Texas fleet is 620. Tesla is pricing about 20% lower than Uber, according to Perry, but it has longer wait times.

Tesla's robo-taxi business isn't contributing significant sales or earnings yet, but investors expect it to do so in a year or two. That expectation is a reason Tesla stock trades for about 185 times earnings expected over the next 12 months.

A lack of progress in robo-taxis is one reason Tesla stock has been stuck this year. Coming into Thursday trading, shares were down 12% year to date. More cities with more Tesla robo-taxis would help investor sentiment.

Shares of the EV maker were up 0.5% in premarket trading at $398.30, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.9% and 0.5%, respectively.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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June 18, 2026 07:51 ET (11:51 GMT)

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