Tesla targets Q2 2027 for customer cars in its robotaxi fleet

Tesla says owners could add their cars to its robotaxi fleet in the second quarter of 2027. The target came during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, where vice president of Autonomous Driving Ashok Elluswamy said Tesla was working to enable the service.

Elluswamy said Cybercabs and Model Y use the same software, which Tesla expects to offer customers in its V15 release. Customer cars would also need to be included in Tesla’s geofences and fleet management system. He said the company expects to activate some customer vehicles around Q2 next year.

Tesla has made similar promises before. In 2019, Elon Musk said customer-owned cars could join a “Tesla Network” of robotaxis and earn their owners income. He also predicted one million Tesla robotaxis would be on the road by 2020. Neither promise has come true, and the company’s goal of unsupervised Full Self-Driving remains unfulfilled.

Tesla says it has driven 3.3 million miles autonomously, up from 380,000 unsupervised miles reported in July. More than 75 percent of new Tesla buyers in North America chose Full Self-Driving (Supervised) this quarter, almost 20 percentage points higher than last quarter.

Opening the fleet to customer cars would still face regulatory and insurance hurdles. Older Model 3 and Model Y vehicles may also lack the hardware needed for driverless service. Tesla’s Q2 2027 target remains uncertain given its history of deadlines slipping.