Tesla added 124 Model Ys to its Texas robotaxi roster in a single batch on Friday, the biggest one-day Model Y jump it has made. That takes Tesla Robotaxi, LLC to 1,204 registered automated vehicles in the state, 631 Model Ys and 573 Cybercabs, and leaves it just 55 cars behind Waymo’s 1,259.
The numbers come from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles’ automated-vehicle list, which publishes every authorized VIN by operator. Two independent trackers that poll that list, Robotaxi Pulse and Robotaxi Tracker, show the same totals. Tesla went from 1,080 to 1,204 in one update. Every one of the new cars was a Model Y, and the Cybercab count didn’t move.
That’s a change of pattern. When we last counted, on Oct. 27, Cybercabs had just overtaken Model Ys on the Texas books, 544 to 507. The Model Y figure had been parked at 507 since Oct. 22, and nearly every batch since then had been Cybercabs only. Friday’s update tips the mix back the other way. Model Ys are now about 52% of the roster again.
How fast the gap closed
Robotaxi Pulse’s change log tells the story in plain arithmetic. Tesla has added 277 vehicles in the past seven days and 658 in the past 30, which means the Texas fleet more than doubled in October. Waymo added 49 cars on Oct. 29 and 3 the day before. Robotaxi Tracker, which started polling the state list on June 11, counts 1,135 Tesla additions since then against 639 for Waymo.
Waymo’s Texas fleet is 863 Jaguar I-Paces and 396 Ojai (formerly Zeekr RT) vehicles, according to Robotaxi Tracker. Avride, with 344 Hyundai Ioniq 5s, is a distant third. Nobody else is close.
Tesla-tracking accounts on X flagged the jump within hours, and the Robotaxi Radar account put Tesla’s October additions at 626 so far, a monthly record. The exact October figure depends on which day you start counting. The direction doesn’t.
One caveat we’ll keep repeating, because it matters. A registration isn’t a ride. The state list shows VINs, model year, make and model. It says nothing about which city a car serves, whether it carried a passenger today, or how Tesla’s remote-support setup works. Registrations show where the fleet is going a few weeks before it shows up on the street, and that’s all they show.
Halloween marketing, Cybercab style
Tesla also leaned into the holiday. The official Robotaxi account posted “Make good decisions this weekend, take a Robotaxi home,” a timely line given that service hours in Austin now run from 6 AM to 2 AM, as we reported on Friday. A few hours later it posted a clip of a Cybercab driving around Austin with skeletons in both seats, captioned “Bone voyage.”
It’s a joke, but it’s also a reminder of what the Cybercab is. There’s no steering wheel or pedals, so the passengers really can be skeletons. The car doesn’t care.
Where the 124 new Model Ys end up is the open question. Tesla hasn’t said whether they’re going to Austin, to its newer Texas service areas, or into validation work. The Model Y has been the workhorse for Robotaxi expansion because it’s built in volume at Giga Texas and has five seats and a big trunk. The Cybercab seats two. A batch this size suggests Tesla wants more cars that can take a group of riders and their bags.
The EVX Take
At this rate, Tesla probably passes Waymo in Texas registrations within days or weeks. That’s a milestone for the record books, but rides, miles and safety data are what will settle the bigger argument. For readers in Japan, the speed is the story. Waymo and Toyota plan to start testing driverless bZ4Xs in Japan in 2027 with what Toyota calls “a small number” of vehicles. Tesla just registered 124 cars in Texas in one day. Japan’s Level 4 law has been in force since April 2023, so the rules exist here. What Japan doesn’t have yet is a company deploying at Texas scale. Tesla showed the Cybercab in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya on its September Japan tour but hasn’t announced any plan to run it here, and Japanese owners are still waiting on FSD (Supervised). The Texas numbers show how quickly that could change once a market opens.
Next thing to watch: whether the next batch is Model Ys again, or the Cybercab line goes back to setting the pace.
Sources: Texas DMV automated-vehicle list, Robotaxi Pulse, Robotaxi Tracker, Tesla Robotaxi on X, Tesla Robotaxi on X (Halloween), Robotaxi Radar on X, TeslaNorth, Tesla Japan (PR Times).
— The EVX News team
Featured image: A gold Tesla Cybercab on display with its butterfly doors open, seen from above. Photo: JustAnotherCarDesigner / Wikimedia Commons (CC0, cropped).
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