A year ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company's robotaxi network would expand at a "hyper-exponential rate" and be available to half the population of the U.S. by the end of 2025, but on Wednesday's earnings call, Musk and his executive team struck a more guarded tone about a slower-than-expected rollout. Since launching a small robotaxi pilot in Austin in June 2025, Tesla has expanded to only a handful of other cities, in Texas and Florida, with service often limited to outlying areas. On the call, executives detailed scaling challenges, with Tesla's vice president of vehicle engineering Lars Moravy stating, "Regulatory situations are different city by city," and CFO Vaibhav Taneja noting "different kinks ... not just on the software front, but on the operations front." Tesla Vice President of AI Ashok Elluswamy said growth in robotaxi miles driven is "literally exponential. Just, it's in the early part of the exponential." Musk reiterated the company is balancing expansion with safety. Tesla said paying customers have traveled 2.5 million miles (4 million km) in its robotaxi service, including 380,000 miles in rides without an in-vehicle safety monitor, remaining well below the more than 220 million autonomous miles driven by Waymo through the end of March. Tesla's stock price, which had fallen nearly 17% this year as of last close, was down 13% in afternoon