Tesla Stock Rips To Best Day In 2 Months After Robotaxis Go Fully Driverless In Austin - Analysts Get More Bullish Now

(MENAFN- AsiaNet News)

• Morgan Stanley said removing safety drivers in Austin marks a pivotal test for Tesla's vision-only autonomy approach.
• ARK Invest's Tasha Keeney said the robotaxi discussion has shifted from feasibility to fleet scale.
• Keeney also flagged manufacturing integration and utilization rates as key drivers of lower ride costs.

Shares of Tesla, Inc. notched their best session in two months on Thursday as Wall Street turned its focus to the arrival of fully autonomous robotaxis and the race to scale the fleet. The stock closed up 4% on Thursday to hit $449.36 and added 0.3% in after-hours trading.

Analyst Flags 2026 Robotaxi Targets

Tesla investor and influencer Sawyer Merritt posted on X, citing a Morgan Stanley note that described Tesla's removal of the safety driver from its Austin fleet as a pivotal moment in proving its vision-only approach to autonomy. According to the note, scaling a passive, optical-only autonomous system would seriously challenge conventional thinking across the robotaxi industry. 

Morgan Stanley said Tesla is expected to make significant progress in 2026, reiterating its forecast of 1,000 robotaxis on the road by the end of the year, about 30,000 vehicles by the end of the decade, and potentially reach 5 million vehicles by 2040.

The research firm added that Lemonade's launch of autonomous car insurance linked to Tesla's Full Self-Driving system represents a meaningful validation of autonomous driving by the insurance industry. The offering includes pricing that reflects lower risk for miles driven using FSD and discounts of up to 50%. According to the firm, this external endorsement strengthens Tesla's value proposition, could accelerate adoption of FSD, and supports its 'Equal Weight' rating on the stock, along with a $425 price target - which actually implies a 5% downside from current levels.

Focus Now Shifts To Scale

ARK Investment Management's Director of Investment Analysis, Tasha Keeney, said that the discussion around autonomous driving has changed significantly.“I used to be asked: will autonomous driving ever work?” Keeney said on X.“Now, the question is: when will it come to my city?” 

Keeney said robotaxis are already driving themselves within defined operation zones and are competing head-to-head with human ride-hail services.“From here, it's all about scale,” she said.

She added that vertically integrated manufacturing should be a major advantage in reducing per-mile costs and enabling capital-efficient fleet expansion. Keeney said higher utilization rates remain the biggest lever for lowering robotaxi cost per mile. Consumer pricing could fall to as low as $0.25 per mile from about $2 today, while still receiving healthy support at $0.75 to $1.50 per mile, she added.

She also said a U.S. robotaxi fleet representing less than 10% of today's installed vehicle base could service nearly all urban miles, noting that Tesla already has the production capacity to support many top-tier ride-hail cities.

Keeney said robotaxi platforms could be worth more than $30 trillion in enterprise value by 2030. She added that the biggest risk to this forecast is whether other automakers besides Tesla commit to supplying enough vehicles over the next five years.

Earlier this week, Ark said Tesla's long-term valuation is unlikely to hinge on FSD subscriptions, arguing instead that the EV maker's fleet-based robotaxi business could ultimately dominate its enterprise value.

Tesla Confirms Unsupervised Robotaxi Rides In Austin

On Thursday afternoon, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company had opened robotaxi rides in Austin without a safety monitor in the front seat for public riders, marking a major step in the company's autonomous driving efforts, following his comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos that self-driving is“essentially solved” in the U.S. 

Tesla initially deployed a small number of Model Y vehicles as robotaxis in Austin with a safety monitor in the front seat to take over when required. Ashok Elluswamy, a founding member of Tesla's Autopilot team and VP of AI software, said on Thursday that some robotaxis will continue to operate with safety monitors for the time being and "the ratio will increase over time."

Rivals Step Up As Robotaxi Race Heats Up

The developments come as Alphabet's Waymo said on Thursday that its robotaxi service is now open to paying riders in Miami, marking the start of its 2026 market expansion. Miami becomes the sixth U.S. market where Waymo offers driverless ride-hailing.

Waymo said nearly 10,000 residents have already signed up to try the service, which will initially operate across a 60-square-mile area. The company ended 2025 with robotaxi operations in five major U.S. markets and has said it plans to expand to several more U.S. cities in 2026.

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for Tesla was 'bullish' amid 'normal' message volume.

TSLA sentiment and message volume as of January 22 | Source: Stocktwits

One user speculated the stock could open at around $455–$460.

Another user said he expects earnings to be“terrible,” with results due next week.

Tesla's stock has risen 8% over the past 12 months.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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