In 2010, four self-driving vehicles drove more than 8,000 miles from Italy to China. The vehicles had solar-powered laser scanners and a host of video cameras that analyzed the environment and made navigation decisions in real time. “We didn’t know the route,” one of the researchers involved explained. “I mean what the roads would have been and if we would have found nice roads, traffic, lots of traffic, medium traffic, temperamental drivers, or regular drivers, so we encountered the lot.”
At the time, many experts predicted that self-driving cars were just around the corner. Fifteen years later, we’re still waiting. Sure, many consumer-grade vehicles have impressive self-driving features. And small robotaxi pilot programs are now live in many major metro areas. But fully autonomous vehicles have yet to scale in any meaningful way.
The wait could be over soon
Global consulting group McKinsey & Co. recently conducted a survey asking experts when autonomous vehicles will finally be a reality at scale. Private self-driving vehicles, the survey concluded, will become a global reality by 2032. Autonomous trucking, meanwhile, will arrive sometime in 2031.
But here’s the exciting part: There’s a category of self-driving vehicles that should scale meaningfully before then, perhaps even by 2030: robotaxis. “While L4 robotaxis are now available in the first cities in the United States and China, the global rollout of robotaxis is now expected to become a reality at a large scale in 2030,” the research concluded. “Overall, experts expect that robotaxis will be the first commercial application for L4 in mobility — not privately owned cars.”
How big could the robotaxi market become? Many experts believe it will be a multitrillion-dollar opportunity. Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, is even more bullish. “We think $8 [trillion] to $10 trillion for the entire autonomous taxi opportunity throughout the world, from almost nothing,” Wood predicted last year. “That’s how quickly AI is going to cause these things to happen.”
If you want to bet on this emerging $10 trillion opportunity, one stock tops the list.
Today’s Change
(-1.43%) $-6.31
Current Price
$435.79
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$1.6T
Day’s Range
$428.14 – $441.07
52wk Range
$273.21 – $498.83
Volume
45.2M
Avg Vol
60.8M
Gross Margin
19.07%
These 2 stocks are already benefiting from robotaxis
Tesla (TSLA 1.43%) is my favorite company overall when it comes to robotaxi growth potential. The company has already started production of its Cybercab robotaxi, with production costs far below the competition. In a nutshell, Tesla’s integrated manufacturing capabilities will allow it to produce more robotaxis faster and at a lower price point than almost any other domestic competitor.
Tesla, of course, already has robotaxi pilot programs in three Texas cities, with plans to expand quickly over the next 12 to 24 months. Tesla CEO Elon Musk expects its service to be “widespread in the U.S. by the end of the year,” but safety and technical issues have been persistent challenges. Note that in the middle of 2025, Musk predicted robotaxis would be contributing in a meaningful way to Tesla’s revenues by “the middle of next year.” Roughly one year later, Musk revealed robotaxis would “not be super material this year,” adding that they “will be material probably in a significant way next year.”
Image source: Getty Images
The rollout will continue to be bumpy. This is truly an unprecedented opportunity, requiring multiple rounds of regulatory approvals, shifts in consumer behavior, and technical successes. Plus, much of Tesla’s $1.3 trillion market cap is arguably already tied up in the robotaxi opportunity, meaning that much of that growth potential may already be priced in.
Still, I cannot think of a robotaxi operator better positioned than Tesla. If the market really takes off over the next few years, production capacity and manufacturing costs will be key to whether a firm can scale alongside this growth. By controlling its own manufacturing facilities that have already been scaled significantly, Tesla sits in the driver’s seat for taking the robotaxi market by storm.
