Elon Musk's company is giving us a taste of the price war to come in the robo-taxis industry. Tesla's robo-taxis aren't fully autonomous and still have safety monitors with access to a kill switch in case something goes wrong. But the automaker is turning things around with its approach to pricing, according to a new analysis of the emerging market.
See also: Tesla robotaxi: Unsupervised routes have begun
Obi appthat aggregates real-time prices and pickup times from multiple ride-hailing services, has released a follow-up to last year’s report that analyzed Waymo’s prices and rider satisfaction compared to traditional services like Uber and Lyft. The new report now includes Tesla’s service, as the previous study represented data before Elon Musk entered the market.
The report is based on data collected over a month, from November 27, 2025 to January 1, 2026. A total of 94,348 trips from Waymo, Tesla, Uber, and Lyft were included in the dataset.
In her analysis, Obi found that Tesla’s robo-taxis are significantly cheaper than Waymo, and even Uber and Lyft — but they also have some of the longest wait times in the industry. Tesla’s robo-taxis were so cheap that they were reminiscent of Uber’s early days, when the company used venture capital to significantly undercut traditional taxi services with its ultra-low-cost UberX.
See also: Waymo's autonomous taxis still put students at risk
Speaking of Waymo, the robo-taxi pioneer is getting more affordable. In June, Obi reported that Waymo robo-taxi rides were on average 30–40 percent more expensive than Uber and Lyft. But now the gap is narrowing, both because Waymo has lowered its own prices and because Uber and Lyft’s prices are increasing. Waymo is now on average 12.7 percent more expensive than Uber and 27.3 percent more expensive than Lyft.
For longer trips between 4.3–9.3 kilometers, Waymo is only 2 percent more expensive than Uber and 17 percent more expensive than Lyft per kilometer.
Of course, there are several caveats to consider before making direct comparisons between Tesla and Waymo. For example, Tesla only operates a handful of vehicles in San Francisco and Austin, while Waymo claims to have about 2,000–2,500 in five U.S. cities. By December 2025, Waymo says it will provide 450,000 paid rides each week. Tesla does not have the necessary permits to begin fully autonomous operations in California and has only just begun testing fully autonomous vehicles in Texas, albeit with escort vehicles.
Furthermore, many experts have expressed doubts about whether Tesla will ever achieve full autonomy with its current hardware.
See also: Tesla Robotaxi spotted without safety driver in Austin
Still, Tesla's low robo-taxi prices are a sign of the fierce competition that is sure to come for the robo-taxi market. The company's willingness to aggressively subsidize its service in the hopes of taking market share away from its competitors is noteworthy, but it also raises the question: How long can Tesla sustain this pricing strategy?
