Nevada Hands Tesla, Uber, and Waymo the Keys to Vegas Robotaxis

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Nevada regulators just unanimously approved permits letting Tesla, Uber, and Waymo run commercial robotaxi services across Clark County, which covers Las Vegas. Between the three companies that is up to 8,000 autonomous vehicles authorized over the next twelve months, with Tesla taking the largest slice at 5,000, and Uber and Waymo each cleared for 1,000 through partnerships with Motional and Zoox.

What stands out is how differently each company is talking about the number. Tesla's own Cybercab chief engineer admitted during the hearing that 5,000 has always been a ceiling rather than a target, and that getting to half that within a year would already be a win. That is a strikingly modest tone from a company whose CEO has spent years framing robotaxis as the thing that justifies Tesla's valuation.

Las Vegas is a genuinely brutal proving ground for this stuff. Twenty four hour tourism, a packed Strip corridor, drunk pedestrians wandering into traffic, and constant demand for short rides all at once. If a fleet can hold up here it says something real, and if it cannot, the industry will not be able to blame quiet suburban streets for the failure.

Local taxi and livery operators pushed back hard during the hearing, raising both jobs and safety concerns, and Clark County itself noted it has no formal authority over the permits yet has to deal with whatever happens on its own roads. That tension between a state regulator making the call and a county living with the consequences is going to keep coming up as more states follow Nevada's lead.

Whatever happens with the actual rollout numbers, this is one of the biggest single regulatory green lights the robotaxi industry has gotten in the US so far

Tesla, Uber, and Waymo all get the OK to operate thousands of robotaxis in Nevada | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com