Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnJurica DujmovicThu, June 25, 2026 at 6:40 PM GMT+2 8 min readTesla's autonomous robotaxis use the company's Model Y vehicles. The promised Cybercab is still in development. - TeslaIf you own Tesla stock, much of what you are paying for above the value of a carmaker is a bet on autonomy and artificial intelligence that has barely reached the income statement: full self-driving software, the Optimus robot and a robotaxi network.The robotaxi is the nearest-term and most testable piece of that bet, and this spring it amounted to about 20 driverless Tesla Model Y vehicles in Austin, Dallas and Houston. Value the car business the way investors price any other automaker, and it accounts for only a fraction of the stock; the rest is the market's bid on that future, a premium no ordinary carmaker could carry. What is new is that the bet is finally testable against operating data rather than projections.Most Read from MarketWatch'We are habitually frugal': My wife and I have money. How do we help our children without ruining their independence?