The shares of Tesla Inc. ( TSLA ) climbed 1.50% during Monday’s pre-market session, after it unveiled its Robotaxi in Austin, marking a significant milestone in the self-driving taxi industry in the United States.

What Happened: The launch event, which took place on Sunday in Austin’s South Congress neighborhood, featured over 10 Tesla Model Y Robotaxis. The event was exclusive, with social media influencers as the main riders, who used a dedicated app to book their rides.

Tesla had safety monitors in the front seat during the rides, although the extent of their control over the Robotaxi, which was operating on Unsupervised FSD, was not confirmed.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, celebrated the launch on social media, describing it as the “culmination of a decade of hard work”. He further revealed that both the AI Chip and the software team responsible for the Robotaxi were built entirely within Tesla.

Additionally, Tesla also announced its plans to invest $8 billion in manufacturing in the U.S. in 2025, after investing $10 billion in 2024.

Why It Matters: The launch of the Robotaxi comes as Tesla has been hinting at its entry into the self-driving taxi market to compete with companies like Alphabet Inc.’s  Waymo and Amazon.com ( AMZN ) Inc.’s Zoox.

Meanwhile, Tesla has been under the scrutiny of U.S. safety regulators, with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reviewing the company’s responses regarding the performance of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system in adverse weather conditions. Notably, former Tesla AI Chief Andrej Karpathy recently expressed skepticism about the industry’s ability to solve the challenge of autonomous driving.

Earlier, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives had predicted a transformative future for Tesla, valuing its AI and autonomous driving technology at a staggering $1 trillion.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.