Nevada clears Tesla, Waymo and Uber to run up to 8,000 robotaxis in Clark County
Tesla took the largest allocation at 5,000 vehicles and then told regulators it does not expect to deploy anything close to that within the year.
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- The Nevada Transportation Authority voted unanimously to permit up to 8,000 robotaxis across Clark County over a 12-month window.
- Tesla was cleared for 5,000 vehicles, Waymo for 1,000, Uber for 1,000 through its Motional and Zoox partnerships, and Zoox for 100 under an existing permit.
- Tesla's Cybercab chief engineer Eric Early told the authority that 5,000 "has always been a ceiling" and put a realistic figure nearer 2,500.
- Local taxi and livery operators objected, arguing the approvals will oversaturate the corridor between the airport and Las Vegas Boulevard.
The Nevada Transportation Authority voted unanimously to allow up to 8,000 robotaxis to operate in Clark County over the next twelve months, splitting the allocation between four operators. Tesla received the largest share at 5,000 vehicles, followed by Waymo at 1,000 and Uber at 1,000 — the latter served through its partnerships with Motional and Zoox — with Zoox holding a further 100 under a permit it already had.
The permitted number and the expected number are not the same thing, and Tesla said so at the hearing. "The 5,000 has always been a ceiling for us," the company's Cybercab chief engineer Eric Early told the authority, adding that he did not expect Tesla to be positioned to deploy 5,000 vehicles by this time next year and pointing instead to a realistic maximum nearer 2,500. Deployment across all four operators is expected to fall well short of the caps.
Local taxi and livery operators opposed the approvals through the Livery Operators Association, arguing that the volume will oversaturate the market and congest the so-called Golden Triangle between Harry Reid International Airport and Las Vegas Boulevard. The authority approved the permits over those objections.
A regulator granting a headline number an operator openly says it cannot reach makes the permit cap a poor proxy for how many autonomous vehicles will actually be on the road — useful to remember when the next jurisdiction announces a big figure. The more consequential detail is the unanimity: Nevada treated three separate autonomy stacks as approvable on the same day under one framework, which is a faster template for other states than case-by-case licensing.