Tesla Stock Approaches All-Time High

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•  16 Dec 2025
 

Over the weekend, a video was captured documenting a fully autonomous ride in a Model Y, and the company is advancing toward operations without a human safety supervisor; despite Waymo leading in paid rides, Tesla is promoting a decentralized model that could change the landscape

Tesla stock continues to approach its all-time high with investors focusing on technological progress in autonomous driving. Yesterday the stock closed up 3.6% at $475.31, after reaching higher levels during the day. The stock all-time high stands at $479.86 from about a year ago, on December 17, 2024, and the intraday high over the past 52 weeks is $488.54. Since the beginning of 2025, the stock has risen approximately 18%, despite a significant decline in sales worldwide, due both to changes in subsidy policies and increasing competition in the segment.

After the stock rose specifically because of a product not yet in commercial production—the Optimus robot—the recent increase stems specifically from progress in Tesla robotaxi service. Last weekend, Elon Musk confirmed that the company has begun testing autonomous vehicles without a crew member serving as a human safety supervisor. A video posted on social media showed a Model Y driving empty through city streets. This is a significant step toward broad commercial deployment, as removing supervisors enables cheaper and faster operation of the vehicle fleet. Until now, the service operated in Austin with a supervisor in the passenger seat, and the recent expansion includes additional areas in the city. Tesla plans to double the fleet size in Austin next month and expand the service to additional areas such as the San Francisco Bay Area.

Morgan Stanley estimates that Tesla will increase its robotaxi fleet to approximately 1,000 vehicles on the road in 2026, compared to only about 50 to 150 vehicles currently. By the end of 2035, Morgan Stanley expects Tesla to have about one million active robotaxis in multiple cities.

Tesla's FSD (Full Self-Driving) system continues to advance and is currently at version 14. The latest update includes improvements in handling rare situations, enhanced video compression, and a model with 10 times the parameters compared to previous versions. The robotaxi version in Austin is about six months ahead of the version offered to the general public, and the company anticipates further improvements that will enable driving without human intervention in most cases. Tesla uses data from hundreds of thousands of vehicles to train its models, giving it a scale advantage over competitors that rely on smaller fleets.

In direct comparison, Google Waymo currently leads the commercial robotaxi market. According to updated data, during December 2025 it conducted approximately 450,000 paid rides per week, up from 250,000 rides in April 2025. In total, Waymo completed over 14 million rides in 2025, three times the previous year. It operates in five US cities and plans to reach one million weekly rides by the end of 2026.

The difference between the two companies is reflected, among other things, in approach. Tesla focuses on a decentralized model, whereby any vehicle owner can join the robotaxi fleet in the future, enabling broader deployment without the need to build a dedicated fleet from scratch. Already today, the area Tesla covers in Austin is larger than Waymo in Austin and the Bay Area.

From the bullish side, Mizuho raised their price target to $530 and maintained a buy recommendation, based on the potential for accelerated deployment in additional cities and removal of full supervision. Wedbush maintained an optimistic forecast with a higher target, viewing the autonomous service as a central growth engine that could double the value. In contrast, Barclays holds a hold recommendation with a target of $350, noting varying regulatory risks between US states and a slower deployment pace than promised. The average market price target stands at approximately $416, about 12% below the current price, with a current market cap of approximately $1.58 trillion.

While the peaks the stock reached during 2024 were against a backdrop of expectations for regulatory relief under the Trump administration, cancellation of tax benefits for electric vehicles hurt sales of traditional vehicles. The market currently prices Tesla mainly as an AI and autonomy company, with emphasis on future revenue from autonomous ride services and FSD license sales. Vehicle sales in recent quarters showed slowdown, but the focus shifted to robotaxi potential, which could turn the existing fleet of millions of vehicles into a recurring revenue source.

In the safety sector, Tesla reports a relatively small number of accidents in the robotaxi service, with a total of eight incidents documented in 2025, most of them minor cases that occurred under supervision. These figures are relatively low compared to accumulated mileage, but regulation remains a central challenge. The company plans to operate hundreds of autonomous vehicles in the San Francisco Bay Area soon and expand public access through a Robotaxi app. If tests without supervisors succeed, 2026 could be the year of commercial breakthrough.

Additionally, Tesla is targeting the start of Cybercab production for April 2026. The Cybercab is a dedicated vehicle (without a steering wheel or pedals, with only two seats), which is supposed to be manufactured using Tesla advanced manufacturing process, expected to reduce costs and accelerate adoption over time.

With this news, market sentiment is positive, with the stock trading at high volume and additionally there are option sales indicating expectations for further increases. Investors are pricing in a high premium on the autonomous vision, while partially ignoring short-term risks in vehicle sales. Ultimately, the proven technological capabilities and the question of whether the company will open a gap against competitors like Waymo are the factors that will dictate the growth rate in coming years.

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