The electric vehicle market may be saturated with entries from veteran and new carmakers today, but Tesla’s grip on the United States’ EV sector remains firm.
Tesla did not create the first modern electric car — that honor goes to General Motors and its short-lived EV1. However, It was Tesla that truly put all its cards on EVs and pioneered the modern electric vehicle movement with the original Roadster and the Model S sedan.
Since then, the market share of EVs in the United States has grown. Electric vehicle registrations in the United States have doubled over the past year to about 5% of all new vehicles. Consumers now have a healthy number of EV choices across numerous carmakers as well.
Axios predicts that the shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles will take years to play out in the United States. And using monthly vehicle registration data from S&P Global Mobility, it is evident that EV adoption is growing, especially in states like California and some cities in the Northeast, Florida, and Texas.
Based on vehicle registration data, one thing remains evident — Tesla’s dominance of the electric vehicle sector seems secure. The company’s vehicles account for about 61% of all electric cars registered in the United States in April, the last month with available data.
The race is not close, at least for now. Tesla’s closest competition is Ford, which accounted for 8% of the market; Hyundai, which accounted for 6%; and Kia, which also accounted for 6%. Even popular EVs from legacy automakers such as the Ford Mustang Mach- E and F-150 Lightning are yet to make a dent, thanks to limited production.
The Tesla Model Y alone, with its 14,152 orders in April, had four times the orders of the Mustang Mach-E, which had 3,287.
But while Tesla’s dominance seems extremely evident, Tesla is facing some risks. This is because the company is essentially holding off an entire wave of competition with only two vehicles — the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y crossover. Other cars in its lineup such as the Model S and Model X are yet to fully ramp since their refresh in early 2021, and projects such as the Cybertruck, Semi, and Roadster are delayed.
That being said, Tom Libby, an S&P Global Mobility analyst, believes that Tesla has a “halo around the brand that is extraordinary and unique.” Apart from this, competing electric vehicles from rival carmakers are just “not setting the world on fire,” Libby noted.
This could be seen in vehicles like the Hummer EV, which is in limited supply. Volkswagen’s ID.4, a potential rival to the Model Y, has been pretty underwhelming. Potential heavy-hitters like the VW ID. Buzz are yet to arrive on US shores. Rivals from new companies such as Rivian, on the other hand, have run into bottlenecks due to chip shortages and supply chain issues.
Considering the momentum of the EV sector in the United States, consulting firm AlixPartners estimated that the market share of electric vehicles in the country could accelerate to 28% by 2028 and up to 59% by 2035.
Disclaimer: I am long TSLA.
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Tesla has officially opened Robotaxi access to everyone and everyone, but there is one catch: you have to have an iPhone.
Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin and its ride-hailing service in the Bay Area were both officially launched to the public today, giving anyone using the iOS platform the ability to simply download the app and utilize it for a ride in either of those locations.
It has been in operation for several months: it launched in Austin in late June and in the Bay Area about a month later. In Austin, there is nobody in the driver’s seat unless the route takes you on the freeway.
In the Bay Area, there is someone in the driver’s seat at all times.
The platform was initially launched to those who were specifically invited to Austin to try it out.
Tesla confirms Robotaxi is heading to five new cities in the U.S.
Slowly, Tesla launched the platform to more people, hoping to expand the number of rides and get more valuable data on its performance in both regions to help local regulatory agencies relax some of the constraints that were placed on it.
Additionally, Tesla had its own in-house restrictions, like the presence of Safety Monitors in the vehicles. However, CEO Elon Musk has maintained that these monitors were present for safety reasons specifically, but revealed the plan was to remove them by the end of the year.
Now, Tesla is opening up Robotaxi to anyone who wants to try it, as many people reported today that they were able to access the app and immediately fetch a ride if they were in the area.
We also confirmed it ourselves, as it was shown that we could grab a ride in the Bay Area if we wanted to:
🚨 Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing Service in Austin and the Bay Area has opened up for anyone on iOS
Go download the app and, if you’re in the area, hail a ride from Robotaxi pic.twitter.com/1CgzG0xk1J
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 18, 2025
The launch of a more public Robotaxi network that allows anyone to access it seems to be a serious move of confidence by Tesla, as it is no longer confining the service to influencers who are handpicked by the company.
In the coming weeks, we expect Tesla to then rid these vehicles of the Safety Monitors as Musk predicted. If it can come through on that by the end of the year, the six-month period where Tesla went from launching Robotaxi to enabling driverless rides is incredibly impressive.
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Tesla analyst sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing: here’s why
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla analyst Stephen Gengaro of Stifel sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing, and he believes more and more people will commit to paying for the full suite or the subscription service after they try it.
Full Self-Driving is Tesla’s Level 2 advanced driver assistance suite (ADAS), and is one of the most robust on the market. Over time, the suite gets better as the company accumulates data from every mile driven by its fleet of vehicles, which has swelled to over five million cars sold.
The suite features a variety of advanced driving techniques that many others cannot do. It is not your typical Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) and Lane Keeping ADAS system. Instead, it can handle nearly every possible driving scenario out there.
It still requires the driver to pay attention and ultimately assume responsibility for the vehicle, but their hands are not required to be on the steering wheel.
It is overwhelmingly impressive, and as a personal user of the FSD suite on a daily basis, I have my complaints, but overall, there are very few things it does incorrectly.
Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.1.7 real-world drive and review
Gengaro, who increased his Tesla price target to $508 yesterday, said in an interview with CNBC that adoption rates of FSD will increase over the coming years as more people try it for themselves.
At first, it is tough to feel comfortable with your car literally driving you around. Then, it becomes second nature.
Gengaro said:
“You’ll see increased adoption as people are exposed to it. I’ve been behind the wheel of several of these and the different iterations of FSD, and it is getting better and better. It’s something when people experience it, they will be much more comfortable utilizing FSD and paying for it.”
Tesla Full Self-Driving take rates also have to increase as part of CEO Elon Musk’s recently approved compensation package, as one tranche requires ten million active subscriptions in order to win that portion of the package.
The company also said in the Q3 2025 Earnings Call in October that only 12 percent of the current ownership fleet are paid customers of Full Self-Driving, something the company wants to increase considerably moving forward.
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Tesla scores major court win as judge rejects race bias class action
The ruling means the 2017 lawsuit cannot proceed as a class action because plaintiff attorneys were unable to secure testimony commitments from at least 200 workers.
Tesla scored a significant legal victory in California after a state judge reversed a class certification in a high-profile race harassment case involving 6,000 Black workers at its Fremont plant. The ruling means the 2017 lawsuit cannot proceed as a class action because plaintiff attorneys were unable to secure testimony commitments from at least 200 workers ahead of a 2026 trial, a threshold the judge viewed as necessary to reliably represent the full group.
No class action
In a late-Friday order, California Superior Court Judge Peter Borkon concluded that the suit could not remain a class action, stating he could not confidently apply the experiences of a much smaller group of testifying workers to thousands of potential class members. His ruling reverses a 2024 decision by a different judge who had certified the case under the belief that a trial of that size would be manageable, as noted in a Reuters report.
The lawsuit was originally filed by former assembly-line worker Marcus Vaughn, who alleged that Black employees at Tesla’s Fremont factory were exposed to various forms of racially hostile conduct, including slurs, graffiti, and instances of disturbing objects appearing in work areas. Tesla has previously said it does not tolerate harassment and has removed employees found responsible for misconduct. Neither Tesla nor the plaintiffs’ legal team immediately commented on the latest ruling.
Tesla’s legal challenges
While the decertification narrows the scope of this particular case, Tesla still faces additional litigation over similar allegations. A separate trial involving related claims brought by a California state civil rights agency is scheduled just two months after the now-vacated class trial date. The company is also contending with federal race discrimination claims filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alongside several individual lawsuits it has already resolved.
For now, the reversal removes the large-scale exposure Tesla would have faced in a unified class trial, shifting the dispute back to individual claims rather than a single mass action. The case is Vaughn v. Tesla, filed in Alameda County Superior Court.
Tesla opens Robotaxi access to everyone — but there’s one catch
Tesla analyst sees Full Self-Driving adoption rates skyrocketing: here’s why
