Should You Buy Tesla Stock Before the Robotaxi Expansion Goes Nationwide? Here's What History Says.

Key Points

Tesla's Robotaxi rollout is coming but at a slower pace than initially thought.

Elon Musk has a track record of achieving his goals even if it takes him longer than he had hoped.

Tesla's fundamentals are much stronger than they were last year.

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Elon Musk is a figure that elicits strong opinions from most people these days. But whether you love him or you hate him, he will likely go down as one of the most consequential business leaders of the 21st century.

His rocket company SpaceX is likely to have its initial public offering (IPO) this year, and it has the potential to be worth well over $1 trillion, which would make it the most valuable IPO in history.

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Musk's other company, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), popularized the electric vehicle (EV) to the point where just about every major automaker now has at least one EV in its lineup. And now, the company is rolling out its Robotaxi autonomous taxi program city by city, state by state.

So, is Tesla worth a look? Let's find out.

Driving Miss Roboto

Tesla's Robotaxis have been on the streets of Austin, Texas for a little while now, but in December of last year, Tesla began running the service without a safety observer in the car. A safety observer still follows the Robotaxi in a separate car though.

Right now, any Robotaxi you get outside of Austin will have a human supervisor in the car.

Despite Musk's previously very ambitious plans to roll out Robotaxis to several cities in the first half of this year, he adopted a more cautious tack in the company's first-quarter 2026earnings callon April 22.

Musk is now targeting a Robotaxi rollout into "a dozen or so states" by the end of 2026. He also emphasized that Tesla was being careful to avoid injuries or deaths. So, Robotaxis are coming to a city near you; it might just take longer than Elon Musk wanted it to earlier this year. As new markets open, I anticipate the stock will pop.

The futurist

Delays are nothing new for Musk. He's historically been rather optimistic in his projections for any new technology introduced by any of his companies. But even though he often is a bit too optimistic in how quickly his companies will be able to achieve their goals, they do usually achieve their goals.

Look no further than what Tesla and SpaceX have already accomplished. When Musk took over at Tesla in 2008, you didn't see electric cars on the road. These days, they're commonplace.

Just last year, SpaceX achieved something incredible when it caught a rocket for reuse. That company has done more than anyone else to reduce the costs of space travel.

So, historically, betting against Elon Musk is a bad idea. And he's Tesla and SpaceX's biggest X factor. Will self-driving cars ever be a common sight on American roads? I can't say, but what I can say is that Elon Musk wants them to be, and he has a good track record of achieving his goals even if it takes him a few more years than he'd hoped.

Now, as a company, Tesla had a rough 2025 with declining auto sales and revenue, so an investment in it was more a vote of confidence in its CEO than its financial situation last year.

But that's changed as of Tesla's Q1 2026 results.

Electrifying fundamentals

For the first quarter of 2026, Tesla recorded revenue of $16.2 billion, up 16% from Q1 2025, and breaking the company's trend of declining revenue year over year. Tesla also saw its earnings per share (EPS) grow 8% year over year and its net income grow 17% over Q1 2025.

Tesla's net profit margin held steady at just over 4%, which is on the higher-end of automakers. For comparison, General Motors (NYSE: GM) has a net margin of 1.43%.

The company also has a solid total debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, which is good considering how capital-intensive industries like auto manufacturing can be.

While a bet on Tesla is still, in many ways, a bet on Elon Musk and his vision of the future, the company's fundamentals are on much more solid ground than they were last year. So you can invest in both Musk's business acumen and Tesla's fundamentals.

That makes Tesla a stronger prospect than it was at the end of 2025 and worth your consideration at the very least.

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James Hires has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends General Motors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.