Uber and Lyft Face Mounting Pressure as Waymo, Tesla, and Zoox Scale AV Fleets

Tesla moved higher Monday after the Czech Republic granted provisional approval for the automaker's Full Self-Driving system, clearing the way for a rollout in the country. Czech authorities said additional European operating data, experience from other markets, and monitoring measures helped address earlier concerns tied to speed-limit compliance and driver supervision. Tesla said on X that deployment of the system in the Czech Republic is expected to begin soon. The approval follows a similar authorization by Dutch regulator RDW earlier this year and adds to a growing list of European countries allowing the software under provisional frameworks. Tesla shares climbed about 2.7% in recent trading.

Lucid Group and European shared mobility platform Bolt have entered a strategic partnership to develop and deploy autonomous mobility services across Europe. The collaboration will pair Lucid's software-defined vehicle technology with Bolt's European mobility data and operational infrastructure, using vehicles based on Lucid's upcoming Midsize platform. Bolt intends to deploy at least 25,000 fully autonomous vehicles across several European cities and countries, part of its broader goal of having 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform by 2035. The two companies will jointly develop an autonomous-driving system-ready vehicle platform from the product-development stage, designed to support SAE Level 4 autonomous driving and expected to incorporate NVIDIA Hyperion. The initiative will be led by Bolt Autonomous Driving Solutions, Bolt's dedicated autonomous-driving division, while Lucid Technologies, a newly established unit, will manage the partnership for Lucid. Lucid and Bolt also plan to work with autonomous-driving technology providers, European regulators and policymakers to support safe and scalable deployment.

Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch said Tesla is unlikely to generate meaningful sales revenue from its Optimus humanoid robot before 2029, pushing his Optimus ramp assumptions out by two quarters. Following a visit to Tesla's Austin operations, Rusch said the company pointed to finalizing the hardware design for Optimus's initial ramp and is targeting first commercial revenue in late 2027, but he wrote that Street expectations for humanoid revenue scale-up are overly optimistic, citing hardware and operating software complexity and supply chain preparedness. Rusch, who rates Tesla at Perform, was more upbeat on other parts of the business, saying the Cybercab is ramping and driving manufacturing costs materially lower, with a modular design enabling parallel production and up to 40% mass reduction, and describing Tesla's 50% to 60% robotaxi cost advantage as becoming a reality. He also flagged Tesla's push into semiconductor manufacturing as bold but critically important, with a pilot facility tracking toward a $25 billion-plus capital spending target. Oppenheimer kept its 2026 revenue estimate at $105 billion but trimmed 2027 to $108.8 billion, reflecting the slower Optimus ramp offset by faster Cybercab production.