Tesla Steps Up India Market Expansion

Image: Tesla

Tesla is stepping up its India market expansion efforts by opening up Autopilot vehicle operator hiring, Robotaxi is set to launch in Austin, and sales are growing in Sweden. Welcome to the weekly roundup with Jowua.

Robotaxi Service to Launch June 1

Tesla had previously been preparing to launch its Robotaxi service in Austin in June, and it looks like it is sticking to its original plan. While there was no known date previously, the company has now hinted at one. Last week, Tesla posted on X asking Grok, "How long until June?" to which it responded, "June 1, 2025, is 31 days from today, May 1, 2025." While the post does not directly reference an event, the company sometimes teases its clients to provide updates, especially on highly anticipated and well-known ones.

As previously mentioned, the service will be rolled out with a small number of vehicles locally in Austin for now, with expansion to several other cities later this year.

“The team and I are laser-focused on bringing Robotaxi to Austin in June. Unsupervised autonomy will first be solved for the Model Y in Austin,” Elon Musk said during the Q2 2025 Earnings Call.

Tesla Board Denies CEO Search Rumor

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Tesla’s board of directors was looking to replace Musk. The company immediately issued a public statement denying this and claiming that the information presented in the article had been denied by the board before it was even published. Despite this, the WSJ published the article anyway, creating negative coverage. It should be noted that, after publication, the headline of the article was changed five times, playing with words in a way that would disclaim responsibility for the rumors as much as possible.

“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company. This is absolutely false (and this was communicated to the media before the report was published). The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead," Robyn Denholm stated.

Tesla Thrives in Sweden Despite Union Struggle

Registration data in Sweden shows that Tesla is the clear leader in the EV (electric vehicle) market. According to car.info, Tesla has registered a total of 45,882 Model Ys to date, making it the best-selling EV in the country. By comparison, its closest competitors, Volkswagen ID.4 and Volvo XC40, are well behind with 29,853 and 24,943 registrations, respectively. Model 3 is right behind them with 21,223 registrations.

The sustained strong sales come despite the challenges that the union, IF Metall, is trying to create. The standoff has been going on since October 2023, but consumers continue to support Tesla.

Tesla Hiring Autopilot Vehicle Operators in India

Tesla continues to ramp up its efforts in India. The company has posted new openings for self-driving vehicle operators in New Delhi and Mumbai. This marks the first hiring in the country directly related to Tesla’s autonomous driving and data collection operations. The roles involve driving engineering vehicles for long periods of time to collect dynamic audio and camera data for testing and training purposes. This data will then be used to train Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software.