Brighter with Herbert Recap: Tesla's Robotaxi Fleet Growth and the Wall Street Upgrades

The official "Brighter with Herbert" YouTube channel posted "Wall Street Flipped While Tesla's Fleet Went Vertical" on the afternoon of October 26, 2026. It runs about 38 minutes. Host Herbert talks with Jeff Lutz, whom the video describes as a former supply-chain executive at several Fortune 100 companies, including Google, Lenovo and Motorola, who now runs his own consulting firm. The video was recorded on Monday morning, October 26, when Tesla shares were up sharply. Herbert and Jeff go through the week's Tesla news: a jump in the number of robotaxis that trackers count in Texas, a crowd of Cybercabs at the Austin Formula 1 race, two analyst upgrades, a bigger Houston service area, proposed federal vehicle rules for self-driving cars, and another European approval for Tesla's driver-assistance software. Both speakers are enthusiastic about Tesla, so please read this as one side of the discussion.

This is an independent summary written by GNOUP. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Brighter with Herbert, Herbert, the guest, Tesla, SpaceX, Barclays, Canaccord Genuity, Waymo, NHTSA or anyone else named in the video. The views, forecasts and claims described below belong to the speakers, not to GNOUP. Nothing here is investment, financial, legal or tax advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The channel's own disclaimer says its content is for discussion only and that the host is long Tesla and other stocks. Please consult a licensed financial professional before making financial decisions.

Key takeaways

These are the speakers' opinions and statements, including posts and charts they showed on screen. GNOUP has not checked the figures or claims.

• The Cybercab count jumped. Herbert says a public tracker shows Tesla's Texas robotaxi fleet at 970 vehicles as of October 26, up 167 in a week, with the Cybercab making up most of the new additions and Texas registration records showing 463 of them. He notes that the count could pass 1,000 any day. Jeff would like to see even bigger weekly additions and says the pace, and how steady it is, matters more to him than the year-end total.
• Wall Street turned more positive. Herbert says Tesla rose almost 6%, about $22, to roughly $394 in Monday morning trading. He attributes the move to upgrades from Barclays, which he says moved to "Overweight" with a $450 price target, up from $370, and from Canaccord Genuity, whose note he reads from. Jeff calls the upgrades the key story, along with progress in the company's driver-assistance software and robotaxi mileage. Neither speaker nor GNOUP can say where the stock goes next.
• Fewer incentives, still strong demand. Jeff says a year ago U.S. buyers got an instant rebate of roughly 15 to 20% that has since ended, and he sees only a minor shift in volumes, which he credits to AI features filling the gap. He also says Tesla's vehicle inventory is the lowest he has seen in years and hopes production catches up with demand this quarter.
• A guidance gap. Jeff's main criticism of the recent Tesla earnings call is that, unlike the SpaceX call, it did not include a specific forward revenue guide. He also notes that some earlier robotaxi targets were not met on time, which he says raises credibility questions about big statements, while adding that the results he tracks are moving in the right direction.
• The Austin F1 stress test. Herbert shows posts saying more than 50 Cybercabs were dropping off fans at the Austin race and that Waymo was not operating inside the event's zone. He says a tracker logged a record 1,250 Cybercab sightings in a single day. In passing, he corrects the attendance figure he first gave and says the weekend crowd was about 120,000.
• Bigger Houston service area. The company's official account posted "Houston, we have liftoff" with a much larger Houston map. Jeff says Houston now looks roughly comparable to Austin in size, and the video notes that Tesla has said Cybercab rides come to Dallas in November.

Newsworthy insights

These are claims, predictions and opinions from the video. GNOUP has not verified them, and other analysts may disagree.

• Use per car is rising. Herbert shows a chart from an outside poster estimating that each Tesla robotaxi now drives about 100 unsupervised miles per day, up from the low 40s in July, which the poster says is still below the roughly 200 miles per day typical of Waymo. The poster says the figures were estimated by combining Texas registrations with other public tracker data, so they are an outside estimate and not company numbers.
• Why growth may be paced. Jeff offers several possible reasons the fleet is not growing even faster: keeping a clean safety record so regulators stay comfortable, making sure the operations team is ready for more cars, and not hiring staff faster than automation can use them. In his view, one serious incident could affect approvals elsewhere, so a measured pace is sensible. He also says no one knows what the end-state fleet size in a city like Austin will be.
• Comparing with Waymo. Herbert and Jeff argue that Tesla's service began later than Waymo's driverless service, so comparing raw numbers is less useful than comparing growth rates. Jeff predicts that Tesla's fleet in Austin could pass others in the coming weeks, and shares his own impression that the Cybercab ride is cleaner and more consistent than some ride-hailing trips he has taken.
• Rules for self-driving cars. Herbert reads a summary of proposed rule changes from the U.S. auto safety regulator, NHTSA. The proposals would drop manual turn-signal control requirements for vehicles that have no manual driving controls, let the driving system operate lights, allow optional cyan marker lights to show that a car is driving itself, and relax some headlight rules. NHTSA's stated goal, as read on the show, is to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers. Jeff says he sees NHTSA as collaborative and calls regulation the last remaining blocker, while adding that it could still slow things down.
• The earnings-call debate. Herbert reads posts quoting executives on last week's call, including statements about transportation, the Optimus robot and sold-out Megapack energy storage through 2027, and Elon Musk's reply that the call included "absurdly grandiose statements." Jeff says the market now wants guidance more than big claims.
• The proposed Tesla-SpaceX merger. Jeff calls the proposed merger "the opposite of an overhang" and suggests it could act as a floor for Tesla shares, while saying none of it is advice. Herbert notes that Tesla and SpaceX shares have been moving together. Nothing has been agreed, and GNOUP takes no position on a merger or any shareholder vote.
• Musk's priorities. Herbert says Musk is working from a camper in Memphis to bring AI data centers online. Jeff says that is a shift in priorities and not an absence from Tesla, and that he sees a strong, long-serving Tesla leadership team.
• Europe. The video says Tesla's "FSD (Supervised)," which is branded as "Tesla Assisted Driving" in Europe, was approved in Latvia, which Herbert calls the 10th European country. Jeff says regulatory behavior could be unpredictable and that Tesla's best path is to keep making the product safe. The speakers mention a European vote in early December, though they are not sure of the exact date.

Watch the video

Wall Street Flipped While Tesla's Fleet Went Vertical on YouTube (official channel "Brighter with Herbert," @BrighterwithHerbert, posted October 26, 2026, about 38 minutes)

Episode guide

Chapter times come from the video's own chapter list. Each time opens the video at that point on YouTube.

• 00:00 Cybercab fleet growth and Wall Street's turn on Tesla stock
• 02:16 Tesla up almost 6% on the Barclays upgrade
• 06:36 The instant rebate comparison and driver-assist software filling the gap
• 07:52 Macro week: bond sales, geopolitics and midterms
• 09:34 Elon Musk's reply to the "Tesla whiners" on the earnings call
• 10:20 The Canaccord Genuity upgrade and the SpaceX merger
• 11:27 Musk's priorities and the Tesla leadership team
• 16:03 167 new Cybercabs added over the weekend, now 970
• 17:17 Cybercab swarm at the Austin F1 race
• 18:21 "Houston, we have liftoff": the expanded Houston service area
• 22:17 Unsupervised miles per day per vehicle compared with Waymo
• 28:36 NHTSA proposes removing turn-signal and manual-control requirements
• 32:45 FSD approved in Latvia, the 10th country in Europe

About this summary

This recap was prepared from the video's title, its description and chapter list on YouTube, and an automatically generated transcript. The transcript has no speaker labels, so we attributed points to Herbert or Jeff where the context made it clear, and we used the guest's name as it appears in the video description. Automatic transcripts can garble names and numbers (this one mixed up several product and company names), so some figures may differ from the audio, and we left out numbers that were unclear. Posts and charts shown on the video are described as the speakers presented them; we have not checked them against the original sources. We also left out the channel's website, membership, merchandise, sponsor and course links. GNOUP has no connection to any product, offer or company mentioned and does not promote them. For the exact words and context, watch the video. This article is general information only. It is not investment, financial, legal or tax advice, it does not recommend buying or selling any security, and it is not a substitute for advice from a licensed financial professional.