Elon Musk has one trillion reasons to finish his robot story

Tesla shareholders on Thursday overwhelmingly approved the 10-year comp plan that only pays out in total if he meets wildly ambitious goals that would effectively remake the electric-car company into a robot powerhouse. Shortly after, Musk declared something of a new era.

“It’s not just a new chapter for Tesla, it’s a new book and that new book is massively increasing vehicle production," Musk told investors gathered at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas.

That’s almost—word for word—what he said roughly 18 months ago.

On that occasion, Musk was celebrating the last time shareholders approved a massive payday for him, which was later put on ice (again) by a Delaware judge.

Since then, Musk apparently came down with a kind of writer’s block. And like many authors I know, he spun his wheels complaining about his pay and procrastinating with other projects (xAI and politics).

As he stewed, Tesla’s rivals have been preparing for a robot future of their own. That future is turning out to be a much different story than the one Musk is writing.

Already in Austin, Uber Technologies is offering robotaxis through its ride-hailing service. The vehicles come from Alphabet’s Waymo, which has partnered with Uber for deployment in an increasing number of U.S. cities. (Waymo has its own ride-hailing app in other cities, such as San Francisco.)

The partnership was born out of the complicated realities of bridging the future with the present.

Years ago, Uber abandoned its troubled efforts to develop its own autonomous-car technology. It is now selling itself as the home for rivals to reach its vast army of users. In doing so, Uber aims to address one of the boring problems facing the industry: figuring out supply and demand for a still rather nascent technology.

While Musk is talking about churning out millions of robot cars, Uber is betting that a hybrid approach—a mix of robots and more typical human-driven cars—is the right formula in the years to come.

“These vehicles are expensive, and we need to make sure that they are utilized to the maximum possible, but also being able to manage through the peaks and troughs of demand that we see," Sachin Kansal, Uber’s chief product officer, told me during Friday’s episode of the “Bold Names" podcast. “The number of vehicles that you need at say 8:30 a.m. on a weekday is very different than what you may need at 3 p.m. on that same day as well."

In other words, when demand spikes, Uber can make sure it has enough human drivers to meet user needs that can’t be filled with robots alone.

But it isn’t just about making sure the robot cars are positioned in the city to optimize revenue. It’s about dealing with the nitty-gritty details of making sure the fleet is ready to be in service.

Uber is responsible for making sure the robot cars are maintained—somebody has to clean out the back seat and pick up the forgotten backpacks.

Many think of Uber as a platform of individually owned cars. In fact, as many as 20% of the vehicles are actually owned by fleets which, in turn, hire drivers. These companies might have just a handful of cars or thousands of vehicles.

Kansal’s team has built a lot of software for these fleets to help manage their operations. That has given Uber an understanding of when electric vehicles need to be charged or returned for maintenance—the sorts of insights needed for managing a fleet of robot cars.

He suggests his company is now positioned to be many people’s first taste of autonomous driving. “We saw the same thing happen with electric vehicles," he said. “One in four Uber riders say that their first electric vehicle experience was on Uber."

For many, an Uber was their first taste of a Tesla. After riders struggled to use Tesla’s doorhandles, for example, Uber launched an education campaign within its app showing how the push-and-pull opener worked.

So far, Musk has suggested he wants to go it alone with robotaxis. “Tesla has all of the ingredients necessary to offer a vast self-driving fleet, overnight," Musk said earlier this year.

The electric-car maker’s own ride-hailing app will be populated by Tesla vehicles owned both by customers and by the company, he has said.

To address worries about the details of fleet management, Tesla has shown videos of wireless charging stations and special robot arms to clean vehicles—including sucking up forgotten backpacks.

But after years of talk, Tesla’s fully autonomous car fleet is still rather small in comparison. On Thursday, Tesla reaffirmed to shareholders that its robotaxis in Austin, after launching in June, will be able to finally operate without safety riders in the vehicles by year’s end—a step taken long ago by Waymo.

“So now that we believe we have…autonomy solved, or, at least, are within a few months of having unsupervised autonomy solved at a reliability level significantly better than human…it’s time to ramp up production," Musk said.

Tesla aims to increase vehicle production by about 50% by the end of next year, hitting an annualized production rate of 2.6 million to 2.7 million, Musk said, then growing to rates of 4 million by the end of 2027 and 5 million a year after that.

Needless to say, if that happens, it would be an incredible chapter in Musk’s new book. But, if it feels a bit like déjà vu, we have heard similar aspirations from him before.

Now, he has one trillion reasons to finish the story.

Write to Tim Higgins at tim.higgins@wsj.com