Tesla kicked off its robotaxi service in Dallas and Houston over the weekend. Elon Musk urged riders to give it a spin. “Try Tesla Robotaxi in Dallas & Houston!” he posted on X. But by Monday morning, the service sat idle. Zero availability. The Verge reported the flop first, citing crowdsourced data from Robotaxi Tracker. Small geofenced zones define the rollout. Dallas gets 31 square miles. Houston 25. Austin, the pioneer city since June 2025, boasts 46 vehicles humming along. Those new spots? Not so much. Brief spikes hit Sunday afternoon. Then nothing. Waymo, Alphabet’s contender, mirrors the caution: 16 cars in Dallas, one in Houston. Operators start lean. They scale if it sticks. And the timing. Tesla’s Q1 earnings loom Wednesday. Skeptics smell a stock ploy. Remember Austin’s “unsupervised” rides before Q4 results? Shares jumped. Then poof—service shrank as reports showed falling revenue and profits for a second year. The Verge flagged the pattern.…