Tesla, Uber, and Waymo all get the OK to operate thousands of robotaxis in Nevada

NEW: Tesla, Uber and Waymo cleared to operate robotaxis in Nevada's Clark County, with permits allowing up to 8,000 driverless vehicles to be deployed over the next 12 months.

Eight thousand robotaxis just got the green light for Las Vegas.

Nevada's Transportation Authority voted unanimously to hand permits to Tesla, Uber and Waymo for Clark County, and you can see the battleground right here, the busiest tourist strip in America. Tesla gets the biggest slice, up to five thousand cars. Waymo and Uber get a thousand each, with Uber running its fleet through Motional and Zoox.

Now, will they actually deploy that many? Tesla's own Cybercab engineer says no. Eric Early told the hearing five thousand was always a ceiling, and he'd be thrilled to hit two and a half thousand in a year. That's refreshingly honest for a Tesla executive.

The taxi industry fought this and lost. Their lawyer warned about oversaturating the roads around the airport. The real fight is simpler than that. Vegas runs on human drivers, and three of the biggest names in tech just got permission to replace them.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.