Tesla began riding in the driverless model Y SUV in Austin 10 years after CEO Elon Musk began countless promises about his company’s ability to launch such services.
Deployment will be the first major test of Musk’s belief that it is possible to safely deploy fully autonomous vehicles using cameras and end-to-end AI. This is a different approach to other players in spaces like Waymo.
On Sunday, numerous videos shared on social media and sources around the city confirmed what Musk had been making fun of for months.
Tesla sent early access invitations to customers who reviewed last week. Customers were able to download and use the new Robotaxi app on Sunday to ride. The number of people who received this invitation is unknown. However, Musk’s posts on social media platform X show that many of them went to Tesla’s biggest online supporters.
The invitation, along with a new Robotaxi information page released on the Tesla website on June 22nd, will confirm that the service will operate daily from 6am to 12am, but “may be restricted or unavailable in bad weather.” And Tesla employees in particular are sitting in the right passenger seat as a “safety monitor.”
The Robotaxi Information Page also includes instructions on how to download the app, report lost items, and general rules for riders. That still means the kinds of details that have historically provided by Waymo, an alphabet-owned AV company that runs commercial Robotaxis in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin.
According to Musk, the Robotaxi service will likely be a little less likely to start. The first fleet will be about 10 or so 2025 Model Y SUVs operating in narrowly defined areas of South Austin. This is in line with a first-hand account by Ed Niedermeyer, author of “Ludicrous, The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors,” who is in Austin to monitor the Robotaki rollout. (Niedermeyer is an automatic no-cust co-host with Kirsten Korosec, the TechCrunch editor.)
Neidermeyer discovered what looked like the Tesla Robotaxi Depot. This is a treeless car park near Orthorf Street in South Austin. The day before the launch, he discovered some unmanned Model Y – always in and out of the car park with employees behind the steering wheel. Other groups of Tesla Model y vehicles were mostly equipped with manufacturer plates and parked there.
This morning he discovered the brand’s Tesla model Y Robotaxis. This time I was in the passenger seat with the staff and left the holding area. He observes one of the brand’s Robotaxis, which has yet to pick up riders, and suddenly hits the brakes twice in the middle of the intersection. It is unclear why the vehicle behaved that way. However, in a video that TechCrunch watched and then posted to YouTube, it happened in both cases when Tesla passed a police vehicle in a parking lot adjacent to the road.
Information gap
Up until its launch, Musk shared DRIVE and DRIVE about the Tesla Robotaxi launch in several interviews and posts about X. Even today, almost all information about the Robotaki launch is provided by the company’s biggest supporters.
In fact, Tesla has actively tried to curb information about the Robotaxi service. Tesla attempted to block TechCrunch’s public record requests at the Texas Department of Transport (TXDOT). The company also attempted to block the city of Austin from fulfilling Reuters’ record requests, according to the news service.
“Tesla is trying to be as transparent as possible, but as further explained below, some of the requested information cannot be released as it is confidential, trade secrets, and/or business information exchanged with TXDOT in conjunction with its implementation with TXDOT,” Taylor White, Senior Tesla and Senior Tesla attorney, wrote in Texasay agtersy.
One more interesting rollout strategy is that the company uses human “safety monitors.”
It is unclear what role these safety monitors will play, and no matter how much controls they have. These employees may not intend to intervene if the software is trying to do something wrong. But they may have access to some kind of kill switch that allows them to park the car if it happens.
Historically, self-driving car companies like Waymo and former Cruise have tested their respective autonomous driving technologies by placing a human safety operator behind the wheels and a second engineer in the passenger seat. Ultimately, it may be reduced to one person sitting in the passenger seat before removing them completely. This practice was traditionally carried out during the testing phase, but not commercial operations.
Tesla does not use a futuristic vehicle known as a Cybercab, revealed on October 10, 2024. Instead, the 2025 Tesla Model Y vehicle is equipped with what Mask describes as a new “unsupervised” version of Tesla’s fully self-driving software.
By default, Tesla does not use in-cabin cameras while riding. The company says it will only be used in cases where riders request support or in emergencies. After the ride is finished, use the camera to “make sure the Robotaxi is ready for your next trip.”
Tesla encourages early access riders to take photos and videos of their experiences, but it is said that if riders “violate rules, such as whether to popularize social media platforms or similar media depicting a violation of these rules or similar media depicting a misuse of Robotakshi,” they “could suspend or terminate Robotakshi access.” (That includes riders who agree not to smoke, smoke, drink alcohol, take drugs, or use Robotaki in connection with crime.)
Musk and other Tesla executives praised the X milestone, with Ashok Elswamy, head of the company’s autonomous driving team, posting photos of the “Robotaxi launch party” from a private location.
“Congratulations to the @tesla_ai Software & Chip Design team for a successful launch of @Robotaxi!
However, at least one rider on Sunday reported that Tesla’s remote support team had experience having to help in some way. It’s not immediately clear what happened during that ride, but that same rider later said the ride was very smooth.
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