Tesla Robotaxi

Waymo published a list of “10 AI lessons” from driving more than 200 million fully autonomous miles, and several of them read as a direct rebuke of Tesla’s self-driving strategy — without ever naming Tesla.

The sharpest: trying to turn a driver-assist system into full autonomy is a “false summit,” according to Waymo. That’s exactly what Tesla is attempting with Full Self-Driving.

Tesla’s “Robotaxi” service is racking up a wave of terrible rider experiences in Texas — and the complaints are increasingly coming from Tesla’s own fans and ambassadors.

A self-described “Tesla Ambassador” says the service quoted him 66 minutes for a 2.3-mile trip and left him to call an Uber, while a four-time Tesla owner has logged a string of missed pickups and drop-offs left blocks — sometimes miles — from the destination.

Tesla confirmed it will hold a Cybercab event in Austin on September 3, promoting it with a poster that reads “Exclusive Access: Cybercab.” It’s an invite-only affair for the top scorers in its Robotaxi rider sweepstakes, and Tesla says it will livestream the launch for everyone else.

The framing suggests something big is coming. What’s actually coming is a two-seat car with no steering wheel added to the same driverless service Tesla has been running in Austin for over a year — a fleet that our tracking still puts at roughly two dozen unsupervised vehicles.

Tesla laid out an updated timeline for Full Self-Driving, its Cybercab, and the Optimus robot in a recent meeting with JPMorgan at its Fremont factory. The bank walked away with claims that FSD v15 is a “step-change,” that today’s HW4 computer can handle unsupervised driving, and that Optimus could go on sale to outside buyers as soon as the second half of 2027.

Most of it repeats promises Tesla has made, and missed, before.

A Tesla “Robotaxi” running with no safety monitor onboard drove straight through a row of bollards protecting a closed-off lane in Austin, then kept driving.

The video surfaced Monday, less than a month after Tesla’s head of AI told investors the Robotaxi program has an “impeccable safety record” with “zero notable incidents.”

While no one was hurt or in danger in this incident, it is worrying to see an unsupervised Tesla vehicle ram through clearly visible bollards with plenty of time to see them and think about going around them.

On today’s momentous episode of Quick Charge, we are all about momentum, with solid-state EV batteries gaining ground in China as wind and solar continuing to grow in the US while Tesla’s self-driving Robotaxi fleet, well – doesn’t.

Tesla’s “unsupervised” Robotaxi fleet has grown to 25 cumulative vehicles across three Texas cities, according to new data from the Robotaxi Tracker. It’s still an extremely number far below what CEO Elon Musk predicted, but it marks the first real signs of growth nearly a year into the program.

The data shows Tesla adding unsupervised vehicles in Austin, Dallas, and Houston over the past few weeks — a notable change after months of stagnation that saw the fleet essentially flatline.

Tesla has released quarterly earnings, and the announcement was accompanied by what seems to be a backpedaling on availability of Robotaxis in 5 of the 8 cities Tesla has announced availability in.

On today’s pumped-up episode of Quick Charge, we notice how funny it is that Tesla makes a big Robotaxi announcement every time the TSLA earnings call looks like a disappointment.

Tesla announced today that its “Robotaxi” service is now rolling out in Dallas and Houston, marking the company’s first expansion beyond Austin and San Francisco. The company shared maps of the two new service areas, which appear to cover small slices of each city.

The Houston geofence covers approximately 25 square miles, according to early user analysis of the maps, while the Dallas zone appears to center around the Highland Park area. For context, Tesla’s Austin geofence has grown to roughly 245 square miles after months of gradual expansion — but that took nearly a year to reach from an initial 20-square-mile footprint.

On today’s surprisingly affordable episode of Quick Charge we respond to America’s new, $770/mo. average car payment buy rounding up some affordable EV lease deals at less than HALF the new normal.

Tesla has abruptly decided to give up plans to build an autonomous charging station for future driverless taxis in downtown San Francisco, ahead of a public hearing on the matter. The plan had received pushback from the Teamsters union, though whether that influenced Tesla’s decision is not clear.

On Tesla’s Q4/FY2025 earnings call yesterday, Musk mused about the growth rate of its paid robotaxi service, which it launched in Austin this year.

But there’s little evidence that the network is working at the level he claims it is today, and it seems extremely unlikely that it will scale at the rate he claimed either.

Tesla has started offering Robotaxi rides without a safety monitor in Austin, Texas. After yet another set of missed timelines and a full decade of broken promises, Elon Musk is finally getting a version of the “win” he has been desperately seeking. But considering the alarming crash data we have and the evidence of heavy remote monitoring, should we be excited or terrified?

Update: New video evidence shows that Tesla’s supposedly “unsupervised” Robotaxis in Austin are being closely followed by black Tesla trailing cars with safety monitors inside. Tesla didn’t remove the safety monitors – it just moved them to a different vehicle.

Waymo began autonomous ride-hailing operations in Miami, Florida today, covering a 60-square-mile service area stretching from the design district to South Miami.

It’s the sixth city covered by Waymo’s level 4 driverless taxis, while its main competitor, Tesla, has just started its first driverless taxi operation today (in very limited form).

Tesla has reported yet another crash involving its Robotaxi fleet in Austin to the NHTSA. The new data keeps the program’s accident rate alarmingly high compared to human drivers, even as the company prepares to remove human safety supervisors from the vehicles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company will remove “safety monitors” from the passenger seats of Tesla’s Robotaxi vehicles in “about three weeks,” which would mean we’d see completely driverless Teslas in the Austin area potentially by the end of the year – if that timeline sticks.

Elon Musk announced last night that Tesla is planning to “roughly double” its Robotaxi fleet in Austin next month. While an expansion of the pilot sounds positive on the surface, a look at the actual numbers reveals that Tesla is missing its own “end of year” target by a massive margin.

Just last month, Musk explicitly stated that Tesla aimed to have 500 Robotaxis in Austin by the end of the year. Now, “doubling” the current estimated fleet suggests the actual number will be closer to 60.

Tesla and Waymo are currently on opposite sides of a back-and-forth regarding how to proceed with California’s autonomous ride-hailing rules, and Tesla’s filings paint a different picture of its “Robotaxi” system’s capabilities than its CEO Elon Musk has in his public statements.

Tesla has been granted a Transportation Network Company (TNC) permit by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), enabling the company to operate a paid ride-hailing service in the state officially.

This will allow Tesla to launch its ‘Robotaxi’ similarly to how it does in California – meaning with Uber drivers using Full Self-Driving Supervised (FSD).

A Tesla Robotaxi ‘safety driver’ in San Francisco was caught on video sleeping in the middle of a drive with a customer.

The good news is that the system did wake him up, but certainly a bit late.