{"id":82397,"date":"2025-05-14T20:06:51","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82397"},"modified":"2025-05-14T20:06:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T00:06:51","slug":"tesla-yet-start-testing-robotaxi-service-without-driver-weeks-before-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=82397","title":{"rendered":"Tesla has yet to start testing its robotaxi service without driver weeks before launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"Tesla<\/figure>\n

Tesla has reportedly yet to start testing its robotaxi service in Austin without a safety driver behind the wheel \u2013 just weeks before the planned launch.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For months now, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have been hyping the launch of \u201cTesla Robotaxi\u201d, a Uber-like ride-hailing service powered by autonomous Tesla vehicles, starting with a launch in Austin, Texas in June.<\/p>\n

We have extensively reported that this launch is disappointing compared to what Tesla promised for years<\/a>: that all its consumer vehicles built since 2016 are capable of self-driving.<\/p>\n

Instead, Tesla plans to build an internal fleet of \u201c10-20\u201d Model Ys and have them offer ride-hailing services in a geo-fenced area around Austin, Texas, helped by human teleoperations. This is very similar to what Waymo has been offering in other cities for years, specifically in Austin, for months now.<\/p>\n

\tAdvertisement – scroll for more content<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with the significant downgrade in self-driving capabilities promised with this project, there are many doubts about Tesla\u2019s ability to achieve the lesser goal.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the robotaxi service will be based on Tesla\u2019s \u2018Supervised Full Self-Driving\u2019 program, which is currently achieving about 500 miles between critical disengagements fleet-wide, according to the latest crowdsourced data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tesla will be able to improve on that by optimizing a version for the geo-fenced area in Austin and it has been training its neural nets for that for months with vehicles going around Austin.<\/p>\n

However, a new report now claims that Tesla has yet to start testing its service without safety drivers at the wheel \u2013 similar to Tesla\u2019s public \u2018Supervised FSD\u2019. The Information<\/a> wrote in a new report:<\/p>\n

\n

Elon Musk\u2019s deadline for launching Tesla\u2019s first robotaxi service, in Austin, Texas, is weeks away, but the company hadn\u2019t started testing its cars without a human safety driver as of last month, according to an engineer close to the testing and a former employee. That\u2019s a crucial step required before Tesla can launch the pilot service for customers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For comparison, before launching its paid ride service in Austin, Waymo tested its vehicles with safety drivers in the area for 6 months and then without safety drivers for another 6 months.<\/p>\n

Waymo has now taken over a significant market share of ride-hailing rides in the Texas capital, but it still has limitations; for example, it doesn\u2019t drive on the interstate.<\/p>\n

The report also mentions that Tesla has been working with local emergency services in Austin to develop intervention plans in order to avoid causing issues if its autonomous vehicles fail.<\/p>\n

Electrek\u2019s Take<\/h2>\n

This is the biggest softball goal. It\u2019s a fraction of what was promised, it\u2019s something that others have achieved before. It\u2019s a punt created for Tesla to finally get a \u201cwin\u201d in self-driving.<\/p>\n

If they can\u2019t even make it, it would be disastrous, but at least, I hope that it will finally open the eyes of many Tesla shareholders to the reality that Tesla is actually behind in autonomous driving and that Musk\u2019s latest claims that Tesla will have \u201cmillions of robotaxi on the road\u201d in 2026 are just the same as when he claimed it would happen in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019: corporate puffery<\/a>. <\/p>\n

My main concern now is for public safety. I have little hope of US regulators being able to stop Tesla considering Trump is firing anyone who got in Musk\u2019s way after he gave him over $250 million.<\/p>\n

If Tesla brings its cowboy approach to this, it could get bad quickly.<\/p>\n

\n

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.<\/em> More.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tesla has reportedly yet to start testing its robotaxi service in Austin without a safety driver behind the wheel \u2013 just weeks before the planned launch. For months now, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have been hyping the launch of \u201cTesla Robotaxi\u201d, a Uber-like ride-hailing service powered by autonomous Tesla vehicles, starting with a launch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-cars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}