{"id":83293,"date":"2025-08-25T08:09:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T12:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=83293"},"modified":"2025-08-25T08:09:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T12:09:53","slug":"awkward-tesla-robotaxi-incident-proves-optics-over-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=83293","title":{"rendered":"Awkward Tesla Robotaxi incident proves they are putting optics over safety"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\"Tesla<\/figure>\n

An awkward Tesla Robotaxi incident, where the \u201csafety monitor\u201d had to exit the vehicle in the middle of traffic to take the driver\u2019s seat, suggests that Elon Musk\u2019s company is prioritizing optics over safety.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At Electrek<\/em>, we have warned all year that the launch of Tesla\u2019s \u2018Robotaxi\u2019 is more about optics<\/a>, giving the impression that Tesla is leading in autonomy, rather than advancements in deploying a safe autonomous ride-hailing system.<\/p>\n

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been making predictions about the automaker solving unsupervised self-driving by the end of every year for the last 6 years, and it never happened.<\/p>\n

He and Tesla badly needed a win to save face as Waymo is now rapidly expanding its own autonomous ride-hailing service across half a dozen US cities.<\/p>\n

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

To give the impression that it was also ready to deploy such a system, Tesla took a similar approach to selling self-driving technology in consumer vehicles \u2013 namely, doing it before it is ready.<\/p>\n

Tesla began offering a ride-hailing service in Austin, utilizing vehicles equipped with an updated version of its consumer Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. Instead of Tesla owners being supervisors and responsible for the cars like in the consumer version, Tesla installed employees in the front passenger seats with their fingers on a kill switch, ready to stop the car at any moment.<\/p>\n

Moving the supervisor from the driver\u2019s seat to the front passenger seat is purely for optics, to give the impression of progress, but it actually reduces safety.<\/p>\n

In the driver\u2019s seat, the supervisor would have more options to correct the vehicle in case of an error than with a killswitch to bring the vehicle to a stop.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, a new incident also shows how Tesla\u2019s approach endangers the \u201csafety monitor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tesla shareholders Ark Invest were testing Tesla Robotaxi when the vehicle wasn\u2019t able to make a left turn and got stuck in traffic. The supervisor had to exit the vehicle in the middle of traffic to move to the driver\u2019s seat and manually drive it to complete the ride:<\/p>\n

\n

\n