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<\/div>\nTesla’s long-awaited robotaxis rolled out for the first time on roads in Austin, Texas on Sunday.<\/p>\n
In videos shared by Tesla on X, a small group of invited analysts, influencers and shareholders were shown participating in paid rides. <\/p>\n
The small number of vehicles deployed had a human safety operator in the passenger seat, according to reports.<\/p>\n
Analysts said the “low-key” robotaxi launch highlights Tesla’s big bid to compete with existing self-driving taxi operators in the US and China, as the sector grows.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Musk congratulated Tesla’s artificial intelligence and chip design teams on the launch in a post on X, writing that it was “culmination of a decade of hard work”. <\/p>\n
“Both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla,” he added.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Sunday’s pilot, he said in a jokey post that customers would pay “a $4.20 flat fee” for rides in Tesla robotaxis.<\/p>\n
The small fleet of vehicles do not yet include the Cybercab – the futuristic car concept unveiled by Musk at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event in October – which Musk says will be the company’s driverless taxi in the future.<\/p>\n
Instead it was existing Tesla vehicles, with a small “robotaxi” logo on the side, that took to Austin streets on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Forrester analyst Paul Miller described the launch of the pilot as a “low-key affair”.<\/p>\n
“As expected, only a handful of vehicles are available right now, they only operate in a small part of the city and there’s a safety driver in the vehicle in case it encounters situations it cannot handle autonomously,” he said.<\/p>\n
But he added that the move highlighted the company’s ambitions to rival firms already offering driverless ride-hailing in the US and around the world.<\/p>\n
Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, along with Amazon’s Zoox, already offer self-driving taxi rides in Austin, as well as in San Francisco, California, and Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Uber, which recently announced it would bring forward trials of driverless taxis in the UK, has partnered with Chinese firms Pony.AI, WeRide and Momenta to bring autonomous ride-hailing to more cities outside the US and China.<\/p>\n
Mr Miller said Tesla is betting that the volume of cars it delivers, data it has from vehicles and cheaper, camera-based self-driving tech “will allow it to come from behind and pull ahead” of rivals.<\/p>\n
But he added that its ability to compete, particularly with Chinese firms dominating the sector, will depend on improvement of its advanced assisted driving system – which Tesla calls Full Self-Driving (FSD).<\/p>\n
FSD has been subject to probes by US auto regulators and complaints from customers about its safety.<\/p>\n
“If that FSD system isn’t a big leap forward from the driver assistance tech that buyers of regular Teslas already use in some countries, it’s going to need a lot of remote monitoring and control from an army of teleoperating safety drivers,” Mr Miller said.<\/p>\n
“This will add to Tesla’s costs, and offer plenty of opportunities for embarrassing videos of Tesla robotaxis doing weird things.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
It comes as a number of operators eye the growing market for driverless taxis.<\/p>\n
German car maker Volkswagen believes it could swell to \u20ac450bn in size by 2035, according to a recent report by Fortune magazine.<\/p>\n
But the rise of self-driving cars and ride-hailing services on US roads has also been met with some scepticism over their safety.<\/p>\n
Tesla said in a post on its X account on Monday that its robotaxi service “will greatly increase safety for vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians & cyclists”.<\/p>\n
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reportedly reviewing information from Tesla regarding the safety of its self-driving taxis in bad weather, following a request in May.<\/p>\n
General Motors pulled the plug on its Cruise robotaxi project in December after accidents involving its self-driving vehicles.<\/p>\n
The company also cited the increasingly competitive market as a reason for suspending its ride-hailing initiative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Published at Mon, 23 Jun 2025 10:52:41 +0000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tesla robotaxi ‘low-key’ launch in Texas Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxis rolled out for the first time on roads in Austin, Texas on Sunday. In videos shared by Tesla on X, a small group of invited analysts, influencers and shareholders were shown participating in paid rides. The small number of vehicles deployed had a human safety operator… Continue reading Tesla robotaxi ‘low-key’ launch in Texas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}