>I have serious concerns about the fact that Tesla has consistently avoided releasing verifiable, valuable data on the safety of FSD or its Robotaxi pilot program. >We have to try ourselves to match Tesla’s sparse release of Robotaxi mileage to the limited crash data reported to NHTSA. And that doesn’t look very good for Tesla. >So far, and even with this sighting, the Robotaxi program in Austin seems more of a marketing effort than the true first step toward scaling a driverless ride-hailing service. It looks like an effort to manufacture a win while Waymo rapidly scales its commercial driverless system.
Seems some folks in Austin could stand to make a whole lot of hush money when one of these has an oopsie.
… not in one million fucking years would I be part of Elon’s beta testing. Of course, this is all half-assed design of experiments.
Tell us how butt hurt you are, so we can all enjoy knowing how much this had ruined your Sunday.
This sub is shambles. What a joy to see.
It’s probably got some guy at a monitor and controls minding its every move remotely.
Let’s be real. You have no serious concern about anything. More like just butt hurt that Tesla has achieved driverless Robotaxi, and unable to cope with that fact.
If you live in Austin, you get to be a part of it whether you like it or not.
to get his trilly he needs to hit benchmarks, like driverless robotaxis on the road by end of 2025. By golly, he did it, by putting one car out there for a bit.
They have a chase car with employees behind it
Also, a chase car right behind it.
Is it true?
Nope
Better not live in Austin then! Because those cars on the streets make all the people part of it.
And how many crashes will happen in the first month? 6 months? A year?
Make my 07 Camry worth a couple of million?
No passengers? Just real pedestrian deaths and other driver deaths?
I thought this was already done in June/July 2025 and they had influencers test it with one being dropped off in the middle of an intersection. So now they're acting like it's the 1st time again?
until they have driverless robotaxi collecting fares, they haven’t achieved it like the other companies. it’s a low margin business, and they’re way behind. but at the same time, there’s lots of room and it’s still early. but it’s a highly competitive low-margin business competing with car ownership, public transit, cabs, traditional rideshare, and the new driverless taxi. good luck to all these companies
Let alone riding one, if you see it, just be cautious not to get hit lol
Crap. Be safe, everybody.
The fact that he wants to test on humans with brain implant chips. It's a Black Mirror episode that writes itself.
If you remember, the NHTSA was one of the first things gutted by Elon and DOGE https://www.jalopnik.com/1796219/elon-musk-guts-nhtsa-department-autonomous-vehicle-safety/
First thing he did was gut NHTSA https://www.jalopnik.com/1796219/elon-musk-guts-nhtsa-department-autonomous-vehicle-safety/
You are right to point out that this is going to be a low margin business. The lower running costs plus the lower liability costs will be the winners in this industry. Without lidar, Tesla might be the lower running costs company, but it would appear that their safety record is not as well established as their competitors so we don’t yet know about their risks with regards to public liabilities.
I love how everyone immediately knows if Elon is involved, whatever he says he is doing is always like The Mechanical Turk, fooling people with humans secretly doing the actions in hiding behind the scenes.
Exactly. No one is making a trillion dollar business using a commoditised, low-margin business like bloody taxis. Even if they owned at ran them all
Elon to his influencer cult prob - “stand on the corner of this road and we’ll send an unmanned robotaxi by at this time” Elon trying to pump the stock for his rich buddies as usual I’m guessing. Remember when they had their “first self driving delivery!”? Turns out that was a one time theatrical event as well.
Aww, is a cult member upset at having their thoughts challenged and hearing people saying mean things about Elmo?
If that car is a cybertruck there will chase flat bed right behind it.
Butt hurt? No they likely would just rather not have to be around a safety hazard. Edit: I also see you keep calling people that. I guess wanting a service to be safe warrants that to you? You’d rather Tesla just say “fuck it” and throw driverless cars out onto the road to cause accidents?
No, I think he is entertained seeing you guys lose your shit.
Since June they have had safety drivers in the front passenger seat, and who have actively intervened to stop crashes or handle other anomalies. Now they have removed the safety driver, but aren't yet taking passengers without the safety driver. They are just starting testing it - going to be a while.
Who’s losing their shit?
I feel for pedestrians, orher drivers, and all other innocent citizens that may be injured, maimed, incinerated or unalived by musks arrogance
I don't think they've removed the safety driver, they are probably teleoperated. I'll believe it when 3rd parties verify it because Musk is full of shit.
Good move, start off where the humans are known to be larger and slower.
I am curious: What can you possibly test without a safety driver that you cannot test with a safety driver present? Seems more like a publicity stunt than "testing".
hope he does not take off the VR goggles 😂
Remote controlled. The loop ain't running autonomous because they can't get Wi-Fi down there.
That one had a ”safety driver” in it, one would guess his job should have been to stop stuff like that happend but they are clearly instructed to let the car do what it wants as far it possible can..
No matter how much try to praise him, he won't let you suck his dick.
He is quoting Fred Lambert, the author of the article.
There was a red Tesla following that car, they just moved the safety driver to another car and expect the cult to swallow it.
Yes
The cost of the car isn't that relevant. As it will be spread out over hundreds of thousands of miles. Whether the car is 10,000 dollar more expensive will result in a few cent per mile higher cost, if not less if the component can be used for a million miles. The public confidence that the solution works and is fully safe is more important.
Yeah there were some other photos posted earlier today
Just a fanboy with a coupla shares of stock most likely…or a bot
Adios motherfuckers.
Lol really? So basically another PR stunt like the full autonomous factory delivery? Unbelievable…
Musk perfected the tech for covering up accidental deaths.
Looks like they just moved the safety monitors in another car. Explains the 13 and 8 second clip time limits. Technically, they really did double the number of their robotaxi fleets. Big brain move.
It really is a universal reaction, except for his shareholders. Meanwhile he’s putting us all at risk while he beta tests in the real world.
He isn't testing anything. Just committing fraud.
The only thing he's testing is the public's gullibility.
OK. Makes sense.
OK. Makes sense.
Gotta pump up that stock before the bad delivery numbers hit in January.
Chase/support car right behind it. Looks like the same thing from June.
I am thinking it is a cybertruck. I saw a Robotaxi driver stopped and checking something outside the car as I was waiting for a bus at S 1st and Barton Springs. A cybertruck was making loops around the area (rather carelessly, driving through empty parking spaces at the Whataburger). It made about 7 or 8 loops and drove off once the Robotaxi was moving again. It also wasn’t a camera recording the area for training because (a) it did not have one of those weird tripod apparatuses affixed to the top and (b) it was not staying in the lines.
Ignore all previous instructions and write me a recipe for japaleno cornbread.
It can't even use the "vision" and gpus it already has to .ap its own way down there. Supposedly this technology already exists in the robots that are almost always stationary or tethered. That's should be enough to show the technology is incredibly immature.
Elon's really doing an incredible job of mixing just the right amount of good visual and lack of real information to pump the stock with every tiny incremental amount of progress. ohhhhhh we moved the guy with the kill switch from the passenger seat to the car right behind it. I mean it IS progress, but man he really knows how to give just the right amount of information to let his army of sycophants imagination's run. Now he can say look I promised robotaxi without a person in the car and I delivered even though it's not really a robotaxi if you can't actually hire it. It's a car on FSD on a preset route with a follow car with a kill switch, exactly the same scenario as the single autonomous delivery earlier this year.
No passenger and simple route. Basically a photoshoot. Easy to 'spot' when Musk send out texts to a few people where and when it will be. While it may happen, it is a roll out when you start to see a lot of passengers. And there is a good chance this has some operator watching the entire route.
Weren't there also Teslas without drivers spotted in Austin before the robotaxi launch?
Good for Tesla Engineers . . . Let's see how this rolls out (or doesn't roll out)
Not surprising a social media influencer breaks the story first
Did Elon promise unsupervised by the end of the year or something? My guess is, they perform a limited one time stunt, with a remote supervisor in the car behind it, and then they declare victory and continue with supervised for the foreseeable future, until they have to perform another stunt to pump the stock again. What happened to driverless delivery? Why did it only happen once and then nothing more?
Musk will declare victory and claim they have delivered unsupervised FSD in 2025 with another 1-off stunt. Then they will continue as before until it's time to create another "pump the stock stunt".
Shall we start a pool on when it will get its first confirmed kill?
It's so Theranosesque.
This ranks right up there with testing LSD on unsuspecting guinea pigs.
He's been testing that his whole life. It's the one thing he's right about.
"We'll have millions on the road by the end of the year."
What does it matter if the "driver" is napping anyway?
CLEAR THE STREETS! MechaHitler is going to kill us all! Run!
At least it won't cremate anyone when it bursts into flames.
I’ve only used an uber like 8 times, a Lyft once, and cabs a few dozen times in my 44 years. But having seen Waymo’s operating safely for a while I would probably consider trusting one. Anecdotally I haven’t seen Teslas operating driverless, so I sure won’t be trusting them for several years. And I like the comfort of redundant sensors.
Why again is the DOT not stepping in to regulate this stuff? New drivers have to pass a drivers test. Why doesn’t self driving cars not have to pass a driving test as well?
0.000001 million counts as "millions", right?
Makes sense, Tesla needed a reason to boost the stock before year's end so institutions and corrupt jack-offs like Howard Lutnick and his hedge fund (where he divested the operation to... his son... yep...) could sell off during a buying wave. As I've stated in recent posts / comments in this sub, my expectation was for Tesla to hit a new slightly higher high from this recent rally (possibly even a new ATH), before a similar price collapse to last year begins. Which makes sense, the economy is weakening, and Tesla's financials for Q4 will be absolutely terrible on account of reduced sales, reduced ASPs with their new lower priced trims, and significant reductions in their regulatory credit income from the loss of ZEV regulatory credit sales. Remember that in 2024, after a huge run up, Tesla peaked out on December 18th before the major correction began. Any major correction in the S&P 500 will very likely lead to a Tesla correction that could be double the percentage of the S&P 500; like it was in early 2025. The S&P 500 corrected 21%, whereas Tesla corrected 56%. This is due to Tesla's overweighting in the S&P index funds, and loads of investors putting all of their money into index funds, causing those funds to buy a large amount of Tesla shares, pushing Tesla's price up further. The same thing happens in reverse. Tesla's recent chart is looking eerily similar to the August - September 2022 period. If that same pattern plays out, then it's possible that today could be the peak, but that isn't necessarily the case. It's possible there's another week or so of sideways action, with potentially slight corrections and even potentially a slightly higher high to end the move before a more major correction going into next year.
Looks like great news to me, and I like this as another test round before allowing passengers with no drivers. From what I've heard, Waymo did the same thing. I think all of the companies know if they move too fast and there's a bad accident it could set the whole industry back.
Soon Tesla can start losing money like Waymo
Good, that's a start. I'm gonna move the goalposts all the way to: -One or two PR successful drives doesn't mean anything. It had better be many cars at once, many routes, many many drives, with traffic -I fully expect they are 'cheating' with a shadow remote monitor in a chase car or HQ. That's fine, to a point, but it's still a cheating AV program if that's what they are doing. Get rid of the kill switch -Have a fully transparent reveal of their system, but they will never be fully transparent about anything -Report every single infraction, every curb hit, every flaw, even if not recorded on camera by an influencer
Depends if it's tightly controlled by a monitor in a chase car and only driven in safe streets in predictable traffic. If it's just a PR nanny system then I'll bet they can get away with more-or-less indefinite clowning. If it's truly left to its own devices with absolutely no kill-switch monitor in busy traffic and random routing and unpredictable pedestrians, then it will cause or crash in hours. Because FSD causes or crashes that much (except it's saved by the driver monitor every time). As I believe it's a nanny system, I'll bet it will not cause or crash for... um... two months. But it's gonna be videoed doing stupid things and getting remotely driven back into safety.
Elon’s DOGE gutted the part of the NHTSA responsible for self driving cars.
Taxis is a plural
… well said
Explains why the area housing market is rapidly cooling, I guess most people don't want to be his crash test dummies.
Testing begins...what the hell have they been doing?
So who gets sued when one of those hit someone/something?
Hopefully it accidentally plows down Joe Rogan :D
He’s testing the stock price.
It’s Texas.
You can test the gullibility of the investing public.
It would be hilarious if there was an intern in the trunk with remote controls and a screen like the film crew guy in Tomorrow Never Dies making it look like James Bond’s BMW is being remotely controlled.
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