Tesla to launch paid robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025

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If I had to guess, it's going to be restricted to friends/family of Tesla employees at first, then slowly expand from there. I suspect we'll be able to gauge how close they are to actually doing this based on when they get wireless chargers deployed, or we see chargers deployed with attendants nearby. Which, in writing that, we can probably gauge how close they are based on job openings, as they will need *some* kind of attendant to plug the cars in, if they don't deploy wireless chargers. That said, I expect this to end up getting delayed to September/November, just because that's kind of how it goes.

I think Robotaxi can be applied to any Tesla with FSD, so the wireless charging is out. I could see this being used without the need for charging via “return to home with 10% remaining” function, which should work well for several trips in a city area. That’s the path of least resistance to get started.

Tesla to launch unsupervised FSD in 2015. Their dates are for a parallel multiverse.

You're still going to need "home" to have a bunch of chargers, and I'm not aware of there being somewhere that has a bunch of chargers just sitting around to be used yet. Additionally, we've already seen that the Cybertruck has a port to retrofit it with wireless charging, so I have to imagine that they can do something similar for the Model 3/Y. Hell, the refresh Model Y might have the port, and it simply hasn't been taken apart yet to find it. We're six months out, and I'm not taking a wireless charging option off the table for now. *I'm not expecting wireless charging*, but I think it's premature to rule it out.

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I'm not sure there'd be enough of them. For optimal use you'd want like a 20-30 stall site, otherwise you run the risk of superchargers getting clogged with robotaxi.

Yea it’s going to start with a people renting a few rides out while they’re off for the day or sleeping. That’s it for a while.

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They'd get laughed at, so no.

I drive Uber and I think checking the car every 4 hours to make sure it is clean will be necessary. If you do that at a supercharger you could wipe it down and vacuum while it is charging.

> If I had to guess, it's going to be restricted to friends/family of Tesla employees at first, then slowly expand from there. That'll be a likely step #1. Maybe there would be certain milestones with local regulators they have to promise to meet. Stage #2 I could see following the Waymo model - only in a limited 5sqmi geofenced downtown area (where they may already have good FSD data showing insanely low intervention rates), maybe only during daytime while it's not raining, etc. I could see all of that taking all of 2025 to complete. So my own "unsupervised FSD" *not* in Austin ... probably still a couple years off. EDIT to add: If Tesla can pull that off in 2025 - even a moderate single-city deployment of Cybercabs and unsupervised FSD for individual use even if they only limit it to fair weather conditions - I could see their market cap knocking up against $2tn, which is a bit over $600 a share.

I can see them geofencing it to "known reliable routes" as well, where they try to encourage it not to take routes that can get it stuck. That said, I wonder if these things will have their own Starlink dishes in them, so that if a remote operator has to help the car, then they can be relatively assured that the car will have connectivity.

So 2030 then?

Haven't thought about it before but what do the Waymos do? Go to a service center to be cleaned and then fueled? Anyone know how often they do this?

[The Waymos currently go to a lot when not in use](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2024/08/15/waymo-driverless-cars-honking-parking-lot-video/74810195007/). Presumably there's a similar lot for service and refueling as needed. But this video is the largest reason why I'm saying we'll see some pretty big context clues if/when Tesla is about to flip the switch, because they'll need staging grounds like this for the vehicles. You know, it just occurred to me that Tesla could just slap a QR code in the robotaxis, and people could choose to buy the vehicle that they're riding in, right then and there... Probably unlikely, but I know I got a loaner from the Tampa, FL service center one time that had a QR code in it to buy it. And, in writing that out, I think there's a possibility that we'll see the service center be used as "home base", and the initial robotaxi fleet could be vehicles acting as "loaners" for people dropping their cars off for repair.

I have seen the parking lot video before..I haven't seen anything about a service, cleaning, or refueling area yet though. I'm sure it exists. Would be nice to know how big that area is and the timing of Waymos coming and going to understand scale. I like your idea of a QR code. Tesla could do inventory discounts with pricing right on the screen if they need to move inventory.

Wellcome to a thing called robots

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Waymo has been doing this here in Austin for a while now FWIW.

if that’s really coming soon, shouldn’t we see the Vegas loop be driverless/ unsupervised first?

yeah Waymos in SF are getting trashed regularly now - when the service first launched, the cars being much nicer than the typical Uber driver's car was a big appeal of the service, but as they've scaled up, having the car arrive and seeing trash in the backseat, beverage spills, pot smells, etc are not that rare. It's a very solvable problem if you use cameras inside the car for surveillance, but Waymo has been reluctant to do this, I guess.

Big News holy

He is focused on tech. Antics do not take much energy. Most of the energy spent on antics is in others' reactions

I'm calling it now: This will either miss this deadline by a wide margin. -or- It will initially be geofenced into some very Easy Mode thing, like only around a college campus with limited interations, overtrained data, and low speed limits. The real-world equivalent of the movie studio lot stunt. Also, and I think we all know this, but it's going to be existing Teslas and not the new robotaxis--those won't have production models that are street legal yet.

Lol this is so wildly incorrect edit: elon that you defending yourself? twitter@Ermnmusk

I use FSD daily on my HW4 Model 3, and I think FSD is absolutely incredible. As much as I think it's amazing, I am a bit surprised that they're targeting a date that is so close. Unless they are running V14 internally and it's proving to be near perfect, I would not trust V13 enough to sit in the passenger seat of the car. It's VERY VERY VERY good, but still makes enough mistakes that I do not think it's ready for FSD Unsupervised. I'm also curious what this means, are they saying they're going to enable HW4 Model 3/Ys to become robotaxis? The Cybercab obviously won't be ready by June.

This is their Steve Jobs moment

Hes not focused on tech? Lol. And the majority of energy spent is not on reactions? The individual who I replied to wrote a 4 line comment on it. And there are millions of others doing the same. YOU are the one who is wildly incorrect

Spending hours on path of exile, working in dc on “doge” which is a joke that do not have time for, advocating for rightwing parties in europe. No yeah, totally focused lmfao. Where‘s the roadster btw? Lol Hows the supercharger network expansion going?

People saw "his" character was playing during inauguration, likely not all him. I'd argue the avg redditor spends more time worry about those things than he does, with absolutely nothing to show for it. Meanwhile he is leading humanity to Mars, revolutionizing the auto market, developing leading AI tech and humanoid robots. He is ABSOLUTLEY focused on tech. (Bullish on TSLA) Edit (replying to the new questions you edited into your OG comment): 1. Roadster delay is frustrating 2. Tesla opened over 11,500 new Superchargers stalls last year (2024), representing 19% year-over-year growth. Equates to over 30 new Supercharger stalls per day

He said on the call that those "mistakes" are not actually safety related and solely preferential based on a drivers style. Could you list some of these mistakes you experienced? I don't have a HW4 car so it'd be helpful to get your perspective with one.

lol that’s one way to put it… I guess it’s a preference of mine to not have my car slam into the back of a truck that’s backing onto the road. I’m sort of high maintenance like that though 🤷‍♂️ https://x.com/devinolsenn/status/1883932453511078102?s=46 I’m also not a fan of whatever the hell would have happened here had I not intervened. https://x.com/devinolsenn/status/1870507878051881330?s=4 Both of these are V13 HW4

Dude these are great examples. Thank you.

No worries, like I said I use FSD a LOT and I film most of my Drives so I’ve gotten a few really good examples of FSD failing. But I’ve also used it for thousands of KMs and it’s done incredibly well for me the majority of the time. So I’m not discrediting it - I just think Elon saying it’s less than 6 months away from unsupervised is a lofty goal

Lmfao

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They'll be using AI?

Right, but that's kind of my point. When we see Tesla making these moves, *then* we know we're getting close to unsupervised FSD.

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*The Tesla community knows*. There's people out there who specifically look for permits to build out Superchargers. *They find out*.

“Leading humanity to Mars” - thanks for the laugh today, I needed it.

No prob man😁

You bring up a good point. I assumed Cybercab would have those remote intervention capabilities, but maybe thats a bad assumption and Tesla is not pursuing that function. Without it I would agree, I'm not convinced unsupervised is ready for use.

An iPod, a Phone, and an Internet Communicator An iPod A Phone An Internet Communicator Are ya getting it?

…and every car will be monitored remotely by an employee, like Amazon’s “vision only” grocery stores.

Well, everybody on Austin streets will be participating in the experiment, won’t they?

No different than Waymo and the others. Hell, Uber killed someone during their testing. Science doesn't move forward without heaps

There’s clearly an enormous gap between Waymo’s and Tesla’s approach to safety. If/when things go sideways it’ll be interesting to see how the citizens of Austin respond to their role of Elon’s crash test dummies.

Anybody want to put money on that?

Having a concrete date is promising. After the progress we saw in 2024, it's finally starting to feel real. My car drives itself so competently now. It's absolutely insane.

FYI AI5 launching summer this year.

Excuse my naivety but what happens if people trash the inside of your vehicle with drinks or purposely vandalise it? Will there be some kind pre-paid insurance policy or a cleaning service or something?

Is Wemo in SanFran a step below these new version of Tesla Robotaxis? because the Wemo cars based on youtube videos and review are horrendous.

I bet not, but we’ll see. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Absolutely incredible is good enough

Yawn

If so, why develop a whole new vehicle for robotaxi if existing vehicles can?

Cheaper parts?

If it does happen on time, big if, it’d be great if Tesla car owners got a discount. Begun, the rewards program has.

Check these random 3 safety critical inventions chuck cook for the other day. He had had none for like the last 4 minr versions then got 3 on a single drive 10:27 steering wheel jerks to the left towards an oncoming car 11:28 car fails to yield to cars while in suicide lane 55:01 car decides to drive on the wrong side of the road

There are legal and regulatory hurdles they have to go through for this and NV may not be as friendly as TX. Also, Robotaxi is 1,000x as important to the company as Vegas.

I wonder who will be the first person to have sex in the Robotaxi. I bet it’s a pissed off Uber driver. The economic so this robo better be cheaper than Uber or what’s the point. Some folks may ride it out of novelty but in the end cost will be driver. I worry vandalism will be a huge drag on this thing. I hope no accidents but that is likely as well.

Cool.. waymo is already in like 20 cities.

There's literally posts all over Twitter. Sorry, I mean "X".

June seems way too soon to me. I'm skeptical

This is the type of setup I thought of when they demo'd the cybercab. 1 org maintaining a fleet of them so that all the availability, repair, and liability is with one company. I'd be interested in taking a ride in one to see how it goes.

I doubt this will actually work. They don't have a properly functioning FSD yet.

they have Tesla robots to clean the inside now [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI6WZD-dqr8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI6WZD-dqr8) charging is a wireless plate. this is going to cream Waymo long term.

Tesla shared a video on YouTube a few weeks ago featuring a robot vacuuming and cleaning the seats and screens. If someone damages the car's interior, I believe they would likely be detected through cameras or the booking app. And likely be held responsible for the damages.

Much cheaper parts! And designed to be cleaned easily and be more efficient to save on electricity

Vegas also has very strong backing for taxi industry. Uber and Lyft had alot of resistance getting started there. Its still controlled by the historic big players (MOB)