- Tesla revealed his “publicly turned” Robotaxi Service this weekend
- The service is currently an invited affair
- Reports suggest it is still behind Waymo and other rivals
In a surprising reversal of events, Tesla has adhered to her recent timelines and actually started a “public-facing” autonomous Ride-Hailing service in Austin, Texas this weekend.
Despite Texas legislators who asked Musk to postpone the procedure until it had completed and introduced new laws around fully autonomous taxis, the controversial CEO has plowed.
As a result surfaces reports on various social media networks showing the first few VIP -invited to enjoy their debutrobotaxia experience.
Dette er dog langt fra det futuristiske cybercab-scenarie, som Tesla fremviste på sit Hollywood-spec ‘We, Robot’ -begivenhed i oktober sidste år, hvor skræddersyede cybercabs færrede folk omkring et filmsæt og virksomhedens Optimus Humanoid-robotter tjente drikkevarer til festgæster, kun for verden for at finde ud af, at de faktisk var Tele-operated.
It is a similar story with Tesla’s recent Robotaxi effort, as the “fleet” of 10-20 model Y-vehicles (sporting some Robotaxi branding) is strictly limited to a small and relatively uncomplicated area in Austin, Texas.
They also only work between 06:00 and 12 and have a remote operator in the passenger seat to manually verify the riders’ ID and take control if a problem arises.
The Verge reported that some of Tesla’s driverless vehicles are also followed by ‘chase’ vehicles, presumably filled with engineers ready to jump in if there was a problem that both car and remote operators cannot handle.
So far, only a selected number of invitations have gone out to predominantly “Pro-Tesla” influencers, according to The Verge, with the preliminary invitation list of test pilots reading as one who is-who of Musk-Sycophant quota-the famous Tesla-stock-mealyyyyyyer Merritt is among these names.
Like the ‘We, Robot’ event, this initial launch phase feels much like a massive public relations stunt, where the company essentially invites the “public public” (read Tesla content creators) on a trip in the very early testing phase, rather than during the widespread implementation of a legitimate, paid for service.
Why Waymo is far ahead
It is impossible to talk about Tesla’s Robotaxi service without mentioning its closest competitor Waymo, especially when Musk reportedly said after this successful initial launch phase that up to a thousand robotaxis on the road could be on the road in a few months.
As a reminder, Waymo currently has a fully operational fleet of 1,500 vehicles on the road in four major cities in the United States, where the areas where it is constantly working in these cities. Anyone can summon a driverless cab with a simple app interface and they cannot see a human inside the vehicle.
By the end of 2026, it hopes to have added another 2,000 vehicles according to a blog post from the alphabet-owned company released in May this year as it continues to prepare a fleet of Jaguar I-PACE CARS for autonomous driving.
Waymo also announced that it will be the first major client of Hyundai’s mass -produced Ioniq 5 Robotaxi, which will help it scale even faster.
Believing that Musk will be able to reach this step a few months after what is basically an initial testing phase is pure imagination, especially as he insists on using a camera-art fully self-driving system that lacks the radars, Lidar and countless other sensors, as its rivals say, is mandatory for a reliable and secure service.
Upscaling is the true test
Already, a number of videos have already appeared on Reddit, which appears to show Tesla Robotaxis, who behaves irregularly, swings at busy crosses and slam on the brakes to parked police cars that are not even stopped on the road.
Granted, it is impossible to verify the authenticity of a Reddit video, but there is a growing list of very public cases where Tesla’s full self-driving system has been active during an accident.
The first few reviews of the experience seem largely positive, where most riders describe the drive as “smooth” or “human -like”, but these are still very early days.
![First Tesla Robotaxi Ride [Full Drive] - YouTube](https://pakinomist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/1750706738_956_I-dont-buy-Tesla-Robotaxi-hype-heres-why-its.jpg)
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Things become far more complicated if and when Tesla legitimately has thousands of vehicles on the road, it removes the operator in the passenger seat and it builds its app so the public can really use it. I predict that being at least two years away.
Alongside Waymo there are companies in China that also continue with active fully autonomous Ride-Hailing services. Baidu, Weride and Pony.ai are already racking hundreds and thousands of miles.
Just last year, Baidu allegedly triggered anxiety among taxi drivers, car brands and the working public after launching a driverless service in Wuhan, which offered rides of about six miles (much longer than they reported four or Miles Tesla at the moment can travel) to about 50 cents.
The undercut travels with a human driver at the steering wheel with about two dollars and of course proved very popular, according to CNN, which led to panic that many jobs could soon be at risk.
When the legal framework is in place for the widespread roll -out of autonomous vehicles, it would not be too much of a stretch to believe that the Chinese could hover in and dominate the market … just as they have done with EVs.
