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Tesla’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<\/a>, 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<\/a> – 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<\/a>, 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<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/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<\/a> reviewing information from Tesla regarding the safety of its self-driving taxis in bad weather, following a request in May.<\/p>\n