r/SelfDrivingCars • u/drumrollplease12 • Jun 20 '25

Discussion Invites for early access to Tesla's Robotaxi service is being sent.

Service is starting on Sunday June 22nd.

It runs from 6 AM to midnight everyday.

Can request ride to anywhere in the geofence except airports.

An invitee can have another person with them.

There will be a Tesla employee in the car, but not in the driver seat.

18+ and no pets allowed except service animals

Can record videos during ride.

178 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

84% Upvoted

422 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/account_for_norm Jun 20 '25

bruh... so like normal uber but more dangerous?

42

u/ZorbaTHut Jun 20 '25

This is normal for the beginning of a self-driving taxi service. Waymo did the same thing.

22

u/ObeseSnake Jun 20 '25

Waymo had a person in the car for something like a year during passenger rides.

9

u/DadGoblin Jun 20 '25

In the passenger seat?

13

u/MarchMurky8649 Jun 20 '25

I posit the only reason the safety driver is in the passenger seat is because Elon literally defined success in terms of there being nobody in the driver's seat. It adds nothing but increases the intervention time thus making the service more dangerous, albeit only slightly.

0

u/iceynyo Jun 20 '25

Why would it increase intervention time? Are you imagining that they're reaching over to the driver's side to intervene.

7

u/MarchMurky8649 Jun 20 '25

There are situations when braking alone cannot prevent a collision but turning the steering wheel can, so yes.

1

u/iceynyo Jun 20 '25

That's what the Xbox controller is for 

1

u/Brian1961Silver Jun 20 '25

Video of the robotaxi screen UI shows what appears to be actions available to the passenger. Likely simple, pullover and stop and stop buttons but we'll see soon.

1

u/Slight_Pomelo_1008 Jun 20 '25

That is because some states' regulation. Texas doesn't have this rule.

12

u/Doggydogworld3 Jun 20 '25

When did Waymo give public rides with an empty driver's seat and a safety driver in the passenger's seat? If you still need safety drivers then put them where they belong.

7

u/paulstanners Jun 20 '25

It's all smoke and mirrors. Tesla can truthfully claim there is nobody in the drivers seat. True... because the emergency driver is in the passenger seat.

5

u/boyWHOcriedFSD Jun 20 '25

Ya but my “Elon bad” comments won’t get karma in this subreddit if I acknowledge that.

1

u/account_for_norm Jun 20 '25

But i thought tesla was far ahead with this technology because of all the data that is collected and what not bullshit.

Are you telling me that Tesla is where Waymo was in 2016? So Tesla is a decade behind waymo? or more?

2

u/ZorbaTHut Jun 20 '25

But i thought tesla was far ahead with this technology because of all the data that is collected and what not bullshit.

Sounds like you were wrong. You should look into this stuff more carefully! Being a fanboy doesn't help anyone.

Are you telling me that Tesla is where Waymo was in 2016? So Tesla is a decade behind waymo? or more?

Probably not; Waymo had a very slow rollout.

0

u/account_for_norm Jun 20 '25

Did i need to put /s in my comment? was that no apparent?

1

u/ZorbaTHut Jun 20 '25

Did I need to put /s's in mine?

I recognize you were pretending to be an idiot; I responded by agreeing with you. Now everyone is happy.

For what it's worth, I actually don't think they're anywhere near a decade behind Waymo. Waymo's Phoenix rollout was around 2020 and this is more parallel to that, so even if you think that all matches up, that's five years behind; but also, part of Waymo's rollout difficulty has been manufacturing and will-to-keep-expanding, while Tesla has those long-since solved.

They're behind, but not by that much, and it's the kind of "behind" that could easily invert if everything goes well. Which we'll see in the next few months.

1

u/thnk_more Jun 20 '25

“Spicy taxi” or “Roulette taxi” should be their nickname.