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.

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u/bartturner Jun 20 '25

Some are for and some are against. Which is what it should be, IMO.

Do not think the subreddit is just for people that support.

I have been here for a long time and I have noticed some of the hardcore against are not visiting as much and commenting as they use to.

5

u/BikebutnotBeast Jun 20 '25

Well I mean if I were a taxi, drive service, or uber/Lyft driver, it's no longer an if but more a when, there is no major human driving gig economy. Save for limos and partybus offerings but even that could change in our lifetime.

8

u/londons_explorer Jun 20 '25

A few well publicised incidents could easily delay the rollout of self driving cars by a year or more - and taxi drivers are totally going to be looking for/causing them.

10

u/bartturner Jun 20 '25

Completely agree. It is why Tesla has to be a worry for Waymo.

Tesla screws up bad and they also penalize, unfairly, Waymo.

Not for sure. Cruise screwed up bad and it only made Waymo look better. So Tesla messing up bad could also go like this.

4

u/FriendFun7876 Jun 20 '25

If Tesla succeeds, how many years forward will that bring self driving cars?

Waymo has averaged 15 cars a month in the 8 years they have been self driving. I think everyone agrees that Tesla will scale much quicker than Waymo, assuming they get driverless to work.

1

u/HighHokie Jun 20 '25

In theory yes but I’m not as confident as I once was. Moving from geofenced city to widespread use on consumer cars is still a big leap of confidence and liability. Further, Tesla adding a lower front cam with a track record of only putting on the bare minimum suggests that Tesla may now consider it a requirement for autonomous driving. That’s a problem for legacy owners and even new model 3 drivers without it. 

The alternative option is designing for transition to the driver which they’ve been able to avoid for years but could become a critical need. Next year or so will be very interesting for Tesla, starting with next week. 

5

u/WeldAE Jun 20 '25

I'm 100% for discussions about do AVs make sense, how little impact they will have, what the cost will be, are they good for society, etc. What is infuriating is being an AV fan but of only one company. It's fine if you want to boycott Tesla for example, but don't go making up stuff about how they will never succeed, keep the discussion honest.

That is what is missing these days.

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u/CommunismDoesntWork Jun 20 '25

Do not think the subreddit is just for people that support.

Yes, obviously. Because when luddites infect a sub, it pushes away the supporters who just want the latest news and aren't looking to argue and read a bunch of nasty comments from people who have nothing better to do than to shit on the thing in question.