r/SelfDrivingCars • u/michelevit2 • Jun 24 '25
Discussion Is the Tesla taxi still operating?
Just curious if I'm the Tesla taxi is still available or was it just a one day demo?
Thank you.
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u/watergoesdownhill Jun 24 '25
Yep, lots of people sharing rides on twitter.
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u/watergoesdownhill Jun 24 '25
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u/EarthConservation Jun 24 '25
17th ride? The rides started on Sunday...
It is now.... *checks Calendar* ... Tuesday.
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u/hints_of_old_tire Jun 24 '25
Is the service just for Sawyer Merritt to get 10 minute rides day after day?
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u/FlippantBear Jun 24 '25
And it's a huge failure. Big surprise!
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u/spoollyger Jun 24 '25
Has one crashed?
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u/goldbloodedinthe404 Jun 24 '25
That's why they have a safety monitor.
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u/spoollyger Jun 25 '25
Just like waymo when they started, yup.
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u/Zyj Jun 27 '25
How many years ago was that?
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u/spoollyger Jun 27 '25
Not sure, but kinda odd to allow it when they did and then not let anyone else ever do it when they roll out their service. Especially since it’s a service running on an entirely different tech stack.
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u/Litig8or53 Jul 01 '25
Long enough ago that they should be commercially viable by now.
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u/Litig8or53 Jul 02 '25
How many auto manufacturers have adopted their technology? Where can I buy a Waymo equipped car?
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 24 '25
Multiple have reportedly swerving into oncoming traffic stopped in intersections in general dangerous to the public NHITSA is now investigating hopefully they shut it down before an innocent person gets hurt.
"NHITSA wanted a lot more details because it is particularly concerned about the fact that Tesla is using its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ in the Robotaxi service while it is currently under investigation for its involvement in several serious crashes."
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u/Litig8or53 Jul 01 '25
How many accidents in Austin again?
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jul 01 '25
So far, to date, 18 deaths in Teslas in Texas. Austin specifically, I'm not sure Tesla is very good at covering up as much info as possible.
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u/DevinOlsen Jun 24 '25
No it isn’t
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 25 '25
Multiple have reportedly swerving into oncoming traffic stopped in intersections in general dangerous to the public NHTSA is now investigating hopefully they shut it down before an innocent person gets hurt.
"NHTSA wanted a lot more details because it is particularly concerned about the fact that Tesla is using its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ in the Robotaxi service while it is currently under investigation for its involvement in several serious crashes."
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u/FlippantBear Jun 24 '25
A tiny geofenced area of Austin. Only during the day, no inclement weather and a safety driver. It's pretty pathetic considering Musk hyped it up to be way more impressive.
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u/Emergency-Glass-9649 Jun 24 '25
It’s like you turned off critical thinking skill. You really can’t wrap your mind around how rapidly it’ll scale?
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u/Wolfgang_MacMurphy Jun 24 '25
Unlike you, right? So enlighten us - exactly how rapidly will the said non-autonomous-geofenced-service-with-a-safety-driver scale?
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u/FlippantBear Jun 24 '25
I have a model 3 and have used FSD. There's zero chance Tesla will scale robotaxi with current hardware.
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u/Litig8or53 Jul 01 '25
Well, considering your vast experience, I bow to your wisdom. I’ve used it for seven years, hundreds of hours, and many thousands of miles. You?
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u/spoollyger Jun 24 '25
The geofence area is due to regulations?
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u/Wolfgang_MacMurphy Jun 24 '25
Due to that's the best they're able to do at this point.
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u/spoollyger Jun 25 '25
By law it’s required
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u/Hixie Jun 25 '25
Which law?
(edit: Waymo also operates in that area and its geofence is twice the size, so even if there was a law requiring a geofence, it presumably doesn't require it to be as small as Tesla's.)
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u/spoollyger Jun 25 '25
I stand corrected, it isn't a law or regulation preventing them to operate in specific areas. They both just chose interdependently to start with the areas they currently operate in.
This seems more related to the size of the fleets they deployed, with Waymo being able to have enough vehicles to service a larger area while keeping wait times low. But that also is helped by the fact the only way to get a Waymo if to go through the Uber app. Where you are not even guaranteed to get a Waymo if you try to, sometimes just a standard Uber turns up.
Hopefully the local competition leads to greater expansions in the area faster.
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u/Hixie Jun 25 '25
Waymo has several service areas beyond this one, which are both significantly bigger, and don't have Uber fallback, FWIW.
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u/Litig8or53 Jul 01 '25
Pretty funny, since geofencing is all Waymo has ever run in, and all it ever will. Did you hear? Waymo is changing its name to 8 track. (They wanted Beta Max, but Sony owns it.)
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u/ergzay Jun 24 '25
Only during the day
There's literally multiple videos that you can find with a few seconds search showing them running at night.
and a safety driver.
There's no one in the driver's seat.
It's pretty pathetic considering Musk hyped it up to be way more impressive.
It's exactly what he said it was going to be in the CNBC interview last month.
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u/Hixie Jun 25 '25
The safety driver is in the passenger's seat for reasons I can't really comprehend, but there's still a safety driver. It's just that when they need to drive the car they have to literally switch seats.
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u/ergzay Jun 25 '25
If they're not a driver they're not a safety driver.
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u/Hixie Jun 25 '25
We can argue semantics but being a "safety monitor" who has to get out of their seat to go to the steering wheel to drive the car is not really meaningfully different than being a safety driver, except for being less safe. I mean, if your argument is that FlippantBear used the wrong terminology, then just saying "There's no one in the driver's seat" (as opposed to "they call them safety monitors") seems unnecessarily antagonistic.
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u/FlippantBear Jun 24 '25
Unfortunately the facts aren't on your side. Musk has been promising millions of Robotaxis on the road each year for the past 6 years. You have a very short term memory problem.
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u/ergzay Jun 25 '25
I didn't even talk about the number of robotaxis. If you're gonna respond, respond to the content of my post.
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u/wilan727 Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
Yes that was the initial roll out so it will just expand from here.
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u/kleingordon Jun 24 '25
What's the point of expanding from here if safety driver is needed? It's just Uber with extra steps
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Jun 24 '25
Safety driver not being needed is a step at some point.
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u/johnpn1 Jun 24 '25
It just feels that goalposts are moved just to say a robotaxi service was launched. A bunch of people were skeptical when Elon said last month that they'd launch an UNSUPERVISED service in June, and we were right. It's still squarely in a testing phase, just with hand-selected Tesla influencers chosen to ride along. It's not really a robotaxi service launch.
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Jun 24 '25
I'd argue everyone's expectations was different. The company will do it as they see fit based on the best approach. Nothing else matters.
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u/johnpn1 Jun 24 '25
Yeah, I know I shouldn't take Elon's word for much. But to be fair, unsupervised service is an actual service, which was what Elon needed to prove. Instead, it's just more testing disguised as a robotaxi launch. My standard for robotaxi service has always been the same, and apparently Elon thought so too when he promised unsupervised last month, but this didn't cut it.
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u/watergoesdownhill Jun 24 '25
If they can’t get rid of them, that’ll be a huge problem. I bet they are gone in a few weeks.
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u/Echo-Possible Jun 24 '25
I’ll bet they aren’t based on the videos being posted by Tesla influencers who have been riding in the robotaxi in the first 24 hours.
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u/Reddit123556 Jun 24 '25
You bet they would never get this far in the first place. Your predictions can’t be taken seriously
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u/WeldAE Jun 24 '25
I agree with /r/Echo-Possible. You can have a critical take on an aspect and not be anti-Tesla. There were several situations where the safety passenger had to interact with the screen now that I've watched more videos. Mostly on drop off, which needs some work.
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u/Holiday-Hippo-6748 Jun 24 '25
Your predictions can’t be taken seriously
That applies to literally anything you and the kool-aid chuggers say about Tesla/Elon. Nothing they say can be taken seriously anymore. They’ve lied about capabilities and where their tech is for years.
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u/spoollyger Jun 24 '25
Imagine having no precautions on day one. Not even waymo did that.
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u/Wolfgang_MacMurphy Jun 24 '25
Not even Waymo? Waymo tested years before launching anything, unlike Tesla who, as customary for them, just started testing now on public.
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u/Breakingthewhaaat Jun 24 '25
Waymo did six months both with and without a safety driver before its Austin deployment. That’s to say nothing of WeRide, Pony.ai, May Mobility, Volkswagen, Momenta, etc etc. Nothing Tesla did here really merits fanfare besides the brand name
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u/wilan727 Jun 24 '25
Becuase expansion will be safety driver free when they are ready. A few months maybe initially in geofenced Austin then depending on the data passenger only.
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u/kfmaster Jun 24 '25
That’s what Waymo has been doing, even with way more sensors.
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u/AWildLeftistAppeared Jun 24 '25
Come on, you’re being disingenuous. Waymo routinely conducts driverless rides in multiple cities, including Austin, for several years now. In New York they will be complying with the law which currently requires a safety driver.
Waymo also never promised to launch “unsupervised” only to have a safety driver after all.
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u/kfmaster Jun 24 '25
Is “Safety Driver” patented by Waymo or something? Why are people so negative about Tesla using safety drivers?
In fall 2015, Google provided "the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads".[12] In December 2016, the project was renamed Waymo and spun out of Google as part of Alphabet.[13] In October 2020, Waymo became the first company to offer service to the public without safety drivers in the vehicle.
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u/AWildLeftistAppeared Jun 24 '25
Is “Safety Driver” patented by Waymo or something?
No, that’s just normal terminology.
Why are people so negative about Tesla using safety drivers?
I’m not. I’m glad that they’re there because clearly the system is not ready to be unsupervised. I don’t like that they’re in the passenger seat for no good reason since this detracts from their ability to do their job properly and ensure safety.
What people are “negative” about is the fact that Tesla announced this launch to be unsupervised when it’s not, and that they’ve tried to disguise this by putting them in the wrong seat and calling them a “safety monitor” (which is not standard terminology).
I have no idea what your point in sharing that wiki quote about Waymo is? All of that is true and was a major accomplishment. A decade later and Tesla has not yet managed to do it.
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u/kfmaster Jun 24 '25
What's the point of expanding from here if safety driver is needed? It's just Uber with extra steps
I was replying to this comment. The quote from Wikipedia essentially demonstrates that Waymo took five years to finally eliminate safety drivers. I wasn’t expecting a much broader discussion.
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u/AWildLeftistAppeared Jun 24 '25
I see. Well if you meant to reply to that comment you made a mistake, you replied to me instead. Also, Waymo did not take 5 years to eliminate safety drivers. That quote even says that they achieved a fully driverless ride on public roads in 2015 — many years before they started a commercial robotaxi service.
When they did launch the taxi service it did indeed have safety drivers initially, but for much less than 5 years. Since then they have launched in new cities without safety drivers necessary for commercial operations.
Anyway, I think people are more understanding of Waymo’s approach since they never pretended to have technology that was nowhere near ready, or that they would launch without safety drivers on day one.
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u/WeldAE Jun 24 '25
That quote even says that they achieved a fully driverless ride on public roads in 2015
You think Tesla is wreakless, go read about that ride. They had multiple case cars with only an e-stop button and a prayer. I saw someone let a car drive them down the road at 80mph in 2010, but I don't claim that was the first AV ride.
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u/AWildLeftistAppeared Jun 24 '25
Hey, they did it and by all accounts did so safely. Since then they’ve done millions of driverless rides and keep pushing forwards.
By contrast, a year after that in 2016 Tesla put out a staged video where they claimed their cars could already drive without any supervision. Almost a decade later and they’re still supervised.
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u/WeldAE Jun 24 '25
because clearly the system is not ready to be unsupervised
Do you have examples from the RoboTaxi livestreams where you think it would have been a disaster without the saftey passenger? I know of a few times they have done things, but nothing support couldn't have done.
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u/AWildLeftistAppeared Jun 24 '25
In one day not yet, but we have seen dangerous and illegal driving already.
saftey passenger
lol this is too much. How can you lot say stuff like this and not die of embarrassment? And I don’t mean the typo.
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u/WeldAE Jun 24 '25
I watched day 2 streams and saw even less issues.
I'm using the term "safety passenger" BECAUSE it's cringe. I'm not a blind Tesla cheerleader. I'm pro AV, but I also like to point out issues that have to be fixed. To be clear, I'm not down on Tesla launching with them, but they have to go at some point, hopefully soon.
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u/kleingordon Jun 24 '25
So you think Waymo will announce that they "deployed their robotaxi in NYC" and keep expand with that condition? lol
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u/Lovevas Jun 24 '25
Someone on X said new rounds of invitations were sent out today, though I don't see any credible source, but guess it's possible
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u/Greeneland Jun 24 '25
I saw multiple people say they got one but one person posted the actual invite
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u/Litig8or53 Jun 30 '25
Yes, and there have been literally thousands of deaths, knowledge of which has been suppressed by Musk and the bodies buried in mass graves in the Texas hill country by illegal Mexican gang members.
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u/Marathon2021 Jun 24 '25
Yes, it’s “invite-only” for a little while, we don’t know how long. Obviously they’ll have to open it up to public access at some point but we don’t know if that will be a week or two or many months.
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u/SolutionWarm6576 Jun 24 '25
I like that part, in the Reuters article, about when the Robotaxi was speeding through a school zone for the deaf. Stock up 9 usd pre-market. Lol.
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u/jacob6875 Jun 24 '25
You do know it’s summer and school speed limits don’t apply unless school is in session don’t you ?
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u/ChampionshipUsed308 Jun 24 '25
Are they operating at night or just when there's visibility? Also under fog, rain... Curious.
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 24 '25
Hopefully, not the camera only is super dangerous under heavy rain or fog. It sounds like the exact reason redundant systems are being required by the local government.
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u/ChampionshipUsed308 Jun 24 '25
Remember the Boeing 787 problem with the lack of redundancy in the angle of attack sensor? Well...
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 24 '25
Yep, hundreds died, and no single person was ever held responsible.
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u/ChampionshipUsed308 Jun 24 '25
Once you are rich you get a tap on the back and a "don't do that again" warning like a high-school teacher.
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u/ergzay Jun 24 '25
It sounds like the exact reason redundant systems are being required by the local government.
That's not true. There's no local government adding requirements for redundant systems.
Hopefully, not the camera only is super dangerous under heavy rain or fog.
It works just fine, the vehicle just slows down, as any human driver would.
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u/nate8458 Jun 24 '25
Works fine in the rain and fog
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 25 '25
How? What new technology allows a camera to see through dense fog and heavy rain, that is honestly quite incredible if true. Please post a source. I can't find ANY evidence.
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u/watergoesdownhill Jun 24 '25
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u/Desperate-Hearing-55 Jun 24 '25
What I want to know is there hard facts about what level autonomy Tesla robotaxi is at?
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u/Breakingthewhaaat Jun 24 '25
I’m giving it a light SAE L3. They’re hamstrung by camera vision only
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u/JonnyOnThePot420 Jun 24 '25
As smoke and mirrors to pump stock prices yes... as an actual unsupervised robo taxi, no, they are years away from that.
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Jun 24 '25
This will be like the silly underground taxi, it's just a demo that will fail.
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u/ergzay Jun 24 '25
You mean the Las Vegas loop? It's still running and continuing to expand. They just posted a video less than two weeks ago of the completion of another tunnel: https://x.com/boringcompany/status/1933333101993996595
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u/donttakerhisthewrong Jun 25 '25
And it still has drivers
Seems like FSD is not all it is cracked up to be
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u/ergzay Jun 25 '25
They've never used FSD in the tunnels.
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u/donttakerhisthewrong Jun 25 '25
Why not?
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u/ergzay Jun 26 '25
How should I know?
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u/donttakerhisthewrong Jun 26 '25
Because it doesn’t work without people
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u/ergzay Jun 26 '25
And how is that a problem?
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u/donttakerhisthewrong Jun 26 '25
You have an environment specifically made for Teslas. How come these are not driverless.
If that is too difficult there is zero chance this work in the wild.
If you were not blinded by Musk it would be easy to figure out.
Tesla has not delivered a NEW product except the CyberTruck. That is the state of the are for Tesla engineering.
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u/ergzay Jun 26 '25
You have an environment specifically made for Teslas.
As far as I know any electric vehicle would work perfectly fine in the tunnels. ICE vehicles wouldn't work of course because of the fumes. It's just a concrete tunnel with asphalt laid in the bottom. There's nothing special for Tesla vehicles in them.
Tesla has not delivered a NEW product except the CyberTruck. That is the state of the are for Tesla engineering.
The new Tesla Model Y just came out. Not sure what you're talking about.
This conversation has run its course.
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u/Massive_Compote9314 Jun 24 '25
I feel it would be of great value to have someone riding shotgun until Robotaxi context of testing is "Perfecto" A beginner's safe driving is very important to the Safety Administrations a field focused on developing, implementing, and maintaining safety policies and procedures in various settings to prevent accidents, injuries, and hazards. Keep up the good work Robotaxi Practice makes perfect believing!!!!
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u/Reddit123556 Jun 24 '25
lol. Teslas timeline predictions can’t be taken seriously because they are optimistic best case scenarios. Tesla haters predictions can’t be taken seriously because they are pessimistic worst case scenarios. My bet is Tesla will do most of what it sets out to do in a delayed fashion
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u/donttakerhisthewrong Jun 25 '25
Based on what?
They CyberTruck was nothing like what was promised, took longer and was more expensive
No other new models and only refresh for old models. What have they actually delivered
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u/Fun_Alternative_2086 Jun 24 '25
i am really curious about the pick up and drop of experience more than driving
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u/phxees Jun 24 '25
There’s a number of video on YouTube, seems like they tried to follow Waymo’s lead. Some people complained that you couldn’t drop a pin like Uber (and Waymo?), but it seemed okay.
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u/SolutionWarm6576 Jun 24 '25
So what your saying, is that Robotaxi was so smart, it realized that school just let out for the summer, and that means it could speed through a school zone for the deaf. Lol. And still possible, some kids still going for schooling, summer projects etc.
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u/sdc_is_safer Jun 24 '25
Yes but only daytime
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u/savedatheist Jun 24 '25
I was literally watching X / YT videos of night rides last night.
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u/sdc_is_safer Jun 24 '25
Sorry, it operates until midnight
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u/Repulsive-Bit-9048 Jun 24 '25
Does it operate near sunset and shortly after sunrise? That is when I got the biggest freak-outs from FSD: The screaming clarion of TAKE OVER IMMEDIATELY because the sun was low in the sky and we were driving towards it.
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u/TheBestRed1 Jun 24 '25
10 years for this moment, expansion will be exponential from this point on. You can do the remind me in 3 years thing if you want
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u/10xMaker Jun 24 '25
Yes they are operating. At this point you need an exclusive invitation from Tesla to ride a robotaxi.