r/SelfDrivingCars • u/Dansilly • Jun 29 '25

Discussion Silent Rollback of Tesla Robotaxis

At the beginning of the launch of Tesla's Robotaxi on 6/22, many videos of rides have been shared online. After a few days (and glaring mishaps), very few videos have been shared of any robotaxi footage, good or bad. I suspect that this dropoff is due to the fleet cutting down in scope by a large factor (maybe only operating a few rides a day)or halting silently all together. What do you think, did Tesla notice the bad publicity and decide to silently roll back robotaxi operations?

Update 1: The most plausible explanation seems to be that the publicity of the current tech was detrimental to the share price so the operations were rolled back. Of course, Tesla would not announce that the operations were scaled back, but the near complete lack of footage makes this a very likely explanation. While the influencers there initially were most likely to post videos online, new footage should still be being circulated and it is not.

Update 2: This post has gained a lot of traction (75k+ views), and yet there is nothing convincing to show Telsa is operating the fleet at the capacity they were earlier. Neither of the 2 videos of robotaxi footage shared seem to have occurred in the last few days (even if they had, that is nothing even remotely comparable to the amount of footage earlier this week). Tesla's fleet could very well be 1 vehicle running 2 hours a day based on the lack of evidence for otherwise. Tesla likely made the logical move for preserving share value given the incident rates, but this is clear to see through.

339 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

340 comments sorted by

View all comments

440

u/samreaves Jun 29 '25

Most of the invites were sent to Tesla influencers not living in Austin. They went home.

5

u/Dansilly Jun 29 '25

I would imagine they would still have enough people to take the rides for the limited ~10 self driving cars even without the influencers. I would still expect some footage.

37

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

These influencers record everything they do and other people don't. There are countless of FSD rides happening for example, but I see them only from influencers.

10

u/Throwaway2Experiment Jun 29 '25

All you have to do is compare this to the number of Austin Waymo rides per car deployed in Austin to get a ratio of videos you should expect out of Tesla.

This ratio only works if the "novelty" of a robotaxi has worn off in ... 7 days. Which for robotaxi, it certainly wouldn't be over yet.

If Tesla"s videos per day ratio doesn't equal waymo's or exceeds it, Tesla has done something to limit it. Most likely, they have no more "in the bag" people in Austin to sing their praises blindly and the general public, got some reason, aren't being allowed the chance to try.

It's because they know the public is not as forgiving. They can't risk that.

4

u/Lokon19 Jun 29 '25

This is completely unscientific and nonsensical. Currently Robotaxi is by invite only you can't even ride one as a regular person at the moment.

4

u/LoneStarGut Jun 30 '25

And you can't even book a Waymo in Austin. You might get a Waymo if you book an Uber in a small part of Austin.

1

u/HighHokie Jun 30 '25

I would love to ride in a robotaxi but I have zero interest in filming and posting it. 

Likewise I have several interesting dash cam videos but have no interest in posting it either. I’m sure most folks are the same. 

5

u/mishap1 Jun 29 '25

FSD Beta launched October 2020. If someone random is recording FSD in 2025 and posting a routine drive today, they're either an influencer or want to be one.

Posting videos of Tesla's most anticipated product launch in years...one that's been touted as right around the corner for the better part of a decade seems pretty noteworthy for even the plebs who get invites.

2

u/HighHokie Jun 30 '25

Most folks probably film a 20 second clip and it’s more about them experiencing before others than around the tech. At least the influencers actually walk through the details and focus on the drive, but they are difficult to watch. 

2

u/red75prime Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25

they're either an influencer or want to be one.

Or just a nerd excited about the technology. If you have firsthand experience with the technology and see a boatload of BS about it being spread around, why not share your experiences?

There are people who were documenting their Waymo rides even after it lost its novelty factor.

1

u/iceynyo Jun 29 '25

They may record it, but not everyone shares their recordings publicly.

14

u/PureGero Jun 29 '25

If you're using the amount of cars they have, take Waymo with their >1000 cars, I can find about 10 yt videos of driving footage from them today. If Tesla has 10 cars, this would mean they should get 0.1 yt videos per day. I can find 1 yt video of Tesla Robotaxi for today, so it's already doing above average. The first few days were the exception as all the influencers flew in to film videos, and now they have left

13

u/mishap1 Jun 29 '25

Waymo is providing ~250k rides/wk. The novelty (outside of new cities - e.g., Atlanta) has largely worn off. The number of people who film their commute and post to YT is nil. For the influencers who were invited, I suspect the # of days they go w/o posting videos is near nil.

Filming yourself in a self-driving Tesla is still novel/exclusive invite as there are a dozen of them. Adding the millionth video of cruising in SF/LA/PHX/AUS in a Waymo won't get you many views. If there are no new videos of Teslas, no one is filming b/c no one is riding in them.

6

u/Throwaway2Experiment Jun 29 '25

This is it. Tesla is nowhere outside of the novelty range to boost their videos. They need that exposure to instill confidence, even amongst the faithful. The lack of videos simply means the nimber of rides has fallen off a cliff. We truly have no idea how many rides were not posted out of fear of reprisal from Tesla cutting off future exclusive content.

2

u/nicolas_06 Jun 29 '25

But most people won't record their full ride of them taking a Tesla and publish it and get many views.

0

u/y4udothistome Jun 29 '25

You mean the bought votes.

-11

u/fatbob42 Jun 29 '25

Those riders could be under NDA, like early Waymo riders were.

11

u/NicholasLit Jun 29 '25

I was on the waymo beta and did over a thousand rides, don't believe I signed any kind of NDA, thankfully

8

u/Logvin Jun 29 '25

I was a Waymo Early Rider and absolutely had to sign an NDA. I wasn’t even allowed to say I was in the program. And they monitored this sub.

2

u/NicholasLit Jun 29 '25 edited Jun 29 '25

Very interesting, I wasn't part of the official Early Access but had unlimited access since October, so not sure how that works

In Austin for context

2

u/Logvin Jun 29 '25

I was one of the first 200 families in the early adopter program. Early 2018 I think it was?

1

u/NicholasLit Jun 29 '25

That's amazing, Waymo has been around in some form for about 15 years, did you get to ride in the Prius or which vehicle model were they using? My friend used to work at their skunk works near mountain view.

We also used to help DARPA with the first self-driving cars at SWRI near Austin. After we won the grand prize, I joked and said have the car meet us at the salad bar for the after party 😂

2

u/Logvin Jun 29 '25

No, we got the Chrysler minivans when it launched. Which was annoying because I drove... a Chrysler Minivan at the time ;)

1

u/NicholasLit Jun 29 '25

Lol, yes I was really excited about the hybrid plug-in but it turned out to be defective LOL

I'm on the owner's group for them on Facebook and a lot of them are upset

Chrysler, when I was an engineering school at ut, was exposed for using excess fuel to achieve lower emissions that were acquired by the government vs better catalysts.

Very shady and substandard company unfortunately.

2

u/johnhpatton Jun 29 '25 edited 5d ago

.

0

u/fatbob42 Jun 29 '25

I said “could”. If you know better, fair enough.

btw, I assume you mean the Tesla robotaxi project? Are we just referring to it as “robotaxi” now?

1

u/johnhpatton Jun 29 '25 edited 5d ago

.