What to Know About Tesla’s ‘Robotaxis’ as They Launch in Austin, Texas

Would you take a ride in Tesla’s driverless “robotaxi”? The company began a test run of a few of the driverless cabs in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, years after Tesla CEO Elon Musk vowed they would be on the road. Tesla is not the first company to embark on a driverless car service—Waymo has more than a thousand such cabs in several cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin. But Tesla’s launch is a long-awaited feat—in 2019, Musk promised to begin operating driverless taxis “next year”—and one that comes at a contentious time for the company and its CEO. Here’s what to know about Tesla’s robotaxis. What does the test run entail? “The @Tesla_AI robotaxi launch begins in Austin this afternoon with customers paying a $4.20 flat fee!” Musk posted on X on Sunday. He went on to repost videos that passengers had shared of themselves riding in the test cars. One passenger, Dave Lee, posted a video of the robotaxi while he was in the backseat, showing a Tesla employee in the front passenger seat and the empty driver’s seat. Tesla sent about 10 robotaxis out for test drives, according to news reports. Staff monitored the cars remotely, The Associated Press reported. A tumultuous time for Tesla The test runs come at a turbulent time for the company. Earlier this month, Tesla stocks plummeted about 14.3% in a day, amid a bitter—and very public—falling out between Musk and President Donald Trump.  It was the company’s worst day since March, when its stock fell about 15% as consumers around the world boycotted Tesla products in protest of Musk’s growing role in the Trump Administration. Tesla stocks rose about 8% on Monday after the test run of the driverless cabs began. Will the company’s robotaxis expand beyond Austin? For now, Tesla’s robotaxis are providing service “in limited areas of Austin,” according to the company’s website. Robotaxis are invite-only at the moment, the company said. Musk has claimed that Tesla will have hundreds of thousands of self-driving cars in the U.S. by the end of 2026, and that the company has plans to expand robotaxis to other cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Antonio. Are the cars fully self-driving? Other Tesla vehicles have advertised a “full self-driving” feature. But the system does not mean that the cars are fully autonomous; drivers still need to pay attention to the road because there’s a chance they may need to take control of the car, according to the AP. Federal regulators have also taken issue with Tesla’s self-driving system, opening an investigation into it last year after receiving reports of accidents involving the program, including one that killed a pedestrian. Musk has said that the robotaxis will operate on a new, more advanced version of the system, adding that the cars will be safe. Some videos of the test runs on Sunday appeared to show the robotaxis making errors on the road. In one video that was posted on YouTube, a robotaxi drove in the wrong lane of traffic after abandoning making a left turn; thankfully, there were no other cars approaching in that lane.