According to a report by Bloomberg, Tesla will begin its driverless ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas on June 12 this year. This will mark a key moment for the company as it pivots away from its core passenger vehicle business towards self-driving taxis and artificial intelligence, with last year’s Robotaxi (also called the Cybercab) being a statement of intent.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously said the robotaxi fleet will initially be made up of self-driving Model Y cars which the company has been testing on Austin public streets. He noted in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that there have been no incidents during testing and that the company was “a month ahead of schedule.”
“We’ll start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40, and I think we’ll probably be at 1,000 within a few months, and then we’ll expand to San Francisco, California, Los Angeles, San Antonio,” Musk said in an interview with CNBC on May 20.
Eventually, Tesla will transition from using the Model Y to the Robotaxi/Cybercab, the latter being a custom-built autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals. This initiative will also support the eventual rollout of an unsupervised version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (currently tagged as ‘Supervised’) to the masses, whereby drivers technically won’t need to pay attention while driving because the car will do that on its own.
At this point, Tesla is not listed as a ride-hailing operator by Texas regulators, although the state does not restrict autonomous vehicle testing. As such, Tesla is expected to employ remote human operators – the company is hiring “teleoperations specailists” – for its robotaxi service in the initial rollout phase. These individuals will be able to intervene remotely should the robotaxi encounter complex traffic situations.
For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents.
A month ahead of schedule.
Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025
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https://electrek.co/2025/05/23/tesla-full-self-driving-veers-off-road-flips-car-scary-crash-driver-couldnt-prevent/
A very good move. No more nuisance of talkative driver, pervert smut stares, geopolitical opinion broadcaster, crazy driver cancel booking on last minutes.
there has been several ‘robotaxi’ or driver-less Taxi,
the car brands involved with each robotaxi operator:
1. USA Waymo: Chrysler, Jaguar (and future partnerships with Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota)
2. China Baidu (Apollo Go): Baidu (own design, e.g., Apollo RT6), and previously/potentially others like BYD, Geely.
3. China Alibaba (AutoX): Chrysler (FCA Group), Dongfeng Motor.
4. China Pony.Ai: Toyota, BAIC (Arcfox), GAC (Aion), Lexus.
5. USA Cruise: Chevrolet (General Motors), Cruise (own design, e.g., Origin).
musky the internet sensation is causing a stir online again with his latest X