Tesla Robotaxis run unsupervised in Austin ahead of Cybercab launch
▼ Summary
– Seven months after Elon Musk’s announcement, Tesla Robotaxis in Austin have finally gone fully driverless, according to crowdsourced data.
– All 170 monitored Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin over the past two weeks were unsupervised, involving 54 different cars.
– Unsupervised Robotaxis have also increased sharply in Dallas and Houston, with roughly 30 driverless Teslas operating there over the past week.
– This marks a significant shift from earlier this summer, when rides were still supervised.
Seven months after Elon Musk first declared that Tesla Robotaxis in Austin were running without human safety operators, that claim has now become a reality on the ground. According to crowdsourced data from the Robotaxi Tracker, every single one of the 170 monitored Tesla Robotaxi trips in Austin over the past two weeks was completely unsupervised, involving 54 distinct vehicles. The tracker’s founder, Ethan McKanna, shared the findings with The Verge, noting that this marks a definitive shift toward fully driverless operations in the Texas capital.
The trend isn’t isolated to Austin. McKanna reports a notable uptick in unsupervised Robotaxis across other major Texas cities, particularly Dallas and Houston, where roughly 30 driverless Teslas have been spotted in active service over the last week. This represents a dramatic departure from the situation earlier this summer, when the vast majority of rides still required a safety driver behind the wheel. The rapid acceleration toward autonomy suggests Tesla is scaling its driverless ambitions faster than many industry observers anticipated, setting the stage for the company’s upcoming Cybercab launch.
(Source: The Verge)
