Tesla's Austin robotaxi service set for June 22

Austinites Face Delay in Catching a Ride in Driverless Tesla

Austinites will have to wait a bit longer to catch a ride in a driverless Tesla as CEO Elon Musk has postponed the rollout to a "tentative" date of June 22.
The company had previously promised a June start date for testing and had planned to launch its driverless Model Y robotaxi service in Austin on Thursday.

Musk posted on his social media site X that he'd be flying from Los Angeles to Austin for the robotaxi launch, and when a user asked about the availability of Tesla's self-driving cars for the general public, Musk replied that it would be "tentatively" on June 22.
"We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift," Musk posted on X.

Tesla Robotaxis Are Already Testing in Austin

Tesla is testing driverless Model Ys on Austin streets, with Musk posting on his social media site X that "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."

Some reports earlier this month indicated that Tesla had not started testing without drivers as of mid-May.
Tesla's robotaxi service is already available for some employees, with Tesla's AI account posting on X in April that "supervised ride hailing service is live" for some employees in both Austin and San Francisco.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Involvement

The NHTSA wrote a letter to Tesla last month to ask questions about the company's ridehailing service, including its planned use of teleoperations.
The country's road safety watchdog asked Tesla to respond by June 19, days after Tesla's reported Austin robotaxi launch.
Tesla could face a fine up to $27,874 per day if Tesla does not give a prompt response, with a maximum fine of $139,356,994.

Tesla's Record Requests

Tesla is being cautious when it comes to records and information about its robotaxis, with the company asking the city of Austin to block records related to its services.
Reuters requested two-years worth of communications between the city and Tesla about the rideshare services, and the city confirmed that Tesla asked that no records be released until Texas' Attorney General can weigh in.

Autonomous Vehicle Operators in Austin

Tesla is listed as an official autonomous vehicle operator by the city of Austin.
The city's Department of Motor Vehicles autonomous vehicles page lists Tesla as being in the testing phase.
Other known AV operators in Austin include Amazon's Zoox, Hyundai's Motional, and Volkswagon's ADMT, which are all currently in testing phases.
Google parent company Alphabet launched its robotaxi service Waymo in partnership with Uber back in March.

Model Y Robotaxi Vehicles

The Model Y robotaxi vehicles are the same as those sold to the public.
Tesla has faced significant delays with the production of a newer, more affordable version.
Musk unveiled the self-driving Cybercab robotaxi models last October at his company's "We, Robot" event.
The two-door models feature no steering wheels, gas, or brake pedals.
At the event, Musk claimed the fully autonomous vehicles would be "10 times safer than a human."

Tesla's Self-Driving Vehicles and Ride-Hailing Services

Musk has said since 2016 that Tesla was only "a year away" from fully self-driving vehicles and ride-hailing services, but those aspirations have not come to fruition, even now as Tesla is testing its vehicles with supervised drives, meaning someone is in the front seat to monitor and intervene if necessary.

Fully Self-Driving Program

Tesla's robotaxis rely on the company's Fully Self-Driving program.
Tesla relies on cameras and real-time driver footage to train the vehicle's artificial intelligence neural network.
The majority of other self-driving companies, such as industry-leader Waymo, rely on cameras and lidar sensors together to operate and use geo-mapped systems to help determine where the vehicle can operate.

Ride-Hailing Service Details

Neither Tesla nor Musk has provided exact details about how Tesla's ride-hailing service will operate in the long term, but as of now it appears Austin residents won't yet have unfettered access to cybercabs this month.
For now, the ride-hailing service will deploy as a limited pilot program using the company's existing Model Y vehicles.
Tesla will start by testing them in the safest areas of the city within specific geo-mapped boundaries.

Currently, ride-hailing services are available to some employees and are supervised by a driver.
Tesla's Austin robotaxi service will kick off with only 10 vehicles and will later expand to thousands and move into more cities if the launch is successful, Musk told CNBC in May.
“We want to deliberately take it slow,” Musk said. “I mean, we could start with 1,000, 10,000 on day one, but I don’t think that would be prudent. So we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40.”