Tesla robotaxis launch in Austin with human monitors amid state oversight

It didn’t quite happen. Tesla Inc. robotaxis began rolling Sunday in Austin — but only for invited passengers and in cars still overseen by a human safety monitor in the front seat.

CEO Elon Musk — while previously calling the possibility of a Sunday rollout “tentative” — had said there would be “no occupant in the driver seat.” While that was true, passengers were accompanied by a Tesla employee in the front passenger seat to oversee the ride and intervene in the robotaxi’s operations if necessary.

The limited rollout came after Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday signed legislation requiring a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The law takes effect Sept. 1, but its approval signals that Texas lawmakers from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed with at least some state oversight.

RELATED: Days before rollout, lawmakers ask Tesla to delay Austin robotaxi launch

Pointing to the legislation passed this session, a group of Austin-area lawmakers last week asked Tesla to delay this weekend’s planned launch at least until it demonstrates compliance with the pending state law. In a letter sent Wednesday, the seven Democrats said their preference would be that the company put off its self-driving ride-hailing service until after Sept. 1.

Beyond a list of requirements that must be met to receive a permit, operators also must submit a First Responder Interaction Plan to detail how police, firefighters and paramedics should interact with a vehicle and reach fleet support in an emergency.

It was unclear last week if Tesla has complied with any of the requirements. It has not responded to requests for comment.

Sunday’s trial

For Sunday’s robotaxi trial, the company sent invitations to a group of online Tesla influencers and others for an event the company said would include 10 or 20 Model Y vehicles operating in a limited area.

“As an Early Access Rider, you can be among the first to use our new Robotaxi App and experience a ride within our geofenced area in Austin,” Tesla said in the invitations. “Through this exclusive preview, you’ll have the opportunity to provide valuable feedback on our Robotaxi service.”

Information sent with the invitations indicated the front-seat human safety monitors would be subject to the same restrictions as drivers of Tesla models with the so-called Full Self-Driving system. That means the cabin camera will be watching the monitor’s eyes to make sure they’re on the road and, presumably, warn them if they’re not.

The company has been testing human-supervised Model Y-based robotaxis in the Montopolis and Travis Heights neighborhoods this month as it prepares for an eventual fully autonomous rollout of service for a wider area of the city. Those trials have had the human monitor in the driver seat.

“We want to deliberately take it slow,” Musk told CNBC last month. “I mean, we could start with 1,000 (robotaxis), 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.”

It’s a far cry from his promise in 2019 that driverless robotaxis would be on the road “next year.” A year later, he promised to deliver them the next year, but that didn’t happen either.

Despite the empty pledges, the promises kept coming. Last year in January, Musk said, “Next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis.”

High stakes

Reaching a million may take awhile, but Tesla should be able to begin expanding the service this year if the Austin demo gets rolling and achieves success. Musk has said next targets include San Antonio, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, nor the challenges.

While Musk was making those “next year” promises over the past several years, rival Waymo was deploying driverless taxis in Austin, Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities by using a different technology that allowed it to get to market faster. It just completed its 10 millionth paid ride and has begun testing in San Antonio.

Several other companies already are operating or preparing to operate autonomous taxis in Austin.

Musk has made the robotaxi program a priority for Tesla and a failure could be highly damaging to the company’s stock price, which has already tumbled 20% this year.

Boycotts and protests related to Musk’s politics have tanked Tesla’s sales in the U.S and abroad. Rival electric vehicle makers with newly competitive models have stolen market share. And investors are on edge after a $150 billion stock wipeout when Musk picked a social media fight with President Donald Trump, whose administration is overseeing federal car regulators who could make the robotaxi rollout much more difficult. The stock has recovered somewhat after Musk said he regretted some of his remarks about his strong disagreement with Trump’s budget plan.

Some Musk watchers on Wall Street are skeptical Tesla’s robotaxis are anywhere near making an impact.

“How quickly can he expand the fleet?” said Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA. “We’re talking maybe a dozen vehicles initially. It’s very small.”

Morningstar’s Seth Goldstein said Musk is being classic Musk: Promising too much, too quickly.

“When anyone in Austin can download the app and use a robotaxi, that will be a success, but I don’t think that will happen until 2028,” he said. “Testing is going to take a while.”