Tesla’s Robotaxi is live: here are some of the first reactions.

Tesla finally did the damn thing. The company launched its long -awaited Robotaxi service In Austin, Texas, Sunday June 22 – and we are now starting to see some of the first reactions take place.

But first, we have to eliminate some important warnings. Revealing, the service is not open to the general public, and it is not completely “unattended”, As Elon Musk promised once. Vehicles will include Tesla employment “Safety monitors” in the front passenger seat Which can react to a dangerous situation by hitting a killing switch. Other autonomous vehicle operators would place safety monitors in driver or passenger seats, but generally only during the test phase. Tesla is unique in its use of safety monitors during the sales department.

The rides are limited to a geofized area of ​​the city which was carefully mapped by the company. And in some cases, Tesla uses chase cars and remote drivers as an additional backup. (Some vehicles have been identified without prosecution vehicles.)

The service is invited only to launch, according to the Tesla website. A certain number of pro-TESLA influencers have received invitations, which should raise questions about how these first critical reactions will be impartial. Tesla did not say when the service is available for the general public.

The limited test includes 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles with a “Robotaxi” brand on the side. Fully autonomous cybercab This was revealed for the first time last year will not be available before 2026 at the earliest. The service operates in a relatively safe area of ​​Austin from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m., avoiding bad weather, highways, airports and complex intersections.

Despite these hours, the Robotaxi service seems to have started slowly. Several guests had not yet received the Robotaxi application at 1 p.m. HE on Sunday. Sawyer Merritt, who publishes pro-Tesla content on X, said that he had seen 30 Waymo vehicles pass while Tesla’s Robotaxi service begins. Musk posted at 1:12 pm that the service would be available later in the afternoon, adding that initial customers would pay a “flat fresh” of $ 4.20 for the rides – a joke with which Musk has a troubled story.

While the runners were waiting, The company has published a new Robotaxi page to its website detailing many rules and directives of the service. Visitors are invited to register for updates at the time when Tesla’s Robotaxi service can come to their region. (Musk said that there could be up to a thousand robotaxis on the road “in a few months.”)

After finally obtaining access to the application, Merritt published an image of the service area, which seemed to cover a small area bordered by the Colorado river in the North, the 183 motorway in the East, highways 290 and 71 to the south and the Zilker part to the west.

And then the rides started – and they seemed mainly without incident. Several guests have occurred live, summoning their first cars, interacting with the user interface, then arriving at their destination. Several videos lasted hours because the guests concluded a trip, then greet another car immediately after. A tester, the bearded guy Tesla, described the application interface as “essentially Uber”. Many have had trouble finding the collection location for their Tesla Robotaxi on hold.

“It’s like Pokemon hunting,” said a person from the live delivery of Herbert NGO, “but his Robotaxi hunt.”

Once inside, the Tesla-Employed safety instructor would ask the runners to show their Robotaxi applications to prove their identity. Otherwise, the security instructors kept silent throughout the journey, despite the runners who tried to make them speak. I suppose Tesla will have to find another way of identifying their runners if they plan to remove the safety monitors from the passenger seat. Waymo, for example, asks customers to unlock their vehicle via the Ridehail application.

The rear screen asks the runners to fix their safety belts, and after pressing a “Start Ride” animated button, the vehicle begins. Cyclists can also start the journey from a similar button in the application. Since the runners register for the Robotaxi application using their pre -existing Tesla profiles, they are welcomed with their favorite musical applications on the rear screen with all their reading lists and their recorded tracks.

The front display shows a visualization similar to the general public vehicles using the complete autonomous characteristic of Tesla – even if Musk had declared that the Robotaxis operated on a special version of FSD which is not available for the average owner of Tesla. There are “sweater over”, “stop in lane” or “support” buttons on the central display. Another tester, Chuck Cook, said that visualization was missing some of the controls that normal Tesla could have.

By pressing the support button, the pilot places in a queue when he waits for the remote operator to connect. On the Cook Livestream, it took about two minutes before an operator was ultimately connected. “We appreciate that you called,” said the operator (although the cell connection was mediocre). “We are here for any problem to support your journey.”

Throughout the different trips, Robotaxie has met a multitude of normal situations, such as U towers, slowders, pedestrians, construction, etc. Vehicles have maintained speeds of around 40 MPH or more slowly. The common words to describe driving were “smooth”, “large” and “normal”. A tester said on x That they made the Robotaxi “spoil” in a way that forced the remote operator to help – although they refused to describe it as a disengagement.

Ashok Elluswamy, the head of the company’s autonomous team, published a photo of several dozen people in a room with 10 large monitors on the wall showing live cameras of several vehicles. “Robotaxi Launch Party,” wrote Elluswamy.

From where Tesla goes from here, this is the real challenge. Musk said he also wanted to launch a Robotaxi service in California, where the regulatory process is much more complex than Texas. And even if he said he wanted to take things slowly, he also claims that Tesla will have more than a thousand driverless vehicles on the road “in a few months”.

Meanwhile, Waymo operates more than 1,500 driverless vehicles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin – with plans to expand in Atlanta, Miami and Washington, DC in the near future. The company belonging to the alphabet said that it Get his fleet at 2,000 vehicles by next year.