Tesla is finally introducing robo-taxis without supervision

Tesla is finally introducing unsupervised robo-taxi rides in Austin, Texas, according to a video posted on X. Elon Musk’s website He reposted the videocongratulates Tesla’s AI team on this achievement.

For several months, Tesla automated taxis In Austin and San Francisco It included safety monitoring devices with access to a kill switch in case of an emergency — a backup that Waymo doesn’t currently need for its commercial taxi service. The safety screen is located in the passenger seat in Austin and in the driver’s seat in San Francisco. Neither service is fully open to the public yet, relying instead on customer waiting lists.

Musk said the human monitors are only there because Tesla is “paranoid about safety,” not because of some shortcoming in the company’s technology. He later prophesied The company will remove the safety screens by the end of 2025.

Apparently it was Off a few weeks ago. Ashok Elswami, Tesla’s vice president of Autonomous Driving, provided more context on the

Whether this demonstration represents progress or perhaps a disaster waiting to happen, time will tell. Tesla still uses a waiting list for its robotaxi service, and is rumored to have only a few dozen vehicles operating in Texas. Even with safety monitors in place, Tesla’s automated vehicle crashed about eight times in just five months. according to Elettric. Fans are clearly thrilled by Tesla’s progress, while critics call it a hoax designed to highlight non-existent capability.

This partly reflects Waymo’s phased rollout strategy of starting with a small number of vehicles equipped with safety monitoring screens and a waiting list of customers before gradually removing the screens and opening the list to everyone. The difference, of course, is that Waymo has driven more than 100 million miles with its self-driving, unattended cars. Tesla says its customers have driven their cars 7.4 billion miles using full self-drivingIt is a second-level system that requires constant supervision of the driver. These are not comparable stats.