Elon Musk says Tesla launched robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver; Tesla's AI lead says Tesla is “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles”

Tesla is offering passengers robotaxi rides in Austin without a human safety driver in the front seat.

TechCrunch 2026-01-23 Rebecca Bellan

Discussion

@aelluswamy Ashok Elluswamy on x
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin. Starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time.
@elonmusk Elon Musk on x
Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car. Congrats to the @Tesla_AI team! If you're interested in solving real-world AI, which is likely to lead to AGI imo, join Tesla AI. Solving real-world AI for Optimus will be 100X harder than cars.
@taumuyi Tau-Mu Yi on bluesky
Apparently self-driving cars is a “solved problem” to everyone but Elon [embedded post]
r/RealTesla r on reddit
Tesla didn't remove the Robotaxi ‘safety monitor’ - it just moved them to a trailing car
r/SelfDrivingCars r on reddit
Tesla didn't remove the Robotaxi ‘safety monitor’ - it just moved them to a trailing car
r/technology r on reddit
Tesla launches robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver
r/TeslaFSD r on reddit
Robotaxi rides without any safety monitors are now publicly available in Austin.
@a4xrbj1 Andrea Basso on bluesky
It appears to be another game of smoke and mirrors. The Robotaxi cars spotted without “safety monitor” were all being followed by a trailing black Tesla supervising the “driverless” Robotaxi. — It means Tesla didn't “remove the safety monitor”, it just moved them to a vehicle …
r/fuckcars r on reddit
Tesla didn't remove the Robotaxi ‘safety monitor’ - it just moved them to a trailing car
@johnvoelcker John Voelcker on bluesky
After 6 yrs of #Tesla claims, a major milestone: limited launch of #robotaxi rides in Austin without human safety drivers. — BUT: TX has near-zero regulation for this tech, so transparency will be near-zero. — We'll have to use 1st-hand accounts, any police reports + crowdsou…
@zacksjerryrig @zacksjerryrig on x
So the follow car (with a kill switch) is in on the fraud. Got it. Totally unrelated - when Enron fell it wasn't just the CEO who went to jail. 👍 yall at @Tesla are playing with your own lives as well as everyone else's.
@fredlambert Fred Lambert on x
All smoke and mirrors since the beginning. The Robotaxi program is a distraction from Tesla not delivering on the promise of unsupervised self-driving, which it sold to millions of consumer car buyers. It's also meant to boost the $TSLA stock price, as the illusion of [image]

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Elon Musk says Tesla launched robotaxi rides in Austin with no human safety driver; Tesla's AI lead says Tesla is “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles”

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