Elon Musk celebrated the arrival of Tesla's fully autonomous – unsupervised robotaxi routes in Austin, Texas.
Musk congratulated Tesla’s AI team on the achievement. For months, Tesla’s robo-taxis in Austin and San Francisco have included safety guards with access to an emergency switch. The safety guard sits in the passenger seat in Austin and in the driver’s seat in San Francisco.
See also: Baidu partners with Uber and Lyft for robotaxi in London
Tesla’s billionaire owner had previously said that the guards are in the vehicles only because Tesla is “paranoid about safety,” and not because of any deficiencies in the company’s technology. He later said that the company would remove the safety guards by the end of 2025. However, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of autonomy, provided more details, saying that the company is “starting with a few unmanned vehicles mixed in with the broader robotaxi fleet with safety guards. Over time, we will increase the unmanned vehicles.”
The service is not fully open to the public yet, relying on customer waiting lists.
See also: Waymo: Tests robotaxi service in Philadelphia
Tesla: Unsupervised robotaxi on the streets of Texas
Whether this demonstration (with fully autonomous vehicles) represents progress or potential disaster remains to be seen. Tesla still operates a waiting list for its robotaxi service and is rumored to only have a few dozen vehicles operating in Texas. Even with safety monitors, Tesla’s robo-taxis have crashed about eight times in just five months, according to Electrek. While fans are excited by Tesla’s progress, critics say it highlights a potential that doesn’t exist.
This situation reflects Waymo’s gradual rollout strategy, starting with a handful of vehicles with safety monitors and a waiting list of customers before gradually removing the monitors and opening the list to everyone. However, Waymo has driven more than 100 million miles in fully autonomous, unsupervised cars, while Tesla claims its customers have driven 7.4 billion miles using Full Self-Driving, a Level 2 system that requires constant driver supervision. These statistics are not comparable.
See also: Uber and Avride bring robotaxi service to Dallas
Meanwhile, Waymo continues to widen its lead over Tesla, reporting over 14 million paid trips in 2025 alone and plans to expand to 20 new cities next year. Despite this, Musk insists that Tesla has the advantage over Waymo because of its extensive customer fleet. This statement ignores the fact that most Teslas on the road do not have the necessary hardware to support fully autonomous driving.
