"It wasn't that long ago when, if you saw a car driving down the road with no one behind the wheel, you could safely assume something was very wrong with the world. Maybe it was a Maximum Overdrive-type situations; maybe the driver had discovered the secret of invisibility. In 2025, though, if you see a car driving with no human driver, the answer is a bit more mundane: you've entered a part of the world where robotaxis can operate without a backup human driver."
"Apparently, Austin, Texas is now one of those parts of the world. On Sunday, one X user uploaded footage of a Tesla vehicle driving around Austin with zero humans on board. "No one in the car. No safety driver," @cb_doge commented. "Fully autonomous." Indeed, what is most striking about this is how mundane it looks: unless you were paying careful attention, you might miss the fact that there's literally no one behind the wheel."
Tesla has begun testing fully autonomous robotaxis in Austin, Texas that operate without a safety driver or passengers. A video posted on X showed a Tesla driving around Austin with no one behind the wheel, and a user captioned "No one in the car. No safety driver." Elon Musk confirmed the company began testing such vehicles in the city, and Ashok Elluswamy, who leads Tesla's AI efforts, also confirmed testing activity. Tesla has been testing in Austin for several months, with previous rides generally positive but requiring occasional human intervention. Tesla scaled back its Austin robotaxi target from 500 to 60 vehicles by year-end.
Read at InsideHook
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]