Latest news with #robotaxi
The Verge
an hour ago
- Automotive
- The Verge
‘We are the media now': why Tesla's robotaxis were dominated by Elon Musk superfans
Over the years, Tesla has built part of its reputation on hosting big, bold events to generate authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, last week wasn't one of them. Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, many of whom are openly supportive of the CEO's vision. Journalists and tech bloggers who might have been more critical of the technology were not only excluded but also actively ridiculed and mocked by Tesla fans and some of their followers for attempting to ask basic questions about the service. In Austin and online, Tesla fans were taking a cue from Musk, who has spent years fomenting a culture of resentment toward critical media. One of the more prominent influencers, who goes by Zack on X, claimed he was approached multiple times by a Reuters journalist, whom he promptly ignored. That post, which has over 2,000 likes, received supportive responses from other users — one wrote that the publication and other legacy media outlets 'can go F themselves.' Another said they would unfollow any account that simply responded to members of the media. 'The best response would [be] to add a precondition and ask them to go on camera blanket apologising for all the lies and smears against Elon and Tesla first,' the account Tesla insights wrote. 'That will shut them up, and make them think!' That general sentiment reverberated across the parts of X and YouTube most actively covering the launch. Kim Java, a Tesla influencer with 258,000 YouTube subscribers, posted a comment saying she had been contacted by several major media outlets to speak about her experience but turned them down so she could 'control [her] own narrative.' The phrase 'we are the media now' appears repeatedly in posts and replies related to the robotaxi launch. This so-called alternative media is now receiving the very same closed-door access many of them criticize legacy publications for indulging in. The end result of that adversarial dynamic, experts tell The Verge, is a rollout that feels less like a transparent tech demo and more like a beta test — one amplified by livestreaming influencers who willingly promote Tesla's marketing material. Much of that coverage unfolds within small echo chambers on Musk-owned X and YouTube, where receptive audiences have largely already made up their minds about the robotaxi's significance. Boston University professor and Meme Wars author Joan Donovan says the rollout so far this week has been a textbook example of what she calls 'corporate propaganda.' 'The big push around robotaxis is explicitly about recuperating the reputation of Tesla,' Donovan says. 'It has a bit of an echo chamber effect.' 'The big push around robotaxis is explicitly about recuperating the reputation of Tesla,' Donovan says. 'It has a bit of an echo chamber effect.' Ed Niedermeyer, author of the Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors, who filmed a robotaxi braking hard in the middle of the road when passing a police cruiser, echoes that sentiment and compares the influencers to a 'Greek chorus' collectively working to bolster the robotaxi's perception. Some of that narrative building appeared to be underway on the popular Reddit forum r/SelfDrivingCars. A user posting late last week claimed the forum has been 'flooded with Tesla apologist propaganda and disinformation,' following the robotaxi launch. Niedermeyer claims he's previously observed a Tesla employee moderating the r/Tesla forum. 'They know what their job is and Tesla knows how to use them,' Niedermeyer tells The Verge. Donovan and Niedermeyer are outspoken critics of Tesla. Both played active roles in the Tesla Takedown protests organized around the country earlier this year. Needless to say, they aren't in the 'superfan' club. Tesla did not respond to our request for comment. The Verge also reached out to several of the influencers cited above but hasn't heard back. This week's bizarre, influencer-led robotaxi event is the culmination of a yearslong evolution by Tesla to subtly cultivate its preferred media while simultaneously sidelining traditional journalistic outlets. Tesla has a long and bitter history of antagonism with the press. The company unofficially dissolved its PR team back in 2020 and has since made a point of dodging reporters' questions about its products and tech stack. Since acquiring Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk has further tilted the playing field by periodically banning accounts critical of him and his companies. At the same time, Tesla has built a loyal fan base, which Donovan compares to early Apple enthusiasts — eager to call out media critics as biased against Musk and the company. At first, much of that support was organic. The company attracted a devoted following of technologists, clean energy advocates, and entrepreneurs drawn to its willingness to take big swings at tough problems. But as Niedermeyer notes, some of that enthusiasm has tapered off in recent years, due in part to a series of underwhelming demos — like last year's lackluster 'We robot' event, which raised new doubts about the company's ability to deliver on its most ambitious promises around autonomy. Those who remain tend to be reliably loyal and often openly aligned with Tesla's success. Boosting Tesla's image online has its perks. Many in the community share personalized referral codes, which can be redeemed for rewards ranging from a few extra Supercharger miles to discounts on a new car purchase. (Some Tesla owners allege they've been abruptly removed from the program after posting content critical of the company.) 'They know what their job is and Tesla knows how to use them.' Loyal supporters in Tesla's online ranks may also gain access to exclusive events, as appears to have been the case with the robotaxi launch. Those who own stock in the company, Niedermeyer says, have an even more direct incentive to ensure Tesla is seen in a favorable light. 'The product is so dope they don't need a PR department,' YouTube creator and Tesla fan Galileo Russell said in an interview with CNN Business. 'I got involved with Tesla to make sure the company succeeded.' Operating in an echo chamber can only work for so long. Eventually, if Musk's vision of millions of autonomous Teslas zooming through city streets is to be realized, the company will have to open its doors to the broader public — including its detractors. That risks exposing more of the company's mistakes, which even influencers are already having trouble pushing aside. 'They know what their job is,' Niedermeyer says, 'and Tesla knows how to use them.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's early birthday present to himself—the first Tesla just drove itself from its factory straight to the customer
In its second milestone in a week, Tesla arranged for a Model Y crossover to drive itself from its Texas factory to a customer in downtown Austin some 30 minutes away. It follows the successful launch of its robotaxi service this past Sunday. City officials, however, told Fortune they had no choice in the matter: 'the City does not have the authority to regulate these vehicles.' Tesla celebrated a historic first on Friday when a new Model Y left the factory in Austin and—without anyone in the vehicle—drove itself to a waiting customer a half-hour away. Already the second milestone this week after the commercial deployment of his robotaxi service, it marks an early birthday present for CEO Elon Musk. The entrepreneur had promised it to Tesla supporters for June 28, which is coincidentally when he turns 54 years old. 'The first fully autonomous delivery of a Tesla Model Y from factory to a customer home across town, including highways, was just completed a day ahead of schedule,' Musk posted on Friday. 'There were no people in the car at all and no remote operators in control at any point. FULLY autonomous.' Since this is completely unsupervised full-self driving (FSD) in its first-ever practical application for the brand, Tesla uploaded a video as proof. It documents from various angles the roughly 30-minute drive from the Austin factory to 1515 S. Lamar Blvd. downtown, where its new owner took possession. Whether this delivery is just a one-off test or part of a broader plan to revamp distribution remains unclear. While it might in theory save on at least part of the $1,390 destination fee Tesla charges, it risks scratching or denting the vehicle in transit—or even just arriving at the customer dirty, looking like it had just been through a rainstorm. Additionally, the Model Y's range maxes out at an official 357 miles with real world tests indicating a lower range. Unless it could drive from one Tesla service center to the next, so that an employee could recharge it, the range would limit it to a radius inside Texas. Lastly, regulations on the ground could make it outright illegal as state governments currently determine under what conditions autonomous vehicles, if at all, can drive on their roads. In the case of Austin, for example, city officials told Fortune they had no say in what Musk's company did. 'Tesla made the City aware of their intent to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle,' a spokesman for the Texas state capital said. 'While the City does not have the authority to regulate these vehicles, we will continue to work with the company to provide feedback if public safety issues arise.' The autonomous delivery also elicited skepticism as to whether Tesla might be misleading people into believing the technology is more robust than it really is. Some pointed to the fact the video was not livestreamed, but rather uploaded later. In addition, the robotaxi service that began operation in Austin on Sunday still only operates during certain hours, does not drive to the airport, and features a safety monitor in the front passenger seat at all times. Moreover, the timing is advantageous, as Musk has been attempting to shift investor focus towards the rollout of his robotaxi technology and away from its struggling core business of selling EVs. This coming week, Tesla is expected to publish second-quarter global production and delivery figures that show a 14% decline in deliveries to 383,000 vehicles, according to the median estimate polled by the company's investor relations team. While a few skeptics are bound to remain mistrustful no matter what, the suspicion is rooted in part in experience. Nearly nine years ago, Tesla posted a similar demonstration when it released the 'Paint It Black' video. It claimed that a vehicle was driving entirely on its own and the human behind the wheel was not even there to monitor for safety. 'The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons,' it stated in the video posted in October 2016. 'He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.' Tesla's AI director Ashok Elluswamy later testified in a sworn deposition the footage was not meant to be an accurate representation of the technology. Both the video and the blog post have since been expunged entirely from Tesla's site, but thanks to YouTube and web archives they are still viewable. There was another, more recent example, as well. In October 2024, Musk showcased prototype robots interacting with human guests at an event without telling anyone they were tele-operated remotely by humans. Tesla didn't respond to a request for comment from Fortune. But Elluswamy, who has risen the ranks at Tesla since working on the 2016 video, denied there was any trickery with the self-driving delivery video on Friday. 'Literally chose a random customer who ordered a Model Y in the Austin area. Vehicle is exactly the same as every Model Y produced in the Tesla factory,' he replied to a question on X. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
‘Lidar is lame': why Elon Musk's vision for a self-driving Tesla taxi faltered
After years of promising investors that millions of Tesla robotaxis would soon fill the streets, Elon Musk debuted his driverless car service in a limited public rollout in Austin, Texas. It did not go smoothly. The 22 June launch initially appeared successful enough, with a flood of videos from pro-Tesla social media influencers praising the service and sharing footage of their rides. Musk celebrated it as a triumph, and the following day, Tesla's stock rose nearly 10%. What quickly became apparent, however, was that the same influencer videos Musk promoted also depicted the self-driving cars appearing to break traffic laws or struggle to properly function. By Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had opened an investigation into the service and requested information from Tesla on the incidents. If Tesla's limited rollout of the robotaxi service was the culmination of more than a decade of work, as Musk touted on X, its struggles are also emblematic of technical decisions and fixations that the world's richest person has embraced as he pursues the goal of a fully autonomous car. Musk has cast the concept of a driverless car as a core part of the company's future business, and, as sales have sharply fallen this year, he has vowed that its robotaxi service will rapidly and drastically expand. Yet the faltering launch this week suggests Tesla is still facing technological challenges that have attracted regulators' notice, delayed Musk's vision of a robotaxi on every corner, and highlighted the gulf between it and its driverless rival, Waymo. The robotaxi launch featured about 10 cars traveling in a limited area of Austin with safety drivers in the passenger seat. The pilot included other restrictions, such as not operating in bad weather or during certain nighttime hours. Rides, which the company offered to a host of handpicked influencers, cost $4.20, in keeping with Musk's proclivity for cannabis memes. 'Tesla self-driving can be deployed anywhere it's approved. It does not require expensive, specialized equipment or extensive mapping of service areas,' an official Tesla account posted on X the day of the launch. 'It just works.' Footage from at least 11 rides showed that the trial run did not pan out as flawlessly as Tesla's tweet suggested. In one case, a robotaxi failed to make a left turn and instead drove into a lane meant for oncoming traffic, then corrected itself by driving across a double yellow line. Other videos appeared to show the cars exceeding the speed limit, braking for no discernible reason and dropping passengers off in the middle of an intersection. The videos drew the attention of the NHTSA, which said in a statement it was aware of the incidents and had contacted Tesla to obtain more information. Musk, meanwhile, posted throughout the technical failures and regulatory inquiry, retweeting pro-Tesla influencers who praised the service. One account Musk posted showed off a video of a robotaxi stopping to avoid running down a peacock crossing the road, and another told followers: 'Don't listen to the media.' Musk has long insisted that using only cameras on driverless cars is the singular way to achieve true self-driving capability. Tesla's consumer vehicles come with what it calls 'autopilot' and 'full self-driving' features that allow drivers to cruise on the highway hands-free. They rely on multiple external cameras to navigate, steer and brake. The company's robotaxis use similar software and also depend solely on cameras. The reliance on cameras alone stands in sharp contrast with other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo and Zoox. Those companies use arrays that combine cameras and sensors, including radar and lidar. For example, the newest version of a driverless Waymo uses about 40 external cameras and sensors, whereas a Tesla with one of the latest versions of full self-driving uses about eight external cameras, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. Lidar and radar allow for self-driving cars to better detect objects in bad weather and poor lighting. Despite the advantages to lidar and radar, Musk has been adamant that Tesla remain lidar-free. 'Lidar is lame,' Musk said during a Tesla autonomy day in 2019. 'In cars, it's friggin' stupid. It's expensive and unnecessary.' Lidar is far more expensive, costing roughly $12,000 per vehicle, as compared with cameras, which come in at around $400 per car, according to Bloomberg. Musk maintains that camera-only technology is the most 'human' way to approach self-driving, since people use their eyes to navigate the road. Musk's insistence on camera-only technology has landed Tesla in hot water over fatal crashes involving drivers using the full self-driving feature. The company is now the focus of government investigations and civil lawsuits, which allege that full self-driving is impeded by weather conditions such as sun glare, fog, dust and darkness. There have been at least 736 crashes and 17 deaths involving the technology, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. 'Tesla continues to have this fetishistic view that it's going to operate its system solely on cameras, despite every intelligent human being in this entire space saying that can't be done,' said Brett Schreiber, an attorney who represents several alleged victims of Tesla's autopilot failures. 'Everyone who has been following collision-avoidant technology since the 90s knows that the holy trinity is radar, lidar and cameras.' Schreiber said he was not surprised to see the wobbling rollout of Tesla's robotaxis in Austin. 'What you're also going to see, which is the true tragedy of this thing, is people continuing to be injured and killed by this technology,' he said. 'And that's where it becomes less of a 'Oh, isn't that cute? The vehicle can't make a left' to now we're actually at someone's funeral because of the choices Tesla makes.' Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits, government investigations and crashes involving full self-driving. The differences between Waymo and Tesla's approaches to launching commercial self-driving services in dense cities don't end with the debate over lidar versus cameras. Waymo is seen widely as the frontrunner in the self-driving race in the US – a race that was once crowded with dozens of automakers, VC-backed startups and ride-share companies and has since been whittled down to just a handful of major players. There are numerous reasons why Waymo has outlasted so many of its competitors and why it's ahead of the curve. The Google subsidiary has historically spent months, if not years, mapping cities and testing its vehicles in them before launching. In San Francisco, one of the first cities where Waymo launched its fully driverless commercial service, the company began mapping out and testing its service in 2021 before launching it to the public in 2024. Even with a careful and gradual city-by-city approach, Waymo, which launched as a project under Google's X research lab in 2009, has encountered problems with its self-driving cars. Earlier this year, Waymo had to recall more than 1,200 of its vehicles over a software issue that was causing collisions with chains, gates and other stationary roadway barriers. The NHTSA also launched an investigation into the company last year after the agency received 22 reports of Waymo vehicles acting erratically or potentially violating traffic safety laws. Contrast Waymo's approach with Tesla's. While Tesla is still in the testing phase of its service, its robotaxi launch in Austin is the first time the car company's fully self-driving technology is being unleashed in the wild. The company has not released information on whether, or how long, it has spent mapping out or testing the driverless technology on Austin's streets. The launch is reminiscent of Uber's first foray into a self-driving ride-share service in 2016. The company launched a self-driving pilot in San Francisco without seeking a permit from the California department of motor vehicles, as was required. On the first day of the pilot, an Uber vehicle ran a red light. The company was forced to shut down the service a week later after the DMV revoked its registration. An Uber self-driving executive at the time had pushed the company's engineers to rush to launch the San Francisco pilot to attract more investor and public attention. After being sued by Waymo over its self-driving operations and struggling to catch up to its competitors, Uber sold its self-driving arm in 2020. Tesla also did not have a permit to operate its robotaxi service in Austin. Texas does not currently have a process to acquire a permit and won't have one in place until September. While there's at the moment less visibility into what Tesla's rollout of its robotaxi service looked like behind the scenes, the automaker is no stranger to rushing to meet deadlines set publicly by Musk. With the launch of robotaxis, Musk, who has been promising that Teslas will be fully self-driving since at least 2016, is perhaps getting closer to meeting the deadline that he set and has deferred several times over the past 10 years. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla's Robotaxi rollout has started – and users are taking to the internet to share their horror stories
Tesla, battered and bruised by CEO Elon Musk's government gutting antics under President Donald Trump, has had another rough week after social media users shared videos of its robotaxi fleet apparently making mistakes during their pilot run in Austin, Texas. The videos — which have been shared around social media and even collected in a handy Reddit post — were so concerning that they've prompted an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Of course, the NHTSA may have to carry out its investigation with fewer people, since DOGE under Musk cut four percent of the agency's staff in February. The videos that prompted the investigation show a variety of mistakes made by the robotaxis during the trial run. In some, the mistakes are minor, like failing to notice a reversing UPS truck while pulling into a park spot, or popping a curb during a drive. In one video, a robotaxi develops a digital lead foot and guns it to 26 mph in a 15 mph zone. In another, a robotaxi attempts to park extremely close to another car, prompting the vehicle's safety driver to intervene and take control. But there were some more concerning videos in the mix as well. In one video, a robotaxi intending to make a left hand turn misreads a lane and ends up momentarily driving the wrong way. Thankfully no other vehicles were in the lane at the time. According to The Verge, the individual riding in the robotaxi in that video, money manager Rob Maurer, brushed off the incident, noting that there were "no vehicles anywhere in sight" and saying that it "wasn't a safety issue.' "I didn't feel uncomfortable in the situation," he said in his commentary about the video. In another video, a passenger was dropped off in the middle of a busy intersection. A few videos show the robotaxis "phantom braking," in which they come to a stop suddenly and without cause. Tesla's vehicles have a history of issues with phantom breaking due to its camera-only perception system. The system apparently mistakes shadows, road markings, and other visuals as potential obstructions, which engages the vehicles' emergency braking system. The obvious risk to drivers is that a vehicle stopping suddenly and without warning could very easily cause a traffic accident. All of the videos came from Tesla's test of its Model Y robotaxis in Austin, CBS News reports. The company invited investors and social media influencers out to ride around in the taxis, which is why so many videos of the rides were captured. The videos of the mistakes do not reflect the totality of the rides taken during the test. Sawyer Merritt, who posts overwhelmingly pro-Tesla content on X, said that he did not experience any issues during his 20 rides during the text, calling them "smooth and comfortable." Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities analyst who is bullish on Tesla's future and optimistic that Tesla's robotaxis will be a success, brushed off the mistakes as growing pains. "Any issues they encounter will be fixed," he told the Associated Press, insisting that the Austin test run was a "huge success." That said, the dozen or so videos that did show issues were captured over a three-day period of extremely limited use. If Musk has his way, there will be millions of Tesla's robotaxis on U.S. roads by the second half of 2026. He insists his self-driving cars are safer than human driven vehicles, and has called their implementation a "top priority." The NHTSA said it has contacted Tesla in response to the videos. "NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information," the agency said in a statement. "Following an assessment of those reports and other relevant information, NHTSA will take any necessary actions to protect road safety." The current investigation comes on the heels of another NHTSA probe into Tesla's "Full Self-Driving" technology in April. The probe began after four Tesla vehicles using the tech were involved in crashes. Tesla was forced to recall 2.4 million vehicles in response. On Tuesday, representatives of three people who were killed during a crash last September involving Tesla's Model S car sued the vehicle maker, according to Reuters. The Independent has requested comment from Tesla.
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Guardian
‘Lidar is lame': why Elon Musk's vision for a self-driving Tesla taxi faltered
After years of promising investors that millions of Tesla robotaxis would soon fill the streets, Elon Musk debuted his driverless car service in a limited public rollout in Austin, Texas. It did not go smoothly. The 22 June launch initially appeared successful enough, with a flood of videos from pro-Tesla social media influencers praising the service and sharing footage of their rides. Musk celebrated it as a triumph, and the following day, Tesla's stock rose nearly 10%. What quickly became apparent, however, was that the same influencer videos Musk promoted also depicted the self-driving cars appearing to break traffic laws or struggle to properly function. By Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had opened an investigation into the service and requested information from Tesla on the incidents. If Tesla's limited rollout of the robotaxi service was the culmination of more than a decade of work, as Musk touted on X, its struggles are also emblematic of technical decisions and fixations that the world's richest person has embraced as he pursues the goal of a fully autonomous car. Musk has cast the concept of a driverless car as a core part of the company's future business, and, as sales have sharply fallen this year, he has vowed that its robotaxi service will rapidly and drastically expand. Yet the faltering launch this week suggests Tesla is still facing technological challenges that have attracted regulators' notice, delayed Musk's vision of a robotaxi on every corner, and highlighted the gulf between it and its driverless rival, Waymo. The robotaxi launch featured about 10 cars traveling in a limited area of Austin with safety drivers in the passenger seat. The pilot included other restrictions, such as not operating in bad weather or during certain nighttime hours. Rides, which the company offered to a host of handpicked influencers, cost $4.20, in keeping with Musk's proclivity for cannabis memes. 'Tesla self-driving can be deployed anywhere it's approved. It does not require expensive, specialized equipment or extensive mapping of service areas,' an official Tesla account posted on X the day of the launch. 'It just works.' Footage from at least 11 rides showed that the trial run did not pan out as flawlessly as Tesla's tweet suggested. In one case, a robotaxi failed to make a left turn and instead drove into a lane meant for oncoming traffic, then corrected itself by driving across a double yellow line. Other videos appeared to show the cars exceeding the speed limit, braking for no discernible reason and dropping passengers off in the middle of an intersection. The videos drew the attention of the NHTSA, which said in a statement it was aware of the incidents and had contacted Tesla to obtain more information. Musk, meanwhile, posted throughout the technical failures and regulatory inquiry, retweeting pro-Tesla influencers who praised the service. One account Musk posted showed off a video of a robotaxi stopping to avoid running down a peacock crossing the road, and another told followers: 'Don't listen to the media.' Musk has long insisted that using only cameras on driverless cars is the singular way to achieve true self-driving capability. Tesla's consumer vehicles come with what it calls 'autopilot' and 'full self-driving' features that allow drivers to cruise on the highway hands-free. They rely on multiple external cameras to navigate, steer and brake. The company's robotaxis use similar software and also depend solely on cameras. The reliance on cameras alone stands in sharp contrast with other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo and Zoox. Those companies use arrays that combine cameras and sensors, including radar and lidar. For example, the newest version of a driverless Waymo uses about 40 external cameras and sensors, whereas a Tesla with one of the latest versions of full self-driving uses about eight external cameras, according to an analysis by Bloomberg. Lidar and radar allow for self-driving cars to better detect objects in bad weather and poor lighting. Despite the advantages to lidar and radar, Musk has been adamant that Tesla remain lidar-free. 'Lidar is lame,' Musk said during a Tesla autonomy day in 2019. 'In cars, it's friggin' stupid. It's expensive and unnecessary.' Lidar is far more expensive, costing roughly $12,000 per vehicle, as compared with cameras, which come in at around $400 per car, according to Bloomberg. Musk maintains that camera-only technology is the most 'human' way to approach self-driving, since people use their eyes to navigate the road. Musk's insistence on camera-only technology has landed Tesla in hot water over fatal crashes involving drivers using the full self-driving feature. The company is now the focus of government investigations and civil lawsuits, which allege that full self-driving is impeded by weather conditions such as sun glare, fog, dust and darkness. There have been at least 736 crashes and 17 deaths involving the technology, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. 'Tesla continues to have this fetishistic view that it's going to operate its system solely on cameras, despite every intelligent human being in this entire space saying that can't be done,' said Brett Schreiber, an attorney who represents several alleged victims of Tesla's autopilot failures. 'Everyone who has been following collision-avoidant technology since the 90s knows that the holy trinity is radar, lidar and cameras.' Schreiber said he was not surprised to see the wobbling rollout of Tesla's robotaxis in Austin. 'What you're also going to see, which is the true tragedy of this thing, is people continuing to be injured and killed by this technology,' he said. 'And that's where it becomes less of a 'Oh, isn't that cute? The vehicle can't make a left' to now we're actually at someone's funeral because of the choices Tesla makes.' Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits, government investigations and crashes involving full self-driving. The differences between Waymo and Tesla's approaches to launching commercial self-driving services in dense cities don't end with the debate over lidar versus cameras. Waymo is seen widely as the frontrunner in the self-driving race in the US – a race that was once crowded with dozens of automakers, VC-backed startups and ride-share companies and has since been whittled down to just a handful of major players. There are numerous reasons why Waymo has outlasted so many of its competitors and why it's ahead of the curve. The Google subsidiary has historically spent months, if not years, mapping cities and testing its vehicles in them before launching. In San Francisco, one of the first cities where Waymo launched its fully driverless commercial service, the company began mapping out and testing its service in 2021 before launching it to the public in 2024. Even with a careful and gradual city-by-city approach, Waymo, which launched as a project under Google's X research lab in 2009, has encountered problems with its self-driving cars. Earlier this year, Waymo had to recall more than 1,200 of its vehicles over a software issue that was causing collisions with chains, gates and other stationary roadway barriers. The NHTSA also launched an investigation into the company last year after the agency received 22 reports of Waymo vehicles acting erratically or potentially violating traffic safety laws. Contrast Waymo's approach with Tesla's. While Tesla is still in the testing phase of its service, its robotaxi launch in Austin is the first time the car company's fully self-driving technology is being unleashed in the wild. The company has not released information on whether, or how long, it has spent mapping out or testing the driverless technology on Austin's streets. The launch is reminiscent of Uber's first foray into a self-driving ride-share service in 2016. The company launched a self-driving pilot in San Francisco without seeking a permit from the California department of motor vehicles, as was required. On the first day of the pilot, an Uber vehicle ran a red light. The company was forced to shut down the service a week later after the DMV revoked its registration. An Uber self-driving executive at the time had pushed the company's engineers to rush to launch the San Francisco pilot to attract more investor and public attention. After being sued by Waymo over its self-driving operations and struggling to catch up to its competitors, Uber sold its self-driving arm in 2020. Tesla also did not have a permit to operate its robotaxi service in Austin. Texas does not currently have a process to acquire a permit and won't have one in place until September. While there's at the moment less visibility into what Tesla's rollout of its robotaxi service looked like behind the scenes, the automaker is no stranger to rushing to meet deadlines set publicly by Musk. With the launch of robotaxis, Musk, who has been promising that Teslas will be fully self-driving since at least 2016, is perhaps getting closer to meeting the deadline that he set and has deferred several times over the past 10 years.
