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The Tesla Robotaxi launch happened on June 22, with Tesla opening the service to the public in Austin, Texas, following a little over a month of beta testing conducted by Tesla employees. The service allows passengers to be ferried by autonomous Tesla vehicles (currently Tesla Model Y units).
The above comes with many caveats, though. The service is only operating in a small part of South Austin, and it's only open to members of the "Early Access" group, making it a sort of closed beta program. Finally, while the cars drive autonomously, a Tesla employee must be sitting in the passenger seat, monitoring the ride.
SEE ALSO: Tesla launches new Model S and X with minimal design changes, higher price tagsTesla enthusiast Sawyer Merritt took several rides in a Tesla Robotaxi, describing the experience as "smooth and comfortable." Elsewhere, X user Zack called his journey "incredible" with "extremely smooth stops."
It wouldn't be a Tesla launch without a weed joke. Thus, the price of all Tesla Robotaxi rides are currently a fixed $4.20, a nod to weed culture.
Update: The company also launched a dedicated Robotaxi site, with the tagline: "Future of autonomy is coming soon."
The Tesla guy sitting in the passenger seat is conveniently not visible in this official picture. Credit: Tesla "We’re bringing these autonomous rides to you today—starting with Model Y. Cybercab, our fully autonomous vehicle, will begin offering rides in your area in the future," the site says. It has a form where you can sign up to get updates about the service, but not much else.
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I took a ride in a robotaxi: How close are we to a driverless future?
Alphabet-owned Waymo is already operating in Austin (and other cities), and Amazon-owned Zoox is currently testing a driverless taxi service in the city. Their cars, however, are equipped with numerous additional sensors such as LiDAR (light detection and ranging); Tesla's service uses regular Model Ys, which rely only on cameras and Tesla's self-driving smarts.
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Musk has called the launch a "culmination of a decade of hard work," and pointed out that "both the AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla." The Tesla CEO has longed deemed the company's Robotaxi service one of the most important developments for Tesla's long-time prospects. The idea is that both Tesla and Tesla car owners will one day be able to send their cars to autonomously drive passengers around and earn them money.
That future might still be far away, though. Tesla has been trying for years to bring its Full Self-Driving software to the level where its cars will be able to drive themselves in most situations, but hasn't been able to do so yet. The Robotaxi service does this, but within a very limited area. It'll be interesting to monitor how fast Tesla can expand its Robotaxi service to more passengers and other cities.
Topics Self-Driving Cars Tesla Cars