Tesla Robotaxi service to kick-start journey on June 12

Tesla is expected to rollout Robotaxi services in Austin, Texas, on June 12, according to a report from Bloomberg, as the company is looking to reshape the autonomous driving industry. This launch date is part of the discussion among Tesla officials but is subject to change.

The EV maker revealed its plans for robotaxi at last year’s We Robot event in California, which unveiled the Cybercab, a dedicated autonomous vehicle without driving wheels or pedals.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, confirmed that his company is preparing to launch the service in the first half of 2025. The initial plan was to set up robotaxi in Texas and California with an existing fleet of Model Y, Model 3, and others. However, the newly unveiled robotaxi could be added to the list by late next year or in early 2027.

Due to the strict rules surrounding autonomous vehicles, Tesla is aiming for a later date in the state compared to Texas, where robotaxis are treated like other passenger vehicles. However, driverless vehicles are required to have cameras, follow traffic rules, and have insurance.

Meanwhile, Austin doesn’t have self-driving vehicle regulations, instead, it has a task force that coordinates with Tesla and other autonomous vehicle companies.

Tesla Cybercab (Source – Tesla)

Testing

In the past month, Tesla vehicles have been spotted throughout Texas without a driver. The company has employed unsupervised Full Self Driving (FSD), which a full autonomous version of this technology.

Meanwhile, the consumer version is still supervised, which means a driver must look at the car’s maneuvers through the journey when FSD is engaged.

Compared to Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous robotaxi service, Tesla vehicles don’t use traditional sensors such as radar and lidar, instead, they fully rely on inbuilt cameras. The vision system takes feed and processes it in real-time with on-board computing.

The upcoming robotaxi model will be using the vision technology in full effect.

Initially, Tesla is planning to rollout 10 vehicles in Austin and expand them to thousands based on the performance and response.