Tesla is inviting early access users for Robotaxi ride this Sunday

Tesla has started inviting users for early access to its Robotaxi, confirming the kick-off of this long-awaited autonomous ride-hailing service.

The email shared by different X users titled “The Future is Now! You’re invited to Early Access of Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Austin, TX!”.

The company will be keeping the first rides exclusive to the invations, and users will get access to the robotaxi app to order the vehicle online. However, the expansion is likely to follow other public users based on the early feedback.

“As an Early Access rider, you can be among the first to use our new Robotaxi App and experience an autonomous ride within our geofenced area in Austin. Through this exclusive preview, you’ll have the opportunity to provide valuable feedback on our Robotaxi service,” says the email.

Tesla Robotaxi Invitations (source – @SawyerMerritt/X)

These users also affirmed that the first rides will begin on Sunday, June 22, 2025. This date was previously speculated by CEO, Elon Musk, saying the Tesla team is focused on ensuring public safety, which is a major concern for autonomous vehicles.

For the past month, Tesla has been spotted testing robotaxis around Austin, its initial service launch city. Musk said that these vehicles are factory-produced models without any additional modifications. These vehicles are using unsupervised full self-driving (FSD), which doesn’t require human intervention, unlike the supervised version on public Teslas.

The robotaxi version also excludes LiDAR and other sensors like Waymo or Zoox, and the system solely relies camera-powered vision system, which takes input from the surrounding cameras and processes the feed in real-time using the onboard computer to navigate.

Initially, we may see several Tesla Model Ys on the road as robotaxis, but the future vehicle fleet will be based on performance, user feedback, and road safety.

(source)