The Robotaxi was first revealed in October 2024 as more of a concept than an actual service by Tesla and CEO Elon Musk was very careful to use the words CyberCab and RoboTaxi interchangeably.
This was because the CyberCab was a concept vehicle with the butterfly doors that was shown off at the event while the robotaxi was a nebulous offering that was just vague enough to be considered a thing.
Skip to a few more delays and Tesla has finally launched the robotaxi service in Austin Texas, albeit in a very limited capacity.
So far, the service is by invite-only, and the invites were given to loyalists and enthusiasts of Tesla.
Instead of being completely driverless, there are “safety monitors” in the passenger seats for all taxis and there’s reportedly only 10 vehicles available during the launch.
That said, all driverless taxi services like Waymo and Cruise launched with safety monitors in either the passenger or driver seats.
Other terms and conditions include: the robotaxi will only run from 6am to 12am, it doesn’t work in inclement weather, no children are allowed, and the service only operates in a geofenced area.
Finally, and this is a big one, the robotaxi revealed was a model Y, not the futuristic CyberCab.
Elon Musk has long promised Full Self-Driving for its vehicles, and its current Model Y is far from ready. This story even mentions the car going into an opposing lane.
With a track record like that, what sorcery does the current robotaxi use to function autonomously?
News is still trickling in from the launch, and it’s too early to say if it’s all only smoke and mirrors, like the embarrassing Tesla Optimus, which was clearly operated from afar by a human.
To give you some context, Waymo, Google’s robotaxi took 10 years to become operational. They’re not making a profit and the rollout hasn’t covered even half the states in America.
To give you a darker context, GM Cruise, which rushed to launch in 2022, had its license to operate its cars revoked after one of its vehicles crashed into a pedestrian and dragged the victim for 6.1 meters before stopping.
To be fair, it’ll be decades before we see even a shadow of these driverless taxis in Malaysia, and I hope we never will.
