Tesla finally tip toes into robotaxi service

Elon Musk's vision of Tesla's future is set for a public test on Sunday, when a dozen or so self-driving cars in Austin, Texas, start a limited, paid robotaxi service.

Though Tesla is dispensing with a webcast product launch event helmed by Musk, fans will be scouring the internet for videos and reports from the coterie of invited riders that will be allowed to hail the small stable of Model Y SUVs for trips within a limited area of the city, accompanied by a Tesla safety monitor in the front passenger seat. The driver's seat will be empty.

"Wow. We are going to ride in driverless Teslas in just a few days. On public roads," posted Omar Qazi, an X.com user with 635,200 followers who writes often about Tesla using the handle @WholeMarsBlog and received an invite.

The service in Austin will have other restrictions as well. Tesla plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and won't take anyone below the age of 18. Musk has said he is ready to delay the start for safety reasons, if needed.

Tesla is worth more than most of its biggest rivals combined, and Musk has said that this is supported by the company's future ability to create robotaxis and humanoid robots. For years, he has promised that self-driving cars were just around the corner.

Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been risky and expensive. GM's Cruise was shut down after a fatal accident and regulators are closely watching Tesla and its rivals, Alphabet's Waymo, which runs a paid robotaxi service in several U.S. cities, and Amazon's Zoox.

Tesla is also bucking the young industry's standard practice of relying on multiple technologies to read the road, using only cameras. That, says Musk, will be safe and much less expensive than lidar and radar systems added by rivals. Nonetheless, Musk says he is being "super paranoid about safety" with the rollout.

"So far, this launch lags significantly behind the company's promise and what competitors have already delivered," said technology researcher Forrester's principal analyst Paul Miller.

Fans have welcomed the caution and the long-awaited arrival. Qazi said on X, Tesla was launching "extremely cautiously, which is good."