Tesla will start offering public rides in driverless cars in Austin, Texas on June 22, CEO Elon Musk said. This marks the launch of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi service.
The exact date might change. Musk says Tesla is “being super paranoid about safety.” Tesla Model Y SUVs have been seen driving around Austin with no one behind the wheel. Bloomberg reported an earlier target date of June 12.
Musk has been hyping Tesla’s self-driving for years. He first promised a robotaxi fleet in 2020 with 1 million driverless cars, which never happened. Instead, Tesla refined its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software that still requires drivers to stay alert. That software is under federal investigation after multiple crashes, including a fatal pedestrian incident. 
The new unsupervised FSD powers the Austin fleet. Musk claimed on Twitter that “every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised driving.”
The rollout starts small, about 10 cars, limited to the safest areas in Austin. Cars have been spotted gathering data in a Southeast Austin neighborhood.
This cautious rollout is a shift from Musk’s previous claims of general-purpose, fully unsupervised driving everywhere. Tesla’s new approach is closer to Waymo’s method of launching robotaxi services city by city.
Musk once said in 2016 all Tesla cars had the hardware for full self-driving. That was wrong. Tesla has updated its FSD hardware multiple times. Musk admitted in January millions of older Teslas need hardware upgrades to run current FSD software. It’s unclear if owners can get those upgrades.
Elon Musk on Tesla’s new unsupervised robotaxi launch:
“Every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised driving.”
Tesla’s robotaxis hit Austin streets June 22—watch closely.
