Two weeks after the launch of the Tesla Robotaxi prototype in the streets of Austin, Texas, a series of viral videos that show apparent mishaps and the access very limited to the service has caused a cloud of confusion and concern for vehicles and their safety.
Tesla launched its Austin service on June 22. People who have received an invitation, a group that seems to be composed in a large part of adjacent influential people and acolytes from CEO Elon Musk, use an application to request a trip, similar to transport and LYFT applications. Each trip costs $ 4.20, a number associated with cannabis that Musk frequently uses.
The service is something like a prototype. Although there is no human in the driver’s seat, each car has an employee of the company in the front passenger seat that can stop the car with a button if there are safety problems. Tesla says that its experimental software is promoting vehicles.
Experts in the field of autonomous driving say it is too early to judge the success or failure of the company. Federal regulators and some local and state politicians say they are concerned about several incidents, documented in the Chamber and shared on social networks, where cars seemed to break the traffic laws or put people in danger. Some people who have used competitors Robotaxi services, such as Google Spin -off Waymo, yawn what they considered old technology. Even the stock market was shrugged, without a lasting imprint in the price of Tesla shares.
Tesla did not respond to comments on how the service is going. Several key metrics, such as how many miles have led and how often Tesla employees need to intervene with driving software, remain mysteries. Because the service operates only in Texas, where there are currently minimal rules surrounding autonomous vehicles, the company is not obliged to inform such information to regulators at any level of government.
In the first days of deployment, Videos of Tesla Robotaxis seem to violate traffic laws or behave in a strangely proliferated online. In one, a Tesla who dropped a passenger did it in the middle of an intersection. In another, a Tesla leads on the wrong side of a double yellow line. In at least two videos, your robotaxis travels faster than the published speed limit. And in several examples, Tesla cars suddenly stop and passengers say they were confused in why.
In total, NBC News found 13 instances in online videos where a Tesla seemed to break the rules or make a mistake. In each case, NBC News contacted the people who made the videos but did not receive an answer.
Some officials elected in Austin said they are concerned about incidents.
“There are many mistakes,” said Vanessa Fuentes, a member of the City Council of Austin and Mayor Pro Tempore, which means that he directs the council meetings when the mayor is absent, in a telephone interview. “They have shown that the technology they have is insecure for the Austinites.”
And although other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo or former cruise of the General Motors Unit have been documented in the Chamber doing shameful or illegal maneuvers, Fuentes said it does not believe that Tesla has coordinated enough with the city government, what Tesla is not legally forced to do, but she said she would generate trust.
“Tesla has not taken into account public contributions or work with our city, and unfortunately, I’m not good that this has done at the expense of Austinites security,” he said. She said she hugs autonomous vehicles in the city as a general matter, but she would like to see that Tesla’s service stopped for now.
Zo Qadri, a member of the City Council of Austin whose district overlaps the Tesla Robotaxi service area, said he is listening to people in his district who are worried.
“We have been seeing chaos develop. We have many constituents who are very angry,” he said.
He said the situation reminded him of problems associated with cruise robotaxis in Austin in 2023, when residents complained that cruise cars were making insecure turns and being a discomfort. Cruise closed last year. Qadri said he has not heard similar complaints from constituents about Waymo, who also operates there.
It is not clear if Tesla could face local consequences for such incidents, such as traffic tickets, to violate any law. Fuentes said that the Austin process for a robotaxi ticket is more complicated than simply writing a ticket for a driver: a police officer must write an affidavit of complaint, send it to a lieutenant and then make the affidavit testified and sent to a municipal court.
The Austin Police Department said in a statement:
“As with any company that operates autonomous technology on public roads, when we are called a possible legal or security concern, we quickly share it with the company. These concerns are addressed through our regular meetings, where we follow up on the subject and review the steps taken to solve it. Our priority is to maintain public safety while supporting innovation in transport,” the department said.
The federal regulators of the National Traffic Security Administration on the roads also realized the security incidents, saying in a statement on June 23 that the agency “is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to collect additional information.”
Texas state representative, Vikki Goodwin, a Democrat whose district includes part of Austin, said he wants Tesla to proceed with caution.
“I think you are interested in ensuring that security is the most important and that nothing goes wrong. Otherwise, that could really derail your plans to launch it completely,” he said.
Goodwin was one of the seven Texas legislators who sent a letter to Tesla on June 18 asking the company to delay the launch of its robotaxis until September 1, the day a new law with respect to autonomous vehicles will enter into force. Tesla did not delay its launch, but Goodwin said the company responded to its letter, saying that it would update its policies to ensure that it complied with the new law.
Goodwin said that part of his precautionary desire comes from owning a tesla and experiencing unexpected maneuvers while using the company’s driver assistance software.
“I have had personal experience with the use of cruise control and the car brake for me, which can be very disturbing,” he said. “I have had that experience on several occasions, and it simply leads me to believe that it is really important to have a person in the vehicle.”
Tesla aims to compete with Waymo, who says he has around 1,500 robotaxis along the way in several cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Phoenix. Musk said that Tesla’s service would begin with 10-20 vehicles and try to grow in the coming months, although the fast thing that could expand is not clear.
The price of Tesla’s shares shot the day after his service was launched on a Sunday, jumping more than 9% the following Monday. But the action, which is often volatile, retired in the following days, since it was clear how many obstacles Tesla faces when trying to expand the service.
The public knows about security incidents that involve Tesla Robotaxis mainly because Tesla sent many of the initial invitations to use the service to online influential people, including people with YouTube channels or similar video platforms.
The invitations were so scarce that at least one Tesla influencer, a person named Omar who passes through the catalog of the pseudonym of Mars, offered to share trips for $ 10. “Make a Tesla de Tesla Robotaxi journey with Omar. Includes two walks, there and behind,” said the person’s sponsorship page. The $ 10 would be more than the combined cost of two trips of $ 4.20. The account did not respond to a request for comments.
Eliana chose was among the first riders. A video creator with a YouTube channel focused on the Musk Spacex rocket company, said she was a fan of the Robotaxi service.
“I was totally trusting technology,” he said in a YouTube video on his channel, “Ellie in space.”
She had a complaint. After reaching his destination at the Robotaxi, a storm appeared on top and wanted to stay in the car to take refuge. A Tesla’s customer service agent called the automobile audio system to say that he could not. He left and called a second trip to take her back to where she started. (Some online publications erroneously said that Tesla threw it to Midride, but said in an interview that reached her destination).
Sheriff said that despite some concerns in automotive and technological industries about whether Tesla’s technology is good enough to implement robotaxis, has faith in Musk to follow the best approach.
“Elon must have a reason why he believes in that,” he said.
She is not alone. Since the launch of Robotaxi, the legions of Musk and Tesla fans have proclaimed their enthusiasm for the Internet service: in X, the application of social networks that Musk possesses, and in other applications such as Reddit and Tiktok. And they have used a wide variety of superlatives to describe the robotaxis: “impeccable”, “without problems” and “history creation”.
But because the service is only by invitation, with only a handful of cars on the road, almost no consumer who is not a Tesla fan has got to use the first -hand service.
Musk and his fans have described the service as a futuristic and innovative, but the launch has mainly preached to the choir of already converted followers of Tesla.
Brad Templeton, consultant in the autonomous vehicle industry that worked for the Google autonomous car project from 2010 to 2013 before he became Waymo, said that Tesla’s most enthusiastic fans are “quite convinced that he is alone at the cusp of being ready, and they really bother when other people do not see it.”
Like other experts, Templeton said that the only measure for the robotaxis that counts is whether they are sure in the long term, measured in dozen millions of miles conducted.
“What matters are not individual manifestations. They are statistics,” he said.
Many of Tesla and Waymo fans face Reddit, where the R/Selfdrivingcars message board has been heating with the competition between both sides. Waymo Boosters regularly argue on the site that the company is ahead of Tesla in experience: Waymo had clients who paid in their first market, Phoenix, while using security drivers in December 2018, six and a half years ago. Waymo began the walks “only for rider” in 2019.
Lately, some Tesla fans have been backing when highlighting videos of what they considered Waymo vehicles that drive badly, including the stop in stagnant water.
A Reddit user, in a recent popular publication, ventilated that the message board R/Selfdrivingcars was being “flooded with propaganda and misinformation of Tesla Apology … The Astroturf army is on display in the last two weeks.”
The superior comment in the publication requested a truce.
“I want to see the progress of both companies,” wrote the Reddit Juice805 user. “Waymo is very good and is far ahead in its launch and Tesla has just taken a great first step in his.”
“I just want the cars to drive,” they wrote. They did not respond to a request for comments.
