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News - Tesla - RobotaxiTesla on track to trial Robotaxi serviceLong-awaited Tesla robotaxi service from June in Texas as Melbourne ‘FSD’ tests begin21 May 2025 TESLA chief executive Elon Musk has been promising a robotaxi service since 2019, with various false starts, but the service is finally set to kick off in June.
Initially, the robotaxi service, which Mr Musk promised by mid-2025 during the Tesla Q4/24 earnings call, looks likely to first commence in Austin, Texas, with a limited number of vehicles and plans to scale up across a number of months.
According to a Reuters report, Mr Musk confirmed in a CNBC interview that he would roll out 10 self-driving cars in certain areas of the city, scaling up to “about a thousand” within a few months.
Pressure to launch the robotaxi service is mounting for Mr Musk, who put Tesla’s plans for a cheaper electric vehicle platform (speculated to yield a smaller car badged Model 2) on hold to focus on its ‘Full Self-Driving' (FSD) system.
“The only things that matter in the long term are autonomy and Optimus,” Musk reportedly told CNBC, presumably referring to FSD and the brand’s humanoid robot.
It is clear that Tesla has fallen behind in the self-driving vehicle race, with Google-owned Waymo already operating autonomous ride-share vehicles in parts of California, Arizona, and Texas.
Another company to beat Tesla to the punch is Texas-based self-driving technology startup Avride, which recently partnered with Hyundai to add 100 Ioniq 5 models to its fleet.
One key technological difference – and source of disagreement – between Tesla and the likes of Waymo and Avride is that Tesla’s FSD omits lidar and ultrasonic sensors from the suite of methods used by autonomous vehicles to perceive their surroundings, instead relying on cameras and, to a lesser degree, radar.
Meanwhile, Tesla has confirmed it is testing its Full Self-Driving technology in Australia – unsurprisingly using Mr Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) platform to announce the trial.
The video shared to X, with the caption “FSD (Supervised) testing in Melbourne, Australia …and yes, that’s a hook turn”, shows a self-driving Tesla traversing Melbourne with a standby driver’s hands hovering below the steering wheel.
Whether Tesla intends to turn the FSD system on for Australian users, or pursue a robotaxi service Down Under, is unknown.  Read more |
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