
Tesla’s much-publicized robotaxi service began this weekend — but only in one neighborhood in Austin, Texas, only for a select group of the company’s fans and only with a Tesla employee in the front passenger seat.

It was a far more modest rollout for robotaxis than Tesla CEO Elon Musk had promised. While other companies have already achieved and surpassed this initial test, Tesla fans still cheered the unassuming launch as a game-changing first step.

Musk has promised since 2019 that Tesla was on the verge of providing a wide-ranging ride-hailing service that would change the basic way riders get around, including the promise that Tesla owners would profit from renting their cars to the service. Last fall, Musk debuted a prototype for a “Cybercab” without a steering wheel or pedals, and he said the service would greatly change the financial outlook for Tesla, making it the most valuable company on the planet.

But the start of the Tesla service Sunday was only a fraction of any of that. A small number of company-owned cars were used and they were existing Model Y vehicles — not Cybercabs, which are not yet allowed on roads, let alone produced on a mass scale. It was not even the most extensive robotaxi service in Austin — a joint effort between Uber and Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent Alphabet, has been up and running in Austin since March.

But the Austin test pressed on regardless.

The rides were made available to a select group of Tesla fans, according to Dan Ives, a tech analyst with Wedbush Securities and an effusive Tesla bull, and Joey Klender, who writes for the site Teslarati.com. Klender and a member of Ives’ team took multiple rides in a Tesla Model Y robotaxi on Sunday.

Ives’ note to clients, which cited how a Tesla “safety monitor” sat in the front passenger seat while no person was in the driver’s seat, praised the quality of the rides taken by his team member.

“We took a route through a park with dirt roads and traffic cones, yet the car was able to navigate perfectly and picked us up right at our exact location,” Ives said in the note. “To really put it into perspective, there was a moment where we drove up a narrow road going up a hill with cars parked on both sides with oncoming traffic and people opening their car doors into the road and the Robotaxi masterfully maneuvered.”