Tesla officially debuted its Robotaxi service in Austin on Sunday, marking its first deployment in the U.S. More than 10 self-driving Model Y vehicles ferried guests—primarily social media influencers—around the South Congress neighborhood. Riders used a dedicated Tesla ride-hailing app that works like Uber’s. Tesla employees sat in the front seats as safety monitors; the cars nonetheless ran on the company’s Unsupervised Full Self-Driving software. CEO Elon Musk celebrated the milestone on X, calling it the “culmination of a decade of hard work” and noting that Tesla designed both the AI chip and software in-house. The launch intensifies competition with Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox as Tesla faces NHTSA scrutiny over FSD in poor weather and partners with Musk’s xAI.
