Reuters report pours water on Tesla’s Texas Robotaxi expansion
Nearly a month after Tesla announced that its Robotaxis had expanded to Houston and Dallas, reporters from Reuters say the service is still in a “beta-testing phase.”
They reported long wait times — when the service was available at all — and drop-offs that were 15-minute walks from the intended destination. In one instance, a reporter waited nearly two hours for a Robotaxi to arrive to take a trip that should have been a 20-minute drive, and after that long pickup wait time, experienced a circuitous route and a drop-off distant from the intended destination.
When the service launched in Houston and Dallas, we observed it included just one driverless Robotaxi in each. (Notably, the company’s existing services in Austin and the Bay Area still have safety monitors present on most rides.) Now, data from Robotaxi Tracker still shows a single driverless vehicle available in the past week in Dallas, and three in Houston.
As we noted during Tesla’s most recent earnings report, the company has updated its language around the half dozen markets it had planned to expand to in the first half of this year to say that “preparations [are] underway.”
Robotaxis, of course, are central to Tesla’s value proposition, which has pivoted from vehicles to autonomy and AI.
When the service launched in Houston and Dallas, we observed it included just one driverless Robotaxi in each. (Notably, the company’s existing services in Austin and the Bay Area still have safety monitors present on most rides.) Now, data from Robotaxi Tracker still shows a single driverless vehicle available in the past week in Dallas, and three in Houston.
As we noted during Tesla’s most recent earnings report, the company has updated its language around the half dozen markets it had planned to expand to in the first half of this year to say that “preparations [are] underway.”
Robotaxis, of course, are central to Tesla’s value proposition, which has pivoted from vehicles to autonomy and AI.
