This Tesla Cybercab won’t be the car self-driving passengers see around Austin in June (Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images)

What we now know about Tesla’s Austin robotaxi launch this year

It’s expected “end of June or July” and “in many other cities in the US by the end of this year.”

Rani Molla

4/23/25 9:11AM

Despite its tumultuous quarter, Tesla says it’s on track for its robotaxi launch in Austin this year. That means regular people will be able to pay money to ride in a self-driving fleet of Tesla-owned vehicles beginning in the “end of June or July,” CEO Elon Musk said on the company’s earnings call, where he offered a few more details about the project.

Earlier this year Musk had said June, but in the scheme of his timelines, July seems close enough. Back in 2019, Musk said the company would roll out a fleet of robotaxis “next year,” i.e., in 2020.

Musk now says the service will be available “in many other cities in the US by the end of this year.”

As with everything Tesla, take any promises and timelines with a grain of salt. Here’s what else we now know about Tesla’s robotaxi launch, according to Musk:

The robotaxis are Model Ys, not Cybercabs. The vehicles consumers will be able to hail in Austin will be autonomous Model Ys, Musk said, but added that any of the “vast majority of the Tesla fleet” is capable of being a robotaxi, including models S, 3, X, or Y. The two-seat steering-wheel-less gold Cybercab that Musk trotted out last fall is still scheduled for production in 2026.
The service will have “10 to 20 vehicles” at its start. “We’re still debating the exact number to start up on day 1, but it’s, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 20 vehicles on day 1,” Musk said. He added that the company plans to “scale it up rapidly after that” and that “there will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of next year.” That’s around the same time Musk expects the program to “become material and affect the bottom line of the company.”
It’s happening in Austin. While that might seem like an obvious point, having a ride-hailing service within a sunny, geofenced area where it’s been training for months is not the same as having unsupervised full self-driving in the wild across the US. Despite this, Musk said what the company is “solving for is a general solution to autonomy, not a city-specific solution for autonomy,” and that it would be a “very scalable thing for us to go broadly within whatever jurisdiction allows us to operate.”
The cars will have remote operators. “We do have remote support, but it’s not going to be required for safe operation,” Musk said, downplaying the need for remote operators. “Every now and then if a car gets stuck or something, someone will like, unlock it.”
Testing for autonomous full self-driving in Austin seems to be doing pretty well. Musk says the electric vehicle company is working through “unusual” edge case interventions. “These are really very rare, like a single intervention every 10,000 miles,” Musk said, adding that the company is burning lots of rubber to come across those in Austin. “There’s just always a convoy of Teslas going just going all over to Austin in circles.”
Unsupervised FSD coming to your personal vehicle “before the end of this year.” Musk sees the transition from unsupervised full self-driving robotaxis to unsupervised full self-driving personal vehicles as an easy one, sharing that the cars are already driving themselves from the factory to the parking lots. We’d like to point out that that is not the same thing. The routes Tesla vehicles drive autonomously outside the factories are previously mapped, low-traffic, and short: 1.4 miles for the Model Y and 0.6 miles mostly in an underground tunnel for the Cybertruck in Texas.
Musk thinks Tesla will trump Waymo. Despite the fact that Google-owned Waymo is already operating a self-driving ride-hailing service in Austin (and a few other cities), Musk estimates Tesla will have at least a “90-something percent” market share. “I don’t see anyone being able to compete with Tesla at present,” Musk said, adding that Waymo’s lidar-equipped cars are too few and too expensive. He also made a pretty good dad joke: “The issue with Waymo’s cars is it costs way-mo money.”

When pressed for more details about the robotaxi rollout, Musk demurred.

“It’s only a couple of months away, so you can just see it for yourself in a couple of months in Austin,” he said.

Jon Keegan8h

Meta will begin using your AI chats to target you with ads

When Meta rolls out a new product, the company usually waits until that product has a billion users before turning on the ads.

In May, Meta announced that Meta AI has crossed that threshold, saying that more than 1 billion people are using the product every month. Today, Meta announced that it will begin using your conversations and messages with Meta AI to personalize your recommendations and the ads you see.

Meta currently monetizes your activity on Meta platforms using your interactions (likes, shares, attention) to tailor your exposure to Meta’s massive advertising machine. So if you asked Meta AI about travel tips for your upcoming vacation, you might now see more content and ads related to that place. But what if you’re asking Meta AI about how to deal with your depression?

In a blog post, the company shared:

“When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.”

But Meta has a spotty record when it comes to protecting sensitive personal information from leaking into its ad platform. Meta’s pixel-tracking technology has been found to pick up sensitive information regarding mental heath crises, financial information, and medical information.

Meta says you can manage the ads you see via controls in its privacy settings, but it’s unclear if users can opt out of the use of Meta AI conversations and interactions for ads and recommendations altogether.

The company said users will start to see notifications about the changes this month, which will go into effect on December 16, 2025.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Improving Your Recommendations on Our Apps With AI at Meta

In a blog post, the company shared:

“When people have conversations with Meta AI about topics such as their religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, as always, we don’t use those topics to show them ads.”

The company said users will start to see notifications about the changes this month, which will go into effect on December 16, 2025.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rani Molla9h

Tesla sales grow in some European countries for the first time this year

In September, Tesla sales rose in France and Denmark for the first time this year, while they also continued to grow in Norway and Spain, according to early European sales data reported by Reuters.

That’s a notable shift from the declines of previous months, as Tesla benefits from the rollout of its revamped Model Y and the introduction of numerous incentives across the continent, helping to stabilize its earlier sales slump.

Of course, Tesla’s European sales fluctuate dramatically month to month in Europe in part because the company doesn’t sell that many vehicles in Europe. Typically Tesla sells a few thousand vehicles per month per European country. In comparison, the automaker sells tens of thousands of cars in the US each month.

Tesla is up more than 2% in early trading, after having just capped off its best month since the election.

Rising ambitions and skyrocketing costs: Here’s what we know about Project Stargate

As the number of gigawatts and GPUs grows, so do the questions about how the massive data center project will be paid for.

Jon Keegan9h

Rani Molla11h

Apple reiterates plans to “partner with other generative AI chatbots” besides ChatGPT

Apple is playing the field with AI and it wants you to know.

In a filing to dismiss Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s lawsuit accusing the iPhone maker of favoring its partner OpenAI’s ChatGPT on the App Store, Apple said that can’t be the case because it is “widely known that Apple intends to partner with other generative AI chatbots.”

At its developer conference last year, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi previously mentioned that Apple “intends to add support for other AI models in the future.”

Apple currently has a partnership with ChatGPT where users can direct their Siri queries to go through the chatbot. Apple, whose AI strategy has lagged its peers, has also been in talks with Anthropic and Google, and is reportedly considering using Gemini to power Siri.

Apple’s lawyers refuted X Corp.’s claims that Apple cannot partner with OpenAI “without simultaneously partnering with every other generative AI chatbot — regardless of quality, privacy or safety considerations, technical feasibility, stage of development, or commercial terms.” Apple’s legal team added, “Of course, the antitrust laws do not require that.”

Apple has yet to announce who its future AI partners will be.

Apple Denies Harming Musk’s xAI by Teaming Up With OpenAI

At its developer conference last year, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi previously mentioned that Apple “intends to add support for other AI models in the future.”

Apple has yet to announce who its future AI partners will be.

Rani Molla9/30/25

Meta buys chip startup Rivos in effort to lower its reliance on Nvidia

Meta is buying AI chip startup Rivos for an unknown sum, as part of the social media company’s effort to decrease its reliance on graphics processing units from Nvidia, Bloomberg reports. Rivos was seeking funding in August at a $2 billion valuation. Meta has been spending exorbitant sums in an attempt to create AI models that are smarter than humans, an effort that’s involved investing in developing its own AI chips.