Elon Musk’s Tesla Robotaxi is already on the road in Texas: Find out where and how much it costs to ride

Earlier this month a post on social media showed a video clip of Tesla Model Y driving down the streets of Austin, Texas with no driver and the words ‘Robotaxi’ decaled on the side. The X user, Sawyer Merrit, said that Tesla was running tests of its much-awaited “fully autonomous” taxi service. Elon Musk reposted it simply saying “Beautifully simple design.”

Now two weeks later, the electric vehicle maker is no longer running tests, but is taking select members of the public for rides around town. The service is also limited to a fairly small area and there are Tesla-employed “safety monitors” along for the ride.

What do we know about Tesla’s Robotaxi service?

Currently, Tesla’s Robotaxi service is only available for invited guests according to the website, a number of whom are pro-Tesla influencers reports The Verge. The initial price at the moment is a flat rate of $4.20 per ride, a tongue-in-cheek reference to marijuana.

There is no date on when the service will be available to the general public, but there are plans to roll it out wherever the Robotaxis are approved. The fleet in Austin is currently made of between 10 and 20 Model Y vehicles, although Musk has said that within a few months there could be as many as a thousand.

While they are “driverless” there is a safety monitor along for the ride should something go wrong and in some cases there is also a chase vehicle and a remote driver according to The Verge.

The Tesla Robotaxis are also geofenced into a small area of Austin that has been thoroughly mapped by the company. According to a map posted by Merrit on social media the service area is located south of downtown with its borders approximately consisting of Colorado River to the north, Highways 71 and 290 to the south, Highway 183 to the east, and Highway 1 to the west.

The service is also limited to between 6 am and 12 am and there is no service during bad weather nor to the airport, on highways, and the cars avoid complex intersections.

Tesla faces stiff competition in race to put driverless taxis on the road

By comparison, Waymo, which operates exclusively with Uber in Austin, has a fleet of 100 vehicles and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week in an area that covers 37 square miles, including downtown and Hyde Park. Waymo is planning to scale up its presence in the city with hundreds more vehicles in the coming months.

The Driverless Digest reported in May that Waymo was doing 20% of all Uber rides in Austin according to data from Yipit. Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on an earnings call that the Waymo fleet was busier than 99% of all drivers in terms of completed trips per day in Austin.

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