Tesla’s Robotaxi Service Debuts in Austin with $4.20 Rides While Waymo Already Delivers 250,000 Weekly Trips

Tesla began its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, Texas on Sunday, June 22, 2025, marking what CEO Elon Musk called the “culmination of a decade of hard work” on his social platform X.

The launch is modest: about 10-20 Model Y SUVs operating in limited “geofenced” areas of South and Central Austin, with safety personnel in the front passenger seat. Rides cost a flat $4.20 fee and are currently available only to invited customers, primarily social media influencers.

“The AI chip and software teams were built from scratch within Tesla,” Musk noted on X, highlighting the company’s in-house development approach.

Safety First, Scale Later

Tesla is implementing multiple safety guardrails. The service operates only between 6 a.m. and midnight, avoids complex intersections, doesn’t run in rain, and won’t carry passengers under 18.

Sharp-eyed viewers spotted safety monitors holding passenger door handles with thumbs on door-open buttons during test rides, prompting speculation about emergency override capabilities—though Tesla hasn’t commented on this detail.

The cautious approach comes as Texas Governor Greg Abbott just signed legislation requiring state permits for autonomous vehicles, effective September 1. The new law mandates that companies prove their vehicles meet “Level 4” autonomy standards and provide guidance for first responders in emergencies.

Technology Approach Differs From Competitors

Tesla’s strategy diverges from competitors by relying solely on cameras and neural networks rather than the lidar and radar systems used by Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox. This camera-only approach costs less but raises questions about performance in adverse conditions.

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The vehicles use an “unsupervised” version of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software, with remote human teleoperators providing oversight for complex scenarios.

Catching Up to Established Players

Tesla faces stiff competition from Waymo, which launched public driverless rides in 2020 and now operates about 1,500 robotaxis across multiple states, providing over 250,000 paid trips weekly.

“It could take years or decades for Tesla and self-driving rivals such as Alphabet’s Waymo to fully develop a robotaxi industry,” said Philip Koopman, Carnegie Mellon University computer-engineering professor with expertise in autonomous-vehicle technology. A successful Austin trial, he added, would be “the end of the beginning – not the beginning of the end.”

Business Stakes Are High

Autonomous vehicles represent a critical growth opportunity for Tesla as its electric vehicle sales have declined. Many analysts believe much of Tesla’s market valuation now hinges on robotaxi and humanoid robot potential.

Musk envisions an “Airbnb model for cars,” where Tesla owners could eventually allow their vehicles to join the robotaxi fleet through software updates, generating income while cars would otherwise sit idle.

Looking Ahead

Musk has promised rapid expansion to “hundreds of thousands if not a million vehicles” next year and deployment to other cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. However, analysts remain divided on these timelines. Some, like Seth Goldstein of Morningstar, suggest widespread availability might not happen until 2028.

For now, the Austin trial represents Tesla’s first concrete step toward the robotaxi vision Musk has promoted since at least 2016—years behind his original 2020 timeline, but finally moving from promise to limited reality.