Tesla Initiates Testing of Robotaxi Service—Exclusively for Employees (For Now)

Tesla has officially commenced trials of its self-driving ride-hailing service—but don’t anticipate being able to hail a Tesla robotaxi just yet unless you’re an employee of the company.

On Wednesday, Tesla revealed on X (formerly Twitter) that it has initiated a pilot program for its “FSD Supervised ride-hailing service” targeted at a chosen group of employees in Austin, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area. “FSD” refers to Full Self-Driving, Tesla’s sophisticated driver-assistance technology.

The company indicated that the internal ride-hailing initiative has already carried out over 1,500 trips, covering more than 15,000 miles.

Although this is a significant advancement toward Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi vision, the service is still undergoing testing. Tesla states that this trial is crucial for refining and verifying essential elements of the system, such as the FSD software, mobile application, vehicle dispatching, mission control, and remote assistance functionalities.

CEO Elon Musk previously informed investors that a public rollout of the autonomous taxi service might occur as soon as June 2024. Nevertheless, the current iteration remains supervised—implying that a human driver is present in the vehicle to supervise the system and intervene if necessary. A video shared by Tesla displays a safety driver in the front seat, with a disclaimer highlighting that “FSD (Supervised) does not render the vehicle autonomous.”

This restricted rollout follows years of expectation and bold assertions from Musk regarding Tesla’s robotaxi aspirations. In October 2024, Tesla officially announced plans for a fully autonomous ride-hailing service, along with a new vehicle model dubbed the Cybercab. Although the Cybercab isn’t anticipated to enter the market before 2026, Tesla mentioned at that point that an unsupervised robotaxi service could potentially launch in Texas and California as early as 2025.

For the time being, Tesla’s service remains in the supervised testing phase, and it’s uncertain when it will be accessible to the broader public.

Meanwhile, Tesla isn’t the sole contender in the autonomous taxi arena. Rivals such as Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise have already rolled out driverless ride-hailing services in certain U.S. cities, including various regions in California, Arizona, and Texas. These companies have been operating fully autonomous vehicles—without safety drivers—for some time.

Nonetheless, Tesla’s foray into the robotaxi competition is a significant development, particularly given the company’s distinctive approach to autonomy. As the testing progresses, all attention will be focused on whether Tesla can meet its ambitious timeline—and whether its robotaxis will genuinely be prepared to take the wheel.