Elon Musk's decade-long dream suffers comedy of errors in latest setback
Elon Musk watched as his latest product launch suffered a string of unfortunate and potentially dangerous errors despite a 'decade of hard work.'
The billionaire's electric car company, Tesla, rolled out Robotaxi on Sunday. It's a fully autonomous car service using the company's Model Y SUV.
The launch took place in a small geofenced portion of Austin, Texas, meaning the self-driving taxis could not operate anywhere else in the city that day.
Even in that sectioned off part of town, however, the Tesla launch did not go as smoothly as planned.
Riders eager to try out the self-driving taxis recorded as the car drove on the wrong side of the road, stopped to let passengers out in busy intersections, and stopped in the middle of the street when police were nearby.
Other people posting their adventures in the Robotaxi captured the vehicles speeding and choosing pickup locations that were a quarter-mile from the passengers looking for a ride.
Despite the lengthy list of setbacks, Musk congratulated the Tesla artificial intelligence team on a 'successful' rollout.
However, federal officials were less enthused, and said they'd be investigating the videos showing the self-driving Tesla SUVs breaking the traffic laws.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Tesla regarding the issues during the Robotaxi rides captured on video.
The National Highway Transit Safety Administration (NHTSA) said in a statement that the agency was 'aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information.'
Those incidents NHTSA is looking into include one recorded by Rob Maurer of the YouTube channel Tesla Daily.
While recording his 20-minute ride in a Robotaxi, the car's steering wheel suddenly jerked several times to the left, attempting to make a turn that was not part of the passenger's route.
That mistake sent the car driving the wrong way down the street. Luckily, no cars were coming in the opposite direction and the Tesla Model Y was eventually able to get back on its side of the road.
A pair of riders on Sunday tried to test the Robotaxi's ability to call for an early drop off, meaning that the passenger wants to get out before reaching their original destination.
Farzad Mesbahi from the YouTube channel Farzad and other passenger tried out the early drop off system, but the Robotaxi stopped into the middle of an active intersection to let the men out.
Once they left the vehicle, the Tesla also appeared to suffer some sort of computer freeze and continued to block the intersection as traffic drove around the car.
'Let's see how it handles this,' one of the men is heard saying after testing the early drop off feature.
'He is stuck!' the other passenger added.
The two riders from Farzad revealed that the smartphone app for Robotaxi asked them to rate the ride, just like passengers do for ride share companies Uber and Lyft.
'The car should have known to not stop there,' Mesbahi said after the Robotaxi finally moved itself out of the intersection.
A third video posted Sunday revealed that the Robotaxis also had some glitches knowing when to and when not to stop for police.
Edward Niedermeyer recorded a Model Y coming to a full stop in the middle of the road after sensing a local police car which was sitting in a roadside parking lot.
Although drivers are required to stop or pull over for moving police cars in most states, there are no such laws for when the police are simply sitting on the side of the road out of the way of traffic.
On Monday, Tesla reportedly told NHTSA that its answers regarding any issues with the Robotaxi should be kept secret because it qualifies as confidential business information, according to Reuters.
All of the Model Y Robotaxis had an in-vehicle supervisor from Tesla as well as a remote driver who could have taken control of the car if anything went seriously wrong.
The charge for these test rides was just $4.20, regardless of the distance and length of the trip.
The pricing structure is expected to change when and if Robotaxi fully launches in the US.
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