Latest news with #TeslaDaily
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla robotaxi raises safety concerns on first day of launch as autonomous vehicle struggles: 'I find it most disturbing'
The vaunted, long-awaited Tesla robotaxi finally hit streets in Austin, Texas, on Sunday — but in keeping with the electric vehicle maker's rocky year, there were distinct ups and downs. Nonetheless, the company got through the launch without any disasters and likely considers it to be an overall success. Per the Austin American-Statesman, the limited launch was on an invite-only basis. Tesla influencers were among those recruited to participate in the rollout, which involved "10 or 20 Model Y vehicles operating in a limited area." In late May, Tesla's targeted mid-June debut date remained in doubt amid reports the autonomous vehicles hadn't been tested without a human safety driver behind the wheel. Tesla CEO Elon Musk attributed launch delays to an abundance of caution. As recently as June 10, Musk tempered expectations for a tentative rollout date. "We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift," he wrote on the social platform X two days before the robotaxi was planned to launch, per Bloomberg. Tesla's self-driving features have repeatedly come under scrutiny for safety-related reasons. But as a concept, and when well-executed, driverless electric taxis have the potential to reduce heat-trapping pollution at scale, improve accessibility in cities with limited public transportation options, and encourage more drivers to make their next cars EVs. The host of the YouTube channel Tesla Daily (@TeslaDaily) was one of the influencers invited to participate, and an excerpt of their full-trip video appeared on Reddit's r/SelfDrivingCars. In that snippet, a "significant" glitch occurred, according to the post, as the driverless car experienced a navigation issue at an intersection, failing to turn left and then driving on the wrong side of a double yellow line. "Ooof, that's not a good look," one commenter stated. Another user speculated that a "remote operator" intervened to steady the wayward Tesla, as Tesla has reportedly been leaning on teleoperators to supervise the driving as well, suggesting that the cars won't self-correct in the way the robotaxi in the clip did. Someone else raised a similar concern, citing the lack of reaction from the person in the passenger seat during the incident — and the fact that the robotaxis were operating within strict physical borders. "I find it most disturbing that the safety guy's surprise level is at 0%. You can tell he's seen that s*** before. Within a geofence area," they wrote. Neither commenter was alone in their suspicions about whether the robotaxis were truly autonomous. On X, a user shared a screenshot from a different influencer's video — one in which an apparent override control was visible — and opined that the self-driving feature was illusory. "Turns out the safety supervisor in each $TSLA robotaxi has his right thumb constantly on a button — so probably programmed to be an emergency stop button. Makes sense obviously, but yeah — there's smoke and mirrors," they tweeted. The Cool Down was unable to confirm if that claim about the button is true, other than to confirm the button is there, but TCD did confirm that the Tesla employee passengers are able to intervene through the touch screen in the middle. More notably, Electrek and Reuters have reported that there is "plenty of teleoperation," as Electrek put it, allowing additional employees to monitor the driverless vehicles through cameras and overtake the controls as needed. Would you trust a self-driving car to take you to work every day? For sure Maybe someday I'm not sure Never in a million years Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Tesla Robotaxi Terrifyingly Jerks Wheel Back and Forth While Carrying Passenger
Tesla's Robotaxi service is finally, actually here. And for the most part, the launch, which took place this weekend, has been pretty uneventful. A spate of Tesla "influencers" have already uploaded videos of their first rides depicting the driverless cabs — though not supervisor-less, as each one comes with a human "safety monitor" silently riding shotgun — roaming the streets of Austin, Texas. Nothing to write home about. Except for at least one genuinely bizarre incident. In a video uploaded to YouTube by Tesla Daily, the Model Y our cameraman is riding in suddenly starts jerking the steering wheel dangerously back and forth while driving through the middle of a large intersection, eliciting a loud honk from the car behind it. The Tesla then quickly corrects itself — only to commit another blunder. Driving onward, the robotaxi blatantly crosses the street's solid double yellow lines to sneak into a left turn lane, which was blocked by cars in the other lanes. There was no oncoming traffic, and it'd be a mostly harmless infraction for a human driver to make. But it's eyebrow-raising to see this kind of behavior performed by a machine that's supposed to prioritize safety above all else. ("We are being super paranoid about safety," Elon Musk said in a tweet in the weeks leading up to the launch.) It's not certain why the steering freaked out. There's no oncoming traffic to get in the way. But on the dashboard, we can see the blue line showing the robotaxi's projected route flipping left and right in tandem with the vehicle's jerking motions, with the Tesla seemingly hesitating on which way to go. That suggests some sort of navigation issue (which is the uploader's diagnosis, too.) In fact, it looks like the Tesla may have gotten into a left-turn-only lane one intersection too early, in preparation to get into the turn lane ahead — the one where the Tesla crossed the double yellow lines to reach — causing it to get stuck in between two directions. Clearly there's some fine-tuning to be done. The launch is limited to a small pool of customers who were given exclusive access to the accompanying app, with only 10-20 autonomous "Robotaxi"-branded Model Y cars in operation. Each ride costs a flat fee of $4.20 — Musk's idea of a joke. The presence of the "safety monitors," despite Musk's promise that the service would be unsupervised, serve as another reminder of technology's questionable capabilities. As TechCrunch noted, Tesla's robotaxi competitor Waymo tested its own vehicles by having human supervisors both behind the wheel and sitting shotgun. And that was done, crucially, during the testing phase, until it was deemed safe enough to remove them. Tesla has jumped straight into commercial operations. Most of all, it's not well-defined what the supervisors are supposed to do — or how they're supposed to intervene — when they're sitting in the passenger seat and not the driver's. What's also worth noting is that the Robotaxis are limited to a "geofenced" and extensively mapped part of Austin. That area turned out to be pretty small. What we're seeing right now is the Tesla cabs operating in the best possible conditions, in which they don't have to stray an inch outside the veritable video game level that the engineers created for them. Any little mistake should be scrutinized in light of that. Is it a good sign that the robotaxis are already getting into the wrong lane, jerking back and forth, and illegally crossing solid double yellow lines? It's all the more concerning given that Musk is promising the robotaxi service will scale at an absurd rate: just a month ago, he estimated that over 1,000 Tesla robotaxis will be roaming Austin "within a few months" of the launch, and a still more improbable one million of them would be navigating American roads by the end of 2026. There won't be the crutch of "geofencing" to help the robotaxis then. More on Tesla: Tesla Stock Plummets as Company Abruptly Halts Production of Cybertruck and Model Y
Gizmodo
16 hours ago
- Automotive
- Gizmodo
Videos Show Tesla Robotaxis Swerving, Hard-Braking for Cops in First Day of Austin Launch
Elon Musk's Tesla launched its driverless 'Robotaxi' service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday to the over-the-top praise from its diehard fans who bragged about spending all day calling for rides. For everyone else, the whole thing ranged from extremely underwhelming to confusing to downright dangerous. Footage has already started populating online of Tesla's driverless vehicles making confounding decisions and occasionally messing up so bad that they end up driving on the wrong side of the road. The latter was the case in what has been perhaps the most viral fail of Tesla's first days of operation on Austin's roads, where it can only operate in a small, geofenced area. In a video published by Tesla Daily, which shows a 20-minute ride in the backseat of the driverless (though monitored by an in-vehicle supervisor and remote drivers ready to intervene if needed) Model Y SUV. About seven minutes into the ride, the Tesla comes upon an intersection while in the turn-only lane. The wheel jerks a bit as the car drives straight through the intersection, ending up in the opposite lane of traffic once through the lights. It starts to correct, then opts to just bypass the cars in front of it by driving through the no-passing zone lines and into a turn lane, where it finally gets re-aligned. So that's not great. It was not the only incident that riders experienced while behind the wheel of Tesla's Day One rides. In a video uploaded by Farzad, the riders request an early drop off, which prompts the Robotaxi to come to a complete stop in the middle of a four-way intersection and has everyone exit the vehicle. Another video uploaded by Edward Niedermeyer shows a Tesla Robotaxi needlessly braking hard and coming to a near-complete stop in the middle of the road when it passes police vehicles, neither of which are actually on the street itself or require yielding. Even smaller incidents reveal kinks that need to be worked out. X user Mark Anthony shared a video showing the touch screen in the back of the vehicle lagging, resulting in an accidental call to support when attempting to request a drop off. Other videos suggest pickups took longer than expected and the Robotaxi stopped for pickups at significant distances from the actual riders. 'Keep on running, keep on running'. – @TeslaBoomerMama as she watches @herbertong search for his first Robotaxi stopped to pick him up in Austin. Herbert got about a 1/4 mile of steps in but he finally found the Robotaxi. — Miss Jilianne (@MissJilianne) June 22, 2025For a launch that was significantly limited from what was initially promised—the Financial Times reported that the service launched with just 10 cars on the road and despite Musk's own past claims that the need to geofence where vehicle can go means it is not autonomous, Robotaxi is limited to a very small chunk of Austin and can't go to the airport—there are already so major issues on display in a small number of actual miles driven. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the launch. Austin's Transportation and Public Works Department told Gizmodo, 'Tesla is working with the City of Austin's Autonomous Vehicle Working Group, which includes staff from multiple City departments. The City treats each AV company that expresses interest in Austin the same, offering training opportunities and providing information about City right-of-way and procedures.'
