Watch this video as a Tesla Robotaxi goes to drop off a passenger in Austin, and instead just hangs out in the middle of a busy street for 4 minutes, waiting for the passenger to get out onto the bustling 4-lane thoroughfare.
Not a great look:
Breaking Down the Breakdown
So what’s going on here… there’s a lot. We can break it down for you:
- The Robotaxi rider taking the video is actually stuck behind ANOTHER Tesla Robotaxi, which is *picking up* passengers in the center of a busy 4-lane road. So, picking up and dropping off passengers in the middle of large streets is evidently common behavior from the Robotaxi fleet.
- For just about 4 minutes, from the 5:18 mark to the 9:18 mark, the Tesla Robotaxi is parked in the middle of a busy street, just hanging out.
- Ultimately, the safety operator calls support to get the vehicle moving again. The Robotaxi then aborts trying to get into the parking lot, and instead circles around to try again. The whole passenger pickup and drop-off experience looks dangerously “under-cooked” to my eyes.
- Before it was obvious that he was stuck, the Tesla influencer complains that the Waymo ahead of them is blocking traffic, as it makes the turn his Robotaxi fails to make. LOL. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.
- God, it must suck to drive in Austin right now.
Moving the Goalposts for Full-Self Driving
It’s hard to overstate how normal the driving challenges here are. We’re not talking about icy roads or construction zones. We’re talking about a parking lot and a city street, both low-speed, clearly marked, sunny-day environments. The fact that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving can’t handle this without human backup is not great at all.
What’s even more embarrassing is how the Tesla influencers are framing this lousy performance as a big win.
Here’s my favorite quote from the video:
“This is a really big litmus test for any Robotaxi service. If they can handle this parking lot, I would think they can handle most any other challenging areas in the country.”
That is, of course, describing just a bog-standard parking lot. It’s a low-speed, one-way, closed-loop road. You know, the kind where you park your car.
A parking lot, the same kind most of us learned how to drive in, because the traffic pattern is so simple and speeds are so low. THAT is the “litmus test” for generalized autonomous driving, if you believe your local Elon podcasters.
Early Access to Ensure Good Early Press
As a reminder, the Tesla Robotaxi service is available only to select early access riders. Those riders appear to be exclusively Tesla podcasters or other fans who are reliably positive about the brand.
The rider taking the video actually recognizes the guy getting into the Robotaxi in front of him, who is another Tesla podcaster.
That is how you get such glowing reviews for crappy performance like this. Controlled access makes for easy PR.
Eventually, though, the Robotaxis will presumably take fares who aren’t podcasting exclusively Tesla content, and I’m not sure how tolerant your average commuter will be for getting dropped off in the middle of a 4-lane road.
