Tesla has been working on self-driving technology for over a decade in an effort to have driverless ride-hailing cars on public roads.
Now, less than 6 months after its initial Robotaxi service launched in Texas with a safety operator in the passenger seat, a black Tesla Robotaxi car has been spotted driving without anyone inside, marking a major milestone for the company’s full self-driving (FSD) ambitions.
On X, Mandablorian, an EV observer, shared a video of a Tesla Model Y with footage revealing the car was driving along on a road in Austin, Texas, without any safety driver sitting in the front passenger seat.
This was the first sighting of a car driving on it’s own under the Robotaxi badge with Texas plates, as the car navigated intersections autonomously.
Tesla’s official account on X, reshared this video with a caption “Just saying”, subtly confirming the first public sightings of unmanned Model Y robotaxis operating with FSD Unsupervised software on Austin streets.
Soon after that video went online, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the car spotted is part of the testing the company is undertaking before a broader “no occupant” rollout.
Musk said: “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car”.
This update comes, just a few days after Musk announced that unsupervised FSD is “pretty much solved,” with testing now underway without safety drivers.
The current testing phase advances Tesla’s Robotaxi’s long-term vision, clocking over 550,000 self-driven miles or 885,000 km globally.
In June, the company invited selected users to download the Tesla Robotaxi app in Austin, Texas, the service’s first city.
Since then, the company has expanded into multiple markets, including California and has plans to further expand into other regions of the US.
There have also been reports that Tesla is making progress in Arizona, with the state’s Department of Transportation confirming that Tesla’s Robotaxi approvals were in the works there.
Tesla has also been hiring staff for Robotaxi-related roles in multiple states in the US , including for roles that have a more global focus.
In September, the company had a senior software engineer role focusing on mapping airport experience across the “entire world”, indicating the company’s goals to take the technology to multiple markets outside of the US in the next year or so, including for busy airport drop-off and pick-up services.
Then, in a podcast interview last month, Musk stated that the company’s Texas fleet will expand to 500 cars, while the Bay Area in California will exceed 1,000 vehicles.
The latest updates on the Tesla occupantless Robotaxi come just 14 months after the We Robot event, where the next-generation Robotaxi, the Cybercab, was first unveiled to the world.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.