Tesla Launched Their Driverless Robotaxis In Austin, Texas This Weekend And Every Trip Cost A Flat Rate Of $4.20, No Matter How Far The Drive
Dexerto – Tesla has rolled out its Robotaxi service that allows customers to travel in a self-driving vehicle within select areas. To mark the launch, all fares are currently $4.20 USD.
With Elon Musk teasing the debut of the Robotaxi earlier this month, the self-driving service from Tesla has now launched in Texas. Despite the June 22 rollout in the state, there’s no quite telling when it may be available in other locations.
Currently, this service is only available in “select areas” of Austin, and to be a customer, you need to get an early access invitation to be among the first to try out the Robotaxi App and test out the “driverless experience.”
As for the pricing, the service itself costs a $4.20 flat fee for customers, at least at this point in time. So, if you’re among those with early access, you can take advantage of the flat fee regardless of how long your trip may be. This has been confirmed by Elon Musk himself via a post on X.
First off, Elon... lmao fam 💀. All Tesla Robotaxi rides costing $4.20. Unreal. This is the type of humor the world was missing before you purchased Twitter and legalized comedy once again. You have your finger on the pulse of the internet as much as ever.
Hilarity aside, that $4.20 flat rate can't sustainable, right? It must be only for the launch. I have no idea. But if anything around that would somehow be a sustainable price per ride for Tesla Robotaxis, even if it's just for long enough to get people hooked, and Tesla can continue to add these cars to major cities around the United States, that would legitimately change our lives as we know it. I might never drive again. Drunk driving arrests would plummet. Half the cars on the road in every major city would be self-driving Teslas. Even if it were a flat rate of $10 for anywhere in the city, that would still kill Uber & Lyft. Self-driving semi-trucks would be next. Not that this is breaking news or anything. I think we've all known for a while that the day would come where self-driving cars are safe enough to change the world. But now that Tesla actually has them in on the roads in Austin for people to take anywhere in the city for less than the price of a McDonald's lunch. Now it's starting to seem a bit real.
I don't love it. But still... if it ever comes to my city, I will 100% be using them. I had an Uber ride in Las Vegas a couple weekends ago (ironically he was driving a Tesla) that would have been SO MUCH more pleasant if it were driverless. It was the worst Uber of my life. I'm pretty sure this driver (yes he was wearing fingerless driving gloves) was driving with two feet. On a wide open road he was swerving and accelerating and randomly tapping on the breaks at all times for no reason at all. The car was basically rocking back and forth the whole ride. On top of that, he was telling dad jokes the entire time. Turning fully around to look at us after each one to see if we were laughing (we weren't). It's the closest I've ever been to telling a driver to pull over and drop us off. If it wasn't 108 degrees outside we probably would have done it. It was just a miserable experience all the way around. I would sign up for the end of human civilization before I had to get in a car with that man again. Even if my Tesla Robotaxi spends a few seconds sputtering in the wrong lane each trip.
As much as I would like to roast the Tesla Robotaxi's for sucking at driving, based on the videos I've seen online, despite that one video of the Tesla making a slight error and correcting itself, it seems like overall they did a pretty damn good job. Everybody and their mother were taking videos trying to catch the Robotaxi's doing anything unsafe, so if that's the best they were able to get... I have a hard time believing if you took that same sample size of human drivers that you wouldn't find something worse. For it being the first time the Tesla Robotaxis were in action, that's not too bad of a launch day.
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The Uber and Lyft drivers of the world (or at least the one's of Austin) must be shaking in their boots. I don't drive Uber or Lyft. I don't even have a car right now. But I have always found comfort in the fact that if push came to shove, there's always money to be made in driving for a ride share service. So for that reason… along with in general not wanting humans to lose their jobs to something that makes Elon Musk even richer… I kinda hate this. But as a guy who wouldn't mind getting 10 miles across the city for 5 bucks in a nice clean vehicle without the threat of having to make small talk with a chatty driver… I don't think I have the will power to turn that down. The robots are here. They're inevitable. We're so fucked