❌

Reading view

Tesla pushes unsupervised FSD to Q2 2027, and only inside Robotaxi zones

Tesla now says unsupervised “Full Self-Driving” in customer-owned cars will arrive in Q2 2027. It’s the latest date on a promise Elon Musk has been making to FSD buyers for the better part of a decade.

But there’s a catch. On Tesla’s Q3 2026 earnings call today, AI chief Ashok Elluswamy described it as owners adding their own vehicles to Tesla’s managed Robotaxi fleet, not owners getting a car that drives them anywhere they want to go.

more…
  •  

Lucid’s 25,000 Bolt robotaxis will run on Nvidia’s self-driving software

Lucid’s European robotaxi deal now has a driver. Bolt announced today that its fleet of at least 25,000 autonomous Lucid vehicles will run Nvidia’s Alpamayo Stack self-driving software, starting with a data-collection program in Madrid in 2027.

That gives Lucid two robotaxi customers on two different autonomy systems: Nuro’s software for Uber’s Gravity robotaxis in the US, and now Nvidia’s for Bolt in Europe.

more…
  •  

Waymo picks Toronto as first Canadian city, targets riders in 2028

Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to Canada, and Toronto is first. Its cars will start driving the city’s streets in the coming days, and the company wants its first public riders on board in 2028.

That makes Toronto Waymo’s fourth announced market outside the US, after London, Tokyo, and Singapore. But there’s a catch: Ontario doesn’t have rules for a commercial driverless service yet.

more…
  •  

Tesla remote operators keep crashing its ‘Robotaxis,’ data shows

Tesla’s latest crash reports to federal regulators add two more “Robotaxi” crashes where a remote operator, not the car’s autonomous system, was driving when it hit something.

That brings it to five in the data now. And every remote takeover that has shown up in a Tesla crash report has ended in a collision.

more…
  •  

NHTSA weighs probe into claims Tesla Robotaxis speed in school zones

A new defect petition accuses Tesla’s Robotaxis of speeding through active school zones, and NHTSA has opened a file to decide whether to investigate. The agency puts the affected fleet at about 1,000 vehicles, Model Y and Cybercab.

It’s the third federal action aimed at Tesla’s driverless fleet in about five weeks, after an audit query and a Special Order over how the Cybercab was certified.

more…
  •  

Tesla Cybercab loses its entire door panel in a Philadelphia crash

A Tesla Cybercab was involved in a crash in Philadelphia this week, and it came out of it missing the entire outer panel of its driver-side door.

We don’t know who was at fault or whether Tesla’s software was driving. But Tesla has no permit to run automated vehicles in Pennsylvania, and that narrows down what this car was doing on Broad Street.

more…
  •  

Musk explains why Tesla Robotaxi is not running at night, and lidar is the answer

Elon Musk says the main thing holding back Tesla Robotaxi’s night hours is that the cars have a hard time seeing pets in the dark. His example was “grey kittens on grey tarmac.”

That’s a low-light, low-contrast detection problem, which is the textbook weakness of cameras and the exact thing lidar and radar handle. Musk has spent years calling those sensors a “crutch” and a “fool’s errand.”

more…
  •  

Tesla Robotaxi fleets are the new crypto treasury for zombie companies

A Nasdaq-listed company worth about $2.4 million says it wants to buy 500 Tesla Robotaxis. KIDZ AI, formerly an online coding school for kids, announced today that it sent Tesla a “procurement inquiry” for the vehicles and plans an “Autonomous Fleet Operations Strategy.”

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, the playbook should. Tesla’s Robotaxi is turning into what bitcoin treasuries were for failing micro-caps in 2025: a buzzword you bolt onto a dying business to get the stock moving.

more…
  •  

Tesla’s active robotaxi fleet in Austin crashes back to 8 vehicles after Cybercab pump

Tesla’s active robotaxi fleet in Austin has fallen back to just 8 vehicles over the past seven days, according to data from community tracker Robotaxi Tracker.

That’s about the same number Tesla had on the road when it launched the service in June 2025. Fifteen months of promises, and no net growth. A surge following the “launch of the Cybercab” quickly dissipated.

more…
  •  

Lucid and Bolt to deploy 25,000 autonomous EVs across Europe

Lucid and Bolt announced a partnership today to build and deploy autonomous vehicles across Europe, with the ride-hailing platform aiming to put at least 25,000 self-driving Lucid EVs on its network.

It’s the second big autonomous-fleet deal Lucid has signed in just over a year. And it rides on a vehicle platform the company delayed six weeks ago.

more…
  •  

Tesla brings Cybercab to China, rules out sale and robotaxi service

Tesla is putting its Cybercab on public display in China this week, but the company wants to be clear about one thing it isn’t: a vehicle it plans to sell there.

Tesla China said the showcase “does not involve” selling the Cybercab in the Chinese market or launching a driverless ride-hailing service — even as China’s own robotaxi operators run paid rides at scale.

more…
  •  

Tesla Cybercab turns 10-minute Austin trip into 70-minute detour

A Tesla Cybercab rider in Austin says a 10-minute trip turned into a 70-minute ordeal after the driverless taxi took a long detour across the city.

The reason is a limitation Tesla still hasn’t solved. Its robotaxis can’t drive on highways, so a quick hop that a human would take up the freeway becomes a winding surface-street tour.

more…
  •  

First look at Tesla Cybercab’s steering: a Cybertruck wheel bolted on

A pre-production Tesla Cybercab was spotted parked on a street in Berkeley, California, and it gives us the clearest look yet at how Tesla puts a steering wheel into a car it designed to have none.

The photos, shared with Electrek by reader Adam Machacek, show a Cybertruck steering wheel mounted on an exposed steering column that has been bolted into the two-seat robotaxi.

more…
  •  

Tesla Cybercab has a hidden virtual joystick to drive it manually

A Tesla Cybercab rider found something in the robotaxi: a manual driving mode. When he got in, the touchscreen was showing a virtual joystick to drive the car by hand.

Tesla built the Cybercab with no steering wheel and no pedals. But it apparently still has a way to drive it manually, and you do it by dragging a finger across a screen.

more…
  •  

If a Tesla Cybercab fleet were profitable, Tesla wouldn’t sell you one

Tesla is now asking businesses whether they’d like to buy and operate their own fleets of Cybercab robotaxis on its network. It’s the same pitch Elon Musk has been making since 2019: buy the cars, put them to work, and earn money while you sleep.

There’s one problem with it. And it never happened, and you shouldn’t fall for it now. If running a fleet of Cybercabs were actually profitable, Tesla wouldn’t sell you a single one.

more…
  •  

Tesla Cybercab is already under NHTSA investigation after launch

Tesla’s Cybercab is already under federal investigation. NHTSA opened an audit into how Tesla certified the vehicle the same day the company started putting passengers in it in Austin.

The probe targets the exact thing that makes the Cybercab unusual: it has no steering wheel, no pedals, and no mirrors, and Tesla certified it as road-legal anyway.

more…
  •  

Waymo doubles spending on lobbying in robotaxi battle with Uber

Waymo has sharply increased its lobbying spending as it seeks to persuade US regulators to clear a path for fully autonomous taxi services, intensifying its battle with rival Uber over the future of robotaxis.

The Alphabet-owned company spent more than $1 million between April and June on lobbying the federal government, more than double its outlay a year earlier, according to filings. That put Waymo’s spending close to Uber’s and well ahead of rivals including Amazon’s Zoox and Tesla.

The rise in lobbying comes as Waymo and Uber push competing visions for the future of ride-hailing. Waymo wants a faster route to fully driverless commercial services, while Uber is advocating a staggered rollout in which robotaxis operate alongside human drivers.

Read full article

Comments

© Alex Kent, Bloomberg

  •  

Tesla unveils first Cybercab with Starlink antenna integrated

Tesla’s robotaxi account posted photos today of what it’s calling the first Cybercab with a Starlink antenna built into the vehicle.

The pictures show a gold Cybercab parked at Gigafactory Texas, with a low-profile satellite antenna integrated into the roof. It’s the physical version of an integration Tesla teased with a diagram last month.

  •  
❌