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Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, with much fanfare earlier today. And, just a few hours later, a robotaxi was caught on camera making a potentially dangerous move.
As we noted in a dedicated post earlier today, Tesla's robotaxi service is now available in specific geofenced areas of Austin via a fleet of between 10 and 20 Model Ys. Users will be able to hail these vehicles via a specifically tailored app from 06:00 till 00:00.
For now, Tesla has stationed an employee in the front passenger seat, with easy access to the "emergency stop" and "pull over" commands via the bespoke robotaxi UI. Also, in what is a critical precautionary measure, each robotaxi trip will be monitored by a team of teleoperators who can take over in case of an emergency.
Oh nooooo
Uh oh this is gonna go viral 😭
🙈🙊 https://t.co/NMbVt2GAMt pic.twitter.com/YdrGBTJ6FM
— TexasTSLA (@TexasTSLA) June 23, 2025
This brings us to the crux of the matter. The podcaster Rob Maurer recently uploaded the entirety of his trip in a Tesla robotaxi. A 12-second clip of this journey, however, is currently blowing up on social media, for it shows the vehicle repeatedly trying to swerve into the wrong lane, with this potentially dangerous behavior presumably being counteracted either by Tesla's teleopetators or the FSD itself.
The @Tesla Cultists are celebrating victory. But Tesla still hasn't accomplished what @Waymo did 5 years ago - unsupervised self-driving.
Tesla's supervised Robotaxi drove on the wrong side of the road during Rob Maurer's ride and Ed Niedermeyer showed a Tesla robotaxi phantom…
— Dan O'Dowd (@RealDanODowd) June 23, 2025
Of course, the incident does prove that Tesla's guardrails are working for now. On the flip side, this 12-second clip has just provided ample ammunition to the EV giant's skeptics, who assert that Tesla's Level 2 autonomy capabilities do not meet minimum road safety standards.
Bear in mind that Google's Waymo is already recognized as a Level 4 autonomous mobility service that is currently available in Phoenix (Arizona), Los Angeles (California), San Francisco (California), and Austin (Texas) via a fleet of around 1,500 Jaguar I-Pace vehicles, with each such vehicle equipped with an expensive array of sensors, including LiDAR, 360-degree view cameras, and a radar, all feeding into onboard compute resources.
On the other hand, Tesla leverages an interconnected neural network along with cameras that are supposedly capable of counting individual photons, rendering them immune to visual impairments such as direct sun glare or fog. Moreover, the launch of AI5 hardware later in 2025 will further boost Tesla's autonomy-related prowess.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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