Tesla ( TSLA ) CEO Elon Musk said the company started robotaxi rides without any safety monitors present in the cars in Austin, a long-awaited move. This is after Waymo announced another expansion of its robotaxi service in the United States, and has now hammered its advantage in the autonomous space.
Musk also claimed on Thursday that he expects the company’s self-driving service to get approval from the EU and China soon.
Tesla stock topped the news in midday trading, up more than 3%.
In a post on X.com, Musk said that Tesla “started driving a Tesla Robotaxi in Austin without any safety monitors in the car. Congratulations to the Tesla AI team!” This post came in response to users on X posting videos of the Tesla robotaxi operating without a safety driver.
The head of Tesla AI Ashok Elluswamy added on X.com that the service is “starting with a few unsupervised vehicles mixed with the wider fleet of robotaxi with safety monitors, and the ratio will increase over time.”
Earlier on Thursday, Waymo, part of Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), said on its company blog that it is now operating in the Miami area, inviting its first public riders to the city. “With nearly 10,000 residents already signed up, we will be inviting new riders on an ongoing basis to ensure a seamless experience within our initial 60 square mile service area.”
Waymo says plans for rides to Miami International Airport are coming soon.
Before the Miami announcement, Waymo operated in five major US markets with Austin, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and greater San Francisco as part of its service area.
This year Waymo has an aggressive plan, with Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, Washington, DC, and Nashville targeted for public service.
It also has plans for densely populated cities, with testing underway in New York, Tokyo, and London.
Meanwhile, Tesla with its autonomous services and robotaxis is lagging behind. In Davos, Musk claimed that the company’s FSD (fully autonomous driving) autonomous service, which is a supervised product that means users have to pay attention when using it, will soon arrive in Europe and China.
“We hope to get Supervised Full Self-Driving approval in Europe, hopefully next month, and then maybe a similar time for China,” Musk said.
While Waymo is currently only testing internationally in the aforementioned cities, its service is level 4 autonomous, which is fully autonomous in certain geographic areas. Tesla’s FSD is considered level 2.
Tesla’s robotaxis, currently operating in the Austin and San Francisco Bay Area, have grown in number but only modestly. Robotaxis still requires a safety driver in each vehicle, due to the fact that it is still a supervised service. The new video shared by Musk suggests that the company has approval to operate without a safety driver in Austin, but the CEO did not share if this was the case.