On June 11, a video circulating on X showed several Tesla Model Y, with "Robotaxi" wordmark/logo on the side of the vehicle, being tested on public roads in Austin, Texas, with no one in the driver's seat.

Source: X @Sawyer Merritt

The video was posted by Sawyer Merritt, a prominent Tesla investor and supporter of Elon Musk.

Subsequently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the official Tesla account both reposted the video, stating that the Robotaxi program is scheduled to first launch in Austin on June 22 this year, though the date is still subject to change.

Additionally, Musk revealed that the first Tesla vehicle to be delivered to a customer directly from the factory via autonomous driving is set for official delivery on June 28.

Musk also stated that all Tesla vehicles leaving the factory are equipped with intelligent assisted driving capabilities (without driver supervision).

The Robotaxi is expected to be rolled out in two cities, Austin and Los Angeles, sequentially.

Robotaxi for China?

Little is known for a Robotaxi launch in China, but FSD is one of many L2 driving system in the country, with many considering Huawei and XPeng’s smart driving system to be superior at present time.

Source: Blood 旋旗

According to a Chinese blogger by the pseudonym Blood旋旗, he ranked Tesla’s ADAS system below Huawei (1st), and Li Auto/XPeng (2nd) in China.

Momenta and Deeproute follows with Zeekr, NIO and Xiaomi at the tail end of the City-NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) category.

We note that Tesla China has been facing significant regulatory hurdles, with China prohibiting the company from sending training data outside of the country, while the United States restricted local training in China over national security concerns.

The workaround that Tesla found was to train its FSD models using publicly available footage of Chinese roads.

Despite that, Elon Musk announced on January 30, 2025 that Tesla will be rolling out a supervised FSD update across all markets, including China in 2025.