A Tesla Model Y was spotted driving itself on public roads in Austin, Texas with no occupants on Sunday, as the company begins to remove safety drivers in the city.
“Just saw a Tesla with no one in the car,” X user Mandablorian wrote on the social media platform.
The sighting comes just weeks after CEO Elon Musk confirmed Tesla would remove safety monitors from its Austin robotaxi fleet by year-end.
Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s founding member of the AI team and the current VP of AI, reacted to the sighting on X, saying: “And so it begins!”
Here’s the video shared by the X user.
Musk’s Timeline
Musk has repeatedly committed to launching unsupervised robotaxi operations in Austin before 2025 ends, making the claim at least three times in recent months.
At the xAI Hackathon in early December, Musk said unsupervised autonomous driving was “pretty much solved at this point.”
“There will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them,” Musk said at the event. “Not even anyone in the passenger seat in about three weeks.”
The CEO first signaled the timeline in September, saying Tesla “should be no safety driver by end of year.”
At Tesla‘s third quarter earnings call in late October, Musk elaborated on the plan.
“We are expecting to have no safety drivers in at least large parts of Austin by the end of this year,” he said.
Musk reiterated the commitment at Teslaa’s shareholder meeting in November.
“I expect Robotaxis to operate without safety drivers in large parts of Austin this year,” he said.
Fleet Expansion
Musk announced in late November that Tesla‘s Austin robotaxi fleet would “roughly double next month,” signaling accelerating deployment ahead of the unsupervised rollout.
Currently, Tesla uses safety monitors in Austin who sit in the passenger seat on local roads and move to the driver’s seat for highway routes.
In the Bay Area, where Tesla also operates a ride-hailing pilot, safety monitors remain in the driver’s seat at all times.
Remote Monitoring Infrastructure
The shift to fully driverless operations follows software updates that enable remote oversight of passengers.
Two weeks ago, Tesla‘s Robotaxi app version 25.11.5 revealed new features designed to support operations without human safety drivers present in the vehicle.
The update includes Cabin Camera Analytics and Sound Detection Analytics, allowing Tesla to access in-cabin video and audio with user consent.
Remote operators can now see and hear what’s happening inside the vehicle, enabling real-time passenger support without anyone behind the wheel.
The system will also actively listen for emergency sirens to improve response times.
Tesla says all data remains anonymous unless a safety event or support request occurs.
Waymo: A Rival?
Unlike Waymo, which uses dedicated autonomous vehicles equipped with extensive sensor arrays including lidar, Tesla‘s approach relies on camera-based vision systems and vehicles that can also be sold to consumers with the same hardware.
Last week, Musk dismissed Waymo as a serious competitor, claiming the robotaxi rival “never really had a chance” against Tesla.
Morgan Stanley estimates Tesla‘s robotaxi cost at approximately $0.81 per mile, compared to $1.36 to $1.43 per mile for Waymo‘s current system. The bank expects Waymo to narrow that gap once its next-generation hardware scales in 2027.
