Driverless Model Y Juniper and Model 3 set to launch paid Tesla robotaxi service in Texas

When Elon Musk took the stage at the October 10 Cybercab unveiling event, he said that Tesla intends to bring unsupervised FSD this year as the basis for a robotaxi ride-share platform.

At the Q4 earnings call, he now pegged a release date for the launch of autonomous Teslas with no driver on public roads, or the so-called unsupervised FSD.

According to Elon Musk, Tesla will have a fleet of its own vehicles, likely consisting of the 2026 Model Y and the refreshed Model 3 that have HW4 kits, launch on the streets of Austin in June.

Like I said, the Teslas will be in the wild with no one in them, in June in Austin... And while we're stepping into - putting our toe in the water gently at first, just to make sure everything's cool, our solution is a generalized AI solution. It does not require high precision maps of a locality. So we just want to be cautious. It's not that it doesn't work beyond Austin. In fact, it does. We just want to be, put a toe in the water, make sure everything is okay, then put a few more toes in the water, then put a foot in the water with safety of the general public and those in the car as our top priority.

The Uber-like robotaxi ride-share service with Tesla owned and operated vehicles will then expand to California and across the US by the end of the year.

When Tesla is comfortable with the quality of its unsupervised FSD and ride-share platform, such as safety, daily hailing operations, and payment system, it will open the fleet to the general Tesla owning public next year, added Elon:

It'll be our fleet testing it. That's our sort of toe in the water. We'll be scrutinizing it very carefully and make sure it's not something we missed. But it will be, autonomous ride-hailing for money in Austin in June. And then as shortly as possible other cities in America. And I expect us to be operating, doing unsupervised activity with our internal fleet in several cities by the end of the year. Then it's probably next year when people are able to add or subtract their car from the fleet... And a lot of it is, it's not like we're not splitting the atom here. It's just a bunch of work that needs to be done to make sure the whole thing works efficiently, that people can order the car. It comes, it's the right spot, does exactly the right thing. All the payment systems work. The billing works.

Initially, Tesla said that it will launch unsupervised FSD for the Cybercab ride-share platform in Texas and California, as that is where there are either autonomous vehicle regulations already in place, or a lack thereof. It has evidently decided to introduce the pilot unsupervised FSD fleet in a place where there aren't too many rules about it, like Texas.

Tesla did a training session with first responders in Austin on how to react to autonomous vehicles without drivers in December, which was another hint that it had chosen Texas for the inaugural robotaxi platform launch.

The service will start with Tesla's own vehicles first, then add private cars of those who would be willing to loan them on the platform for anywhere between a few hours to a few months in 2026, and, finally, bring the Cybercab two-seater that has no steering wheel or pedals into the fold, ostensibly in 2026 as well.

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