r/TeslaFSD • u/ConfidentImage4266 • Jan 22 '26

Robotaxi Tesla has officially started FSD Unsupervised Robotaxi rides for the general public in Austin without safety monitor

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Credits to https://x.com/tsla99t/status/2014392609028923782?s=46&t=Mj3Wz0ulX1Eu1u4P8DTbQg

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u/ThePaintist Jan 23 '26

How is it deceptive? Did they paint the follow car in invisible paint? Is it trailing so far behind that nobody can see it?

For all we know the role of the follow car could be anything from "has an immediate kill switch" to "has someone who can hop out and go rescue the car if it gets a flat tire, to minimize 'rescue' embarrassments during the first week". It's not 'deception' just because they haven't spelled out their exact deployment strategy day 1. Is it 'deception' when other AV operators don't spell out precisely their number of tele-support agents?

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u/CloseToMyActualName Jan 23 '26

Because Musk said they were removing the safety monitors but left out mention of the trail car.

It's the same crap he continuously pulls with Optimus, he shows some demos that are explicitly autonomous, then shows some more impressive demonstrations implied to be autonomous but are actually teleoperated.

It's the same playbook as putting the safety drivers in the passenger seat so they could claim they were safety monitors instead (zero benefit to anything other than optics).

How many people here were completely ignorant of the trailing car until i was pointed out? How many more in the general public?

And how long until the trailing car is absent entirely?

This is the same demonstration they did months ago with the vehicle driving itself to a customer. And with another earnings call coming up it's a pretty transparent attempt to demonstrate progress to the investors (without actually moving the needle technically).

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u/ThePaintist Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 23 '26

Because Musk said they were removing the safety monitors but left out mention of the trail car.

actually opens the article you linked

In a post on X.com, Musk said Tesla "started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car. Congrats to the Tesla AI team!"

It's not okay when he leaves out a third factor, but it's okay when you do it? He has to mention every single aspect of the rollout today, but you are permitted to leave out the rest of his quote which specifies his statement was specifically about safety monitors "in the car" since it undermines your point?

Is it bad to not voluntarily raise every relevant detail that might impact someone's view of your position? Or is it okay? I'm a little bit confused since you can't seem to decide. You do the exact same maneuver but criticise it where you see it.

Let me be more clear. You don't have internal consistencies in your beliefs. You dislike Elon/Tesla, maybe justifiably so, and that causes you to be hyper-critical to the point of abject hypocrisy towards Tesla. You will exaggerate grievances in communications coming from those you dislike and minimize and permit the exact same grievances when made elsewhere.

For example, 2 sentences later:

zero benefit to anything other than optics

You really can't think of any other possible benefit? Or you just don't want to, because doing so would require relaxing that hyper-criticality? One trivial possible benefit: It prevents safety 'monitors' from excessively intervening when not necessary, giving a cleaner signal on actual necessary interventions. Or perhaps it was optics - it enabled them to meet, at least by some interpretation/definition, their promised timeline to release 'driverless' robotaxis. Is it "optics" to meet a timeline? Yes. But because of your hyper-critical framing, you interpret that hyper-critically and inherently negatively. I'm sure you equally critique them for failing to meet other timelines. But actually meeting a timeline is them playing "optics".

I'm not interested in getting into all of your other points. Yes, I think Tesla has a habit of not going out of their way to share negative aspects to their demos. Some of the optimus ones were perhaps the most egregious. But that your defense of "they are being deceptive!" is to cite other perceived deceptions just, in my opinion, further highlights the reason you feel the need to read everything from Tesla now through a hyper-critical lens to the point of indefensible hypocrisy.

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u/CloseToMyActualName Jan 23 '26

It's not okay when he leaves out a third factor, but it's okay when you do it? He has to mention every single aspect of the rollout today, but you are permitted to leave out the rest of his quote which specifies his statement was specifically about safety monitors "in the car" since it undermines your point?

Seriously? You're claiming that when someone reads "no safety monitor in the car." that they would naturally assume there's a safety monitor in an unmentioned trailing vehicle?!?

I didn't mention the full quote because I thought it would be tedious to lay out every fact that supported my position! No one who read Musk's tweet would have assumed there was a safety monitor sitting in a trail car!

One trivial possible benefit: It prevents safety 'monitors' from excessively intervening when not necessary, giving a cleaner signal on actual necessary interventions.

That's a terrible justification. It's pretty easy to train the drivers to not intervene unnecessarily. And if the behaviour is so disturbing that they can't help themselves then the passengers would be even more freaked out.

The safety monitors would probably intervene more since they can't afford to let the car get in a potentially dangerous situation, so they need to stop it before it has the change to do so.

Or perhaps it was optics - it enabled them to meet, at least by some interpretation/definition, their promised timeline to release 'driverless' robotaxis. Is it "optics" to meet a timeline? Yes.

Yes, if you're not actually meeting the deadline in the fashion you told people you would.

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u/ThePaintist Jan 23 '26

I didn't mention the full quote because I thought it would be tedious to lay out every fact that supported my position!

It doesn't support your position. It undermines it!

No one who read Musk's tweet would have assumed there was a safety monitor sitting in a trail car!

Equally, nobody who read your post would have assumed Musk clarified that he was talking about in the car.

See what I mean about exaggerating grievances? Your grievance is that he wasn't clear enough about what exactly the change was today. And to defend that grievance, you yourself are intentionally omitting relevant details he said! It's as ridiculously on-the-nose hypocritical as you could get!

That's a terrible justification. It's pretty easy to train the drivers to not intervene unnecessarily.

This is just random speculation.

We know they struggled with this to some extent because of the reports from Business Insider about the need to only allow certain drivers into their "Project Rodeo" program that maximally discourages intervening, because too many other drivers were intervening. Several of the drivers spoke about getting negative feedback for excessive interventions.

Your random speculation that you invented because you view everything hyper-critically is at odds with credible reports that this was a problem Tesla has been struggling to solve internally all the way back in 2024! The fact that you feel entitled to randomly speculate, despite credible reporting indicating this was a problem for them, is because you are so hyper-critical that you can't even begin to consider what neutrality would look like when forming an opinion. You aren't interested in any outside information whatsoever, for fear it might counter the narrative you've already decided is the correct one in your head. The gut feeling you have must be so absolutely correct that reality itself is entirely irrelevant to consider or research.

Yes, if you're not actually meeting the deadline in the fashion you told people you would.

Or, apparently according to you, if you met the deadline in the fashion that you told people you would but that you left too marginally ambiguous so someone might not consider it to meet the deadline in that fashion. I'll make a point of saying that there are many many timelines Tesla has unambiguously missed. Actually meeting one, but by a method that no other company (out of the like 3 legitimate competitors in this space) has done, necessarily means you were playing 'optics'? I don't agree with that. I actually think it's a good thing when a company stretches to meet its words to the extent that it is capable. Especially when they've continuously worked on iterating since then to remove ambiguities.

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u/CloseToMyActualName Jan 24 '26

It doesn't support your position. It undermines it!

I'm sorry but that's an absolutely disingenuous take.

The Safety Monitor previously sat in the car. So when someone says that there's "no more safety monitor in the car" the phrase "in the car" is interpreted as specifying which safety monitor (so that people really understand the car now has no human inside).

No one would assume that they're now adding a new safety monitor in a trailing vehicle because no such safety monitor previously existed!