The war to get people home from bars efficiently is heating up. Tesla launched RoboTaxi, finally, in Austin TX

Even Marques Brownlee took time to visit and try out the service, motoring around my neighborhood with its endless circling Waymos slurping up data like a PacMan eats cookies.

This week I saw a RoboTaxi do something impressive: stop, on a busy street, to allow oncoming cars to turn left and cross into a parking lot. The most logical, anti-Tesla explanation is that the car was guided by humans at that point. If not, the car exhibited a remarkable overall awareness. This was a busy four lane (two each way) road at rush hour. The Tesla was in the outside lane and there was room for the inside lane to go past. It’s the kind of situation that often leads to accidents: the car trying to turn starts across the oncoming traffic because the car in the outside lane has stopped only to be T-Boned in the inside lane.

I was in the inside lane and stopped to allow two cars to cross. Ahead of us was a Waymo with its gyrating hardware on the roof and each corner. Elon’s argument has always been that Tesla can do autonomous without LiDAR – depending on cameras only. RoboTaxis are, to look at, stock Teslas.

While Waymo has been doing this work longer and is now a dependable option in a number of cities (through Uber), Tesla is way late. But Tesla has millions of cars on the road funnelling data and tech that can leapfrog competitors in cost and complexity. The gear on Waymos has become smaller over time but the cars are still $200k each and far more complicated.

If Elon had only stayed focused on product and engineering. The dream of city centers emptied of cars, parking lots given over to parks, and workers safely napping or working on their commutes could be coming true much faster. Instead: DOGE, Twitter (whatever), and worse. And now Tesla is accused of delaying crash reporting to NHTSA? Trump retribution or legit? It does not seem out of character for either. I don’t think Americans will allow even one high-profile accident (“mother pushing pram killed by RoboTaxi”) although China will. Is.

In Spain this summer there were BYD cards everywhere and a palpable fear of what is to come when you can get an econobox from China for €12,000. An econobox that soon will be able to drive itself, eliminate taxidrivers, open up longer commutes, and decimate in-country car companies.