Just what everyone wants, their own personal tail.
Tesla’s self-driving Robotaxis have been operating in Austin, Texas, with a safety monitor in the passenger seat, a trained person who can intervene in case anything goes wrong with the autonomous vehicle. On Thursday, CEO Elon Musk announced the monitor would no longer be in the car, which was positioned as a major step forward in the company’s capabilities to operate autonomously without human intervention.
Turns out, it’s not quite that simple. Electrek reported that, based on social media videos, it appears that Tesla hasn’t actually gotten rid of the safety monitor. Instead, the company has seemingly simply moved the person into a trail car that follows the Robotaxi for the duration of its journey. Multiple videos show Robotaxis being tailed by Tesla vehicles, suggesting that Tesla’s autonomous driving may not be as advanced as the company would like it to appear. Tesla, it should be noted, hasn’t confirmed whether or not it is operating trail cars. The company did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, but it also hasn’t had an operating public relations department in many years.
