Thanks to Tesla Yoda on X, we have found out that Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet is registered on the Texas Department of Transportation’s public-facing Automated Vehicle Deployment website. This makes the fleet’s movements publicly viewable and trackable, and marks a first for Tesla.
This isn’t just any old FSD test - this is the first officially acknowledged, government-tracked, and sanctioned deployment of a Tesla Model Y operating as a ride-share vehicle. But that’s not all - Texas DOT’s tracker notes that the Tesla does not have a safety driver.
View on the Map
Visitors to the Texas DOT website can filter for “Tesla”, and see, currently, a single active vehicle operating in the Austin Metro area. According to the state’s official data, here’s what we know:
Company: Tesla
Description: Ride-share service
Status in Texas: Testing
Safety Driver: No
The final point is definitely the most interesting here. While Tesla has been testing FSD with safety drivers for some time in Austin and LA for employee-only testing, this is the first time that a vehicle has been officially registered and deployed on public roads without a human behind the wheel for safety.
The fact that there is no safety driver officially shifts the liability from the occupant of the driver’s seat to Tesla, for the first time in a public setting. That’s already pretty significant - we previously dove into how Tesla plans to insure its own vehicles, and potentially owner vehicles in the Robotaxi fleets.
The status currently lists Tesla as “Testing,” confirming that the service isn’t available to the public, but this is expected to change in the coming weeks.
This testing phase is likely part of a short but crucial period that lets Tesla capture data on the safety levels of its current iteration of Unsupervised FSD without a driver supervising. Tesla already stated that they’d be avoiding difficult areas, so this testing can also expose additional areas Tesla may want to avoid, such as school zones or blind driveways.
Tesla will need to prove, both internally and externally, that FSD Unsupervised has the necessary performance to safely navigate the streets without any incidents.
Regulatory Milestone
For years, the concept of a Tesla Robotaxi has been a future promise. Now, it's a present-day reality, albeit in a testing capacity.
Having an official government body list a Tesla as an active, driverless vehicle shows that they’ve been able to clear regulatory hurdles, which Tesla has often pointed to as the issue. It demonstrates a level of confidence from both Tesla and Texas regulators in the system's capabilities.
While it's just a single vehicle for today, we’ll likely see this list slowly expand over time. Alongside being able to track Robotaxi incidents at the City of Austin’s website, we’ll be able to closely watch Tesla’s progress with its first Robotaxi deployments.
