Tesla Robotaxi is headed to a new U.S. state following its latest approval, which was revealed on Friday night.

Tesla has been operating its Robotaxi platform in Texas and California, with Austin being the first city where the company could test a ride-hailing platform without anyone in the driver’s seat.

First launching in Austin in late June, Tesla’s focus has been expanding its service area, its fleet of Robotaxi vehicles, and its rider population, which has grown most recently due to its public launch.

However, Tesla is also filing applications in states where these autonomous driving programs can operate, aiming to expand to all 50 states eventually. CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that the company should be able to offer Robotaxi rides to roughly half of the U.S. population.

Alongside Texas and California, Tesla recently gained permission to test its Robotaxi in Nevada, marking the third state where it had some form of regulatory permission to perform rides using an unreleased version of the Full Self-Driving suite.

Tesla adjusts one key detail of Robotaxi operations in Austin

Now, Tesla has gained another approval in a new state, its fourth, marking a significant step in its expansion across the U.S.

In Arizona, Tesla gained regulatory approval to begin testing autonomous vehicles on public roads.

BREAKING: Tesla has officially received approval from the Arizona Department of Transportation to start testing autonomous vehicles on public roads.

Today, I confirmed directly with the Arizona DOT that @Tesla has met requirements to begin testing its autonomous vehicles in… pic.twitter.com/kjgFnKEcJF

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) September 20, 2025

The vehicles in Austin and the Bay Area of California both use what Tesla has been referring to as “Safety Monitors” in the cars. During city operation in Texas, the Safety Monitor sits in the passenger’s seat. When the route takes the car on the highway, the Safety Monitor jumps into the driver’s seat.

Tesla explains why Robotaxis now have safety monitors in the driver’s seat

In California, the Safety Monitor is always in the driver’s seat.

In Arizona, Tesla will also utilize what a communication said was “Safety Drivers,” insinuating that the monitor would be in the driver’s seat. However, another line in the email states:

“Only a trained employee, contractor, or other person authorized by the company can operate or monitor the vehicles.”

It sounds as if there is the potential for the Safety Monitor to be in either seat, much like Tesla’s process in Austin. However, this is currently unconfirmed.

The new approval marks a drastic step forward for Tesla as it has received two new approvals in just two weeks. Regulatory hurdles seem to still be the biggest bottleneck for Tesla in terms of gaining permissions to operate in new states, but things seem to be moving along pretty well so far.

Elon Musk said this afternoon on X that a commonly reported issue with the Tesla vehicles is a “major area of focus” for the company.

Tesla, like any other company, goes through hardware issues with its vehicles, but some are more publicized than others.

However, the simple yet annoying issues that owners encounter through thousands of miles of driving do not receive as much attention, even though they are likely more pertinent and frequently encountered by owners.

One of those problems is with the central windshield Full Self-Driving camera, which sits inside a housing at the top of the glass, enabling Tesla Vision to have an uninterrupted view of the traffic and surroundings ahead of the vehicle.

Many owners have reported that their vehicles alert them when Full Self-Driving is unavailable due to an obstruction with this camera. Commonly, it is caused by a buildup of condensation, which creates a haze on the camera and obstructs its view.

Tesla suggests a quick cleaning of the housing and cameras, which resolves the problem. Still, owners are not necessarily ecstatic about having to do this themselves.

Tesla developing more comprehensive Cybertruck camera cleaning system

Musk says that Tesla is attempting to fix the issue, and said in response to one owner who performed the maintenance that it was a “major area of focus” for the company:

This is a major area of focus

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 19, 2025

While many were enthusiastic about the potential fix, but some complained that their cars had been in for service many times for the issue, inhibiting their ability to utilize FSD and truly enjoy the full experience of owning a Tesla.

Constantly fighting mine. Every single time I use FSD it shows me an image and tells me the camera is dirty and needs to be cleaned and yet it’s not dirty and has been cleaned. I’ve had it into Tesla six times. Had the camera even replaced. Still happening. It’s frustrating

— Stop Lying (@Michael46116047) September 19, 2025

It will likely be a hardware fix that will be implemented through a service appointment, but knowing Tesla, they could have something up their sleeve through a software update to resolve the issue.

Tesla’s Lead of Optimus AI, Ashish Kumar, is departing the company, and people sure are confused about it.

Kumar, who has been with Tesla for just over two years, made his announcement on X, revealing he was taking a role at Meta as a Research Scientist.

He said:

“Decided to leave Tesla. It’s been an incredible ride leading the Optimus AI team. We went all-in on scalable methods — swapping the classical stack with reinforcement learning & scaling dexterity by learning from videos. AI is the most significant bit to unlock humanoids.”

Decided to leave Tesla.
It’s been an incredible ride leading the Optimus AI team. We went all-in on scalable methods — swapping the classical stack with reinforcement learning & scaling dexterity by learning from videos.

AI is the most significant bit to unlock humanoids.

— Ashish (@ashishkr9311) September 19, 2025

Tesla fans were baffled by Kumar’s decision, immediately questioning his choice, with many wondering why he’d leave Elon Musk for Mark Zuckerberg.

Some said the choice had to be financially motivated, but Kumar said it was not, and if money were the driving factor, he would have stayed at Tesla:

Financial upside at Tesla was significantly larger. Tesla is known to compensate pretty well, way before Zuck made it cool.
If I wanted to optimize for money, I would have stayed at Tesla.

— Ashish (@ashishkr9311) September 19, 2025

Others were grateful for Kumar’s contributions to the company and were very respectful regarding his decision:

All the best and thank you for your contributions to Tesla.
— Ale𝕏andra Merz 🇺🇲 (@TeslaBoomerMama) September 19, 2025

Dude, sorry for all the negative comments your getting but thank you for your contributions to Tesla and best of luck to you in your new position
— William F (@retat50) September 19, 2025

It’s possible that Kumar chose to leave Tesla for more reasons than one, and financial reasons do not appear to be the issue, as he admitted. However, it could be a better work-life balance at Meta, or perhaps there is an internal project that simply interests him more.

Tesla will be okay, and Optimus will continue to improve with a new Lead in that position. We wish Ashish the best of luck in his new role, and we are thankful for what he contributed to the Optimus program.