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Elon Musk hints at when Tesla could reduce Safety Monitors from Robotaxi

Tesla could be reducing Safety Monitors from Robotaxi within ‘a month or two,’ CEO Elon Musk says.

Published

2 weeks ago

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Credit: Joe Tegtmeyer | X

Elon Musk hinted at when Tesla could begin reducing Safety Monitors from its Robotaxis. Safety Monitors are Tesla employees who sit in the front passenger seat during the driverless rides, and are there to ensure safety for occupants during the earliest rides.

Tesla launched its Robotaxi fleet in Austin last Sunday, and after eight days, videos and reviews from those who have ridden in the driverless vehicles have shown that the suite is safe, accurate, and well coordinated. However, there have been a few hiccups, but nothing that has put anyone’s safety in danger.

A vast majority — close to all of the rides — at least according to those who have ridden in the Robotaxi, have been performed without any real need for human intervention. We reported on what was the first intervention last week, as a Safety Monitor had to step in and stop the vehicle in a strange interaction with a UPS truck.

Watch the first true Tesla Robotaxi intervention by safety monitor

The Tesla and UPS delivery truck were going for the same street parking space, and the Tesla began to turn into it. The UPS driver parallel parked into the spot, which was much smaller than his truck. It seemed to be more of an instance of human error instead of the Robotaxi making the wrong move. This is something that the driverless cars will have to deal with because humans are aggressive and sometimes make moves they should not.

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The Safety Monitors have not been too active in the vehicles. After all, we’ve only seen that single instance of an intervention. There was also an issue with the sun, when the Tesla braked abnormally due to the glare, but this was an instance where the car handled the scenario and proceeded normally.

With the Robotaxi fleet operating impressively, some are wondering when Tesla will begin scaling back both the Safety Monitors and Teleoperators that it is using to ensure safety with these early rides.

CEO Elon Musk answered the inquiry by stating, “As soon as we feel it is safe to do so. Probably within a month or two.”

Musk’s response seems to confirm that there will be fewer Teleoperators and Safety Monitors in the coming months, but there will still be some within the fleet to ensure safety. Eventually, that number will get to zero.

Reaching a point where Tesla’s Robotaxi is driverless will be another significant milestone for the company and its path to fully autonomous ride-sharing.

Eventually, Tesla will roll out these capabilities to consumer-owned vehicles, offering them a path to generate revenue as their car operates autonomously and completes rides.

For now, Tesla is focusing on perfecting the area of Austin where it is currently offering driverless rides for just $4.20 to a small group of people.

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Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

Waymo responds to Tesla’s Robotaxi expansion in Austin with bold statement

Waymo and Tesla are surely in a battle of “mine’s bigger” right now.

Published

10 hours ago

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July 17, 2025

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Credit: Waymo

Waymo has responded to Tesla’s Robotaxi expansion in Austin with a bold statement by extending its own geofence by a considerable margin.

Earlier this week, Tesla chose to expand its geofence for its driverless Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, substantially. The geofence more than doubled, bringing Tesla’s total serviceable area within Austin to approximately 42 square miles.

Tesla’s Robotaxi geofence in Austin grows, and its shape is hard to ignore

This put Tesla ahead of Waymo in terms of its service area in Austin, as the company’s geofence was just 37 square miles.

We reported on how significant this statement was for Tesla, as it has only been operating its driverless Robotaxi platform in Austin for less than a month, compared to Waymo, which has been there since March.

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Tesla Robotaxi has already surpassed Waymo in this key metric

Waymo took it as a challenge, it seems, and expanded its geofence, and it did it impressively and massively. Now, Waymo’s geofence spans 90 square miles within Austin, including new neighborhoods such as Crestview, Windsor Park, Sunset Valley, Franklin Park, as well as popular tourist destinations like The Domain and McKinney Falls State Park.

The move “unlocks another key milestone in Austin as our operating territory with Waymo expands from 37 to 90 square miles, which means that even more riders can experience Waymo’s fully autonomous vehicles through the Uber app,” Sarfraz Maredia, Global Head of Autonomous Mobility & Delivery at Uber, said.

Additionally, Shweta Shrivastava, Senior Director of Product Management at Waymo, said:

“Just months after serving our first Austin riders with Uber, we’re excited to offer our 24/7 service to more of the city. The service with our partners at Uber is healthy, and we are ready for more Austinites to experience the magic of fully autonomous driving. Austin remains one of the fastest growing cities in the country, and we are doing our part to grow with it.”

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Across the U.S., this expansion brings Waymo’s service area to more than 700 square miles, as it also operates in California and Arizona.

Here’s what the two geofenced regions look like:

The competition between Waymo and Tesla only benefits consumers, as the two companies are evidently sparring for a larger service area in Austin. Tesla launched its interestingly-shaped geofence expansion on Monday, and it seemed that the shape was more of a joke that could also be construed as a warning to competitors.

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Tesla could more than likely have pushed its geofence to a larger size, but it purposely chose to do so in a comical fashion.

Now that Waymo has responded in this way, we’ll see if Tesla puts the jokes aside.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk reveals SpaceX’s target for Starship’s 10th launch

Elon Musk has revealed SpaceX’s target timeline for the next Starship launch, which will be the tenth in program history.

Published

1 day ago

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July 16, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk has revealed SpaceX’s target timeline for the next Starship launch, which will be the tenth in program history.

Musk says SpaceX is aiming for a timeline of roughly three weeks from now, which would come about ten weeks after the previous launch.

Coincidentally, it would bring the two launches 69 days apart, and if you know anything about Elon Musk, that would be an ideal timeline between two launches.

SpaceX is coming off a test flight in which it lost both the Super Heavy Booster and the Upper Stage in the previous launch. The Super Heavy Booster was lost six minutes and sixteen seconds into the flight, while SpaceX lost communication with the Ship at 46 minutes and 48 seconds.

Musk is aiming for the tenth test flight to take place in early August, he revealed on X:

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This will be SpaceX’s fourth test flight of the Starship program in 2025, with each of the previous three flights bringing varying results.

IFT-7 in January brought SpaceX its second successful catch of the Super Heavy Booster in the chopstick arms of the launch tower. The ship was lost after exploding during its ascent over the Turks and Caicos Islands.

IFT-8 was on March 6, and SpaceX caught the booster once again, but the Upper Stage was once again lost.

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The most recent flight, IFT-9, took place on May 27 and featured the first reused Super Heavy Booster. However, both the Booster and Upper Stage were lost.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hit SpaceX with a mishap investigation for Flight 9 on May 30.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk confirms Tesla is already rolling out a new feature for in-car Grok

Tesla is already making in-car Grok more robust with a simple but effective feature that CEO Elon Musk says is “coming.”

Published

1 day ago

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July 16, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the company will roll out a new feature for in-car Grok as it is rolling out to vehicles for the first time.

Grok was just recently added as a feature to Tesla vehicles within the past week, but owners are already requesting some small changes to make it more convenient to use.

Tesla debuts hands-free Grok AI with update 2025.26: What you need to know

The first is already on the way, Musk confirmed, as WholeMarsBlog requested a simple, but useful feature for Grok as it is used within Tesla vehicles.

Whole Mars requested that “Hey Grok” be used as a wake word, automatically activating the AI assistant without having to touch any buttons. Musk confirmed it is already in development and on the way to vehicles:

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This feature is incredibly similar to that of “Hey Siri” with iPhones and other iOS devices. The phone will recognize your voice and hear that prompt, automatically activating Siri. Apple’s assistant will then perform whatever task it is asked to perform. It’s a simple but effective performance feature.

Grok is already getting its first reviews from owners as it rolls out to owners for the first time. It is a long time coming, too. Tesla has been hinting that Grok would be enabled in the vehicles for a while now, and it just started its initial rollout last week.

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Grok is available in vehicles with the AMD chip and requires Premium Connectivity or a WiFi connection to use.

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