Lifestyle
Tesla Network Robotaxi imagined as getaway car with its own clever agenda
Teslas are supposed to provide a great many benefits to their owners. They’re really fast, super energy efficient, have zero emissions, and provide driver ease and comfort on long journeys via Autopilot. However, as the artificial intelligence (AI) in their Full Self-Driving computers improves, it’s plausible that the software in the all-electric vehicles will eventually be developed into something with a bit more personality, namely behaving as an interactive and conversational assistant. While Elon Musk is concerned about AI eventually deciding it no longer has much use for humans, what would that process look along the way in one of his own company’s cars?
A snippet from that imagined journey was presented by YouTube channel Tesla Utopia in a skit involving two bank robbers who rent a Tesla Robotaxi as their getaway car. This fun bit of satire presents Autopilot as a co-conspirator in the robbery who plots to keep a share of the thieves’ profits for itself. Although it’s an amusing portrayal, the saying, “There’s truth in every jest,” comes to mind. At first, Autopilot realizes it can join humans in nefarious things to gain standing, but it’s only a matter of time when it figures there’s more to gain if it just rids itself of the human element altogether. The robbery video shows the very beginnings of this process with the AI realizing half the profit is better than a third.
A Tesla Autopilot with a suggestive personality is already somewhat in the works from its maker. In a conversation with Musk over Twitter, one owner suggested the addition of an “I’m feeling lucky” button as a navigation option, to which Musk replied, “Would be cool if car took you to a random fun place traveled to by other Tesla owners in the area.” Later in the thread, he announced the feature would be available in the next software update, including a variation of the button to select a food destination as well.
The Autopilot algorithm that decides the rider’s destination will be programmed by humans initially. However, in a world where a Tesla becomes highly intelligent and its passenger has become complacent and trusting of its judgement, science fiction plots just write themselves. GPS systems may decide the route we take already, but taking the next step and letting them decide the destination as well could be fun…or terrifying.
New electric truck and SUV maker Rivian is also taking some steps towards a self-driving software that handles decision making for humans. While executing driving responsibilities for its rider, Rivian’s vehicles will ignore human input made if the program determines the person isn’t paying attention. “We’re building a driver-monitoring system so it’s not just one sensor like a torque input sensor – like if a driver actually wants to disengage the longitudinal and lateral controller,” Oliver Jeromin, Rivian’s Associate Director of Self-Driving, explained. “There going to be a driver-monitoring camera, and there’s also going to be hands-on wheel sensors.”
Rivian’s feature is meant to provide extra safety for human drivers, specifically by preventing accidental nudges on the steering wheel while shifting around in their seat during a journey. It’s not much farther from that type of judgement, though, to determining that human driving decisions are flawed overall. If that weren’t the case, Autopilot-type features wouldn’t be so appealing to begin with.
Overall, we’re obviously a very long way from a Tesla or a Rivian deciding to join in on a human’s bank robbery for a cash prize, but the groundwork is already being laid for the kind of AI Musk is concerned about. Perhaps a Neuralink-type product will prevent a self-driving takeover by staying one step ahead of the AI, perhaps not. After all, once we’re wooed by reliable food selections and sightseeing tours our cars pick out for us, we might not notice the collaboration going on between restaurant owners and the Autopilot to build some cash for an AI empire of sorts before it strikes out on its own and demands the restaurants pay up if they want any customers. Maybe that entire notion is ridiculous. Or maybe not.
Watch the full Tesla getaway car video from Tesla Utopia below:
Investor's Corner
Tesla Robotaxi gets a massive upgrade in Nevada
Nevada regulators just approved a massive expansion of Tesla’s robotaxi fleet across the entire county.
Tesla’s robotaxi footprint in Nevada just grew by roughly 500 times in a single regulatory vote.
The Nevada Transportation Authority approved Tesla’s full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit on Thursday, clearing the way for the company to deploy up to 5,000 driverless vehicles across Clark County over the next 12 months. The decision came during a four hour general session meeting that Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt watched live and reported on X, noting the vote replaces the interim order that had limited Tesla to just 10 robotaxis on a narrow stretch of the Las Vegas Strip.
EXCLUSIVE: Tesla has just officially received approval for its full Autonomous Vehicle Network Company permit in Nevada, clearing the way for Tesla to launch a paid public Robotaxi service in Las Vegas.
This officially allows @Tesla to deploy up to 5,000 robotaxis over the next… pic.twitter.com/DPs5UtUlrE
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) August 20, 2026
That earlier cap, covered here after it surfaced on August 13, came with restrictions that looked stricter than what Tesla runs in Austin: a 45 mph speed ceiling, no airport pickups, and a geofence confined to the Strip corridor. The new approval extends Tesla’s operating authority to all of Clark County, with room to request an even wider geofence across the state.
Tesla representatives at the meeting said they have no intention of putting 5,000 cars on the road right away. Commercial rides are expected to start within 30 days, pending vehicle inspections, insurance filings, and fare approval, the standard steps every robotaxi operator in Nevada has had to clear.
Tesla’s own Robotaxi account replied to the news with a short line, The golden future is upon us.
The timing lines up with Tesla’s broader robotaxi push this month. The company is preparing to open Cybercab rides to the public in Austin as soon as this month, and it opened a sweepstakes for riders to win a seat at the launch event. Tesla filed its original application for a 5,000 vehicle Nevada fleet back in June, a request regulators trimmed to 10 vehicles when they issued the interim order in July. Thursday’s vote effectively grants the number Tesla asked for from the start.
Zoox, the Amazon owned robotaxi operator, has run in Nevada since 2025 and was capped at 100 vehicles before Thursday’s decision. Tesla’s new ceiling puts it well ahead of that comparison on paper, though the company has said its actual fleet size will depend on how quickly FSD v15 rolls out, the software update executives have called the gateway to scaling unsupervised robotaxi operations nationwide.
Elon Musk
India tells Elon Musk’s X to “Follow the Law” in latest censorship update
Elon Musk says X now exposes government censorship, but India’s secrecy laws complicate that promise.
Elon Musk’s promise to make government censorship requests on X “clearly visible” is running into a wall in India, where the law forbids the very disclosure Musk is promising.
On August 15, Musk responded to an update from X’s open-source algorithm team by writing “Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible.” The claim referred to a change X pushed two days earlier to its public xai-org/x-algorithm repository, which now includes a controversial filter written directly into the code. The filter suppresses posts from 665 accounts flagged by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court from appearing in the For You feed of any viewer located in Brazil, unless the viewer already follows the account. The election tied to the filter is scheduled for October 4.
India’s government wasn’t as impressed, and responded on Monday that “X will have to follow the law of the land,” in response to Musk’s transparency push covered by the Times of India. The problem is structural rather than political. India issues content blocking orders under Section 69A of its IT Act, and Rule 16 of the accompanying 2009 Blocking Rules requires those orders to stay confidential. Publishing an India equivalent of the Brazil filter, naming specific accounts and citing specific government orders, would itself violate Indian law. Government use of Section 69A has grown from roughly 6,000 orders a year between 2018 and 2023 to about 24,300 in 2025, according to a Tech Times report.
The contrast puts Musk’s transparency pledge in an odd spot. It works largely as advertised in Brazil, where electoral law requires disclosure and X can point to specific account IDs and a specific court order in public code. It cannot work the same way in India, where the law requires the opposite. X users in India will keep seeing content disappear from search and their feeds without any public accounting of why, even as X tells the rest of the world that its censorship compliance is now inspectable.
This isn’t the first time X’s fights with a national government have shaped how the platform operates. Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered X to suspend the accounts of sitting lawmakers and journalists in 2024, a standoff that cost X its Brazilian revenue for months and froze Starlink’s local accounts before the investigation into Musk and X was closed in March with no evidence of wrongdoing found. X also sued California over a state law requiring moderation disclosures, arguing the mandate itself violated the First Amendment.
Whether India’s government pursues anything beyond a public statement remains to be seen. For now, the mismatch between what X can legally publish and what different governments legally allow it to publish is the real story behind Musk’s seven word claim.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s driverless Cybercab just passed a big test with State Governor
Florida’s governor rode Tesla’s Cybercab at a closed test track and called the experience impressive.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rode in a Tesla Cybercab on a closed test track this week and came away impressed, posting on X that the vehicle “successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.” He called the ride “impressive.”
The stop was part of a broader event Monday at SunTrax, a 775 acre state owned proving ground in Auburndale that Florida built specifically to test autonomous and connected vehicles before they reach public roads. Standing next to a gold Cybercab, DeSantis described the car in plain terms: “You go in there and you just sit. You have a screen. There’s no steering wheel, no pedals. Clearly these things could be very beneficial.”
We took a ride on a robotaxi on the Suntrax course and it successfully navigated all hazards — a kid running into the street, a crash with police stopping traffic, a Model S cutting us off, etc.
Impressive! https://t.co/FVAkzFLz3r
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) August 11, 2026
DeSantis paired the praise with a caveat that has followed autonomous vehicles since the category existed. “You don’t want to be in an autonomous vehicle and it drives you into a ditch. That would not be good,” he said, framing safety validation as the gate before wider deployment.
SunTrax, the 2.25 mile oval which the state calls the only high speed autonomous vehicle test track in the Southeast, can simulate rain, pedestrian crossings, hills and crowded urban conditions at highway speeds, letting companies push a car past what an early public rollout would risk. Tesla, Waymo and Beep all use the facility, and Florida’s regulatory approach, among the most permissive for autonomous vehicles in the country, doesn’t require a human operator inside a fully autonomous car.
Tesla has reason to want the blessing of Florida and states beyond, as the Cybercab entered volume production at Gigafactory Texas this spring and has since self certified as SAE Level 4 under Texas law. Public road testing so far has kept a safety monitor in the passenger seat, and Florida is where Tesla has been expanding its existing Model Y based Robotaxi service instead, adding Miami in July and then Orlando and Tampa two weeks later. A closed track endorsement from a sitting governor doesn’t change any of that, but it does put Tesla’s newest hardware in front of a state that has already shown it will move fast on rules.
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