Rob Mauer hosted a Q&A session following his initial experiences with Tesla's Robotaxi beta release in Austin. He started by expressing his excitement about the milestone, emphasizing the culmination of a decade of development.
He addressed initial delays in the service launch, attributing them to potential factors like rain and final preparations. He clarified that there were no NDAs restricting users from sharing their experiences, emphasizing that it was a limited early access program. With a small fleet, wait times were significant (13-18 minutes). He suggested that signing up on the "robots-axi" page could lead to early access. He emphasized that the safety drivers present in the vehicle were primarily monitoring the system's behavior, not for answering passenger questions.
Mauer then discussed his first ride, highlighting a navigation issue around the seven-minute mark in his video. The car hesitated on a left turn, causing a momentary confusion and a honk from a following vehicle. He noted that, despite this hiccup, he didn't perceive a safety issue due to the open road conditions. He contrasted this with a separate incident where a human driver made a sudden lane change in front of the Robotaxi, which the system handled adeptly. This situation made the safety monitor almost intervene.
He praised the smooth pickup and drop-off experiences he had, even though they occurred in relatively uncomplicated locations. He noted that the Robotaxi seemed to prioritize optimal drop-off points over simply pulling to the side of the road. He expects pickup and dropoff situations to improve as Tesla works more and more on parking and pickup strategies.
Addressing audience questions, Mauer demurred on predicting market reactions, stressing the importance of macro factors. He affirmed his existing optimism about Tesla's capabilities, citing his positive experiences with FSD version 13 in Chicago, where he uses it 95% of the time and has had very few interventions. He argued that Tesla achieving parity with Waymo's Robotaxi service would be a decisive victory due to Tesla's superior cost structure and potential for scale.
Concerning the "External drive is almost full" message, Mauer assumed this was related to data logging for the beta program. He dismissed speculations about custom hardware around the passenger door handle and that the safety monitors were reaching for that in emergency situations.
He clarified the destination selection process, explaining that users can search for locations within the geofenced area, mirroring Uber's functionality, or select from a menu of categories. He noted minor differences between the Robotaxi app and Uber, primarily in the level of control over precise pickup and drop-off point placement.
Responding to questions about re-routing, he didn't experience any, but speculated that certain intersections might be geofenced off. He said that the Robotaxi software felt very similar to FSD version 13 and he was not able to discern the software version for Robotaxi. He reiterated that he didn’t have to walk very far for pickup, about 20 steps in each case. He is also in the hope that the geofence expands significantly in the year to come, as well as the number of Robotaxis operating.
In conclusion, Mauer expressed his overall positive impressions of the Robotaxi beta, acknowledging potential areas for improvement but emphasizing the milestone's significance for Tesla and the broader autonomous driving landscape. He hopes for Robotaxi to launch in another city before the end of the year.