Tesla has no long history of on-time or with promised features. After the latest setbacks amid a series of setbacks, the long-awaited Robotaxi service of the EV giant seems to continue this trend. Although Tesla insiders now report that the plan will be launched in Austin, Texas on June 12, it is still unclear what it looked like at the time.
In 2019, CEO Elon Musk said he was “very confident” that the Tesla robot will launch in 2020, and by 2022, any non-Tesla vehicle will look like a horse. Fast forward to 2025 and neither prediction is realized. Its hopes are still awaiting autonomous taxis, with the company’s full self-driving feature having a history of crashes, mainly due to the failure to acknowledge obstacles.
That’s not to say that carmakers have not seen any wins recently. It seems ready to stand out from the high tariffs in the automotive industry, which is not the case for many other American automakers. Given that its autonomous function is less effective than the safety records of stars, rollbacks to crash reporting requirements and relaxing autonomous driving regulations can also help Tesla.
Still, Tesla’s promised Robotaxi service could face an uphill battle to defeat the ground. Even deciding on a name is difficult, as the U.S. Patent Office denies Tesla’s trademark attempt “Robotaxi”.
According to the Patent Office, Tesla’s target name “describes only the functions of the car” and “is used to describe similar goods and services from other companies.” Tesla also tried to use the trademark as a “network cabinet” as another option, but the Patent Office also rejected the attempt, saying the term “taxi” is universal and that “network” is “so similar to the registration mark that consumers may be confused, wrong or cheated.”
Failure to obtain a trademark is far from the only challenge, the only challenge facing a possible self-driving taxi service. Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) began investigating 2.6 million Teslas after the real clever summoning feature caused many unreported crashes.
The investigation follows another person who opened in October 2024. Previous investigations involved Tesla’s full autonomous driving capabilities, which reportedly caused a crash, and one of the incidents even killed pedestrians. Such prominent safety issues of the company’s autonomy pose doubts about whether its robotic services can safely transport anyone.
Last year, Tesla abandoned 10% of its workforce, which is both a symbol of a bigger problem and may pose further problems. The brand’s vehicle delivery is falling, profit margins are tightening, and fewer employees may be more difficult to roll out the necessary autonomous driving improvements on time. Still, the newly announced June 12 release date makes these hurdles seem to have not prevented the service from being temporarily launched.
Despite these obstacles, Musk said Tesla will start Robotaxi production in 2026, which seems unlikely. Given that he also said he had confidence in the 2020 offering, it would be difficult to have a large stake in his claims about the release schedule. Tesla has at least a prototype, but this is far from a government-approved model of work. Musk’s links to the government and Doge’s layoffs with regulators like the NHTSA may make the government’s approval part less, but the maturity of the technology remains uncertain. Musk’s sudden excitement with Trump could bring new problems to once-favorite automakers.
Overall, autonomous taxi services have proven to be challenging. GM began testing self-driving cars in 2016 and canceled the project only in 2024, citing high costs and rising competition. Driverless cars require huge resources, and even after years of development, they are still far from perfect. Tesla’s series of collapses highlighted lingering security issues.
Of course, some robotic services have started running and have successfully ferry passengers in some cities. But getting approval for these procedures is a long and complicated process that Tesla has just begun. Recently, it obtained the necessary license in California, but it reportedly did not even apply for the required license for DMV to charge customers for self-driving taxi services. However, Texas does not require a special license for self-driving cars, so a June 12 release in Austin is still possible.
Once Tesla gets regulatory approval, the launch of its robot may not be as suggested in its October reveal. Most notably, Musk has confirmed that it will start with the existing XS and model YS, rather than the stylish, iconic taxi listed on the event with the sleek, iconic name.
Former Waymo CEO John Krafcik criticized Tesla’s taxi design and said “this makes it difficult for people to get in and out easily, and everyone can’t use these Robotaxi vehicles comfortably.” He even suggested that Tesla’s self-driving proposition could be misleading, citing “many ways to fake robot services.”
Tesla was censored before it claimed that the robot was actually controlled remotely by humans. Its robot can do the same thing, especially considering that Tesla may need a remote steering feature for security purposes. There is a lot of uncertainty around the Robotaxi version, but it seems certain that this is not what Tesla originally showed.
