Musk’s driverless Teslas hit Austin—no safety drivers in sight

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.

Austin just got a lot weirder. Tesla’s robotaxis are now officially loose on city streets, with zero humans in the driver’s seat—or anywhere else, for that matter.

After months of influencer joyrides with nervous employees up front, Elon Musk’s electric parade ditched the safety drivers and let the bots fend for themselves.

Musk, who’s spent years bragging that true autonomy was just a software update away, finally has empty Model Ys roaming Austin.

In response to a viral video of an empty Tesla robotaxi driving in Austin, Musk confirmed on X that Tesla is now running fully driverless tests, saying: “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”

A driverless Tesla Robotaxi was spotted on the roads of Austin, Texas today.

No one in the car. No safety driver.

Fully autonomous.

This is actually happening.

pic.twitter.com/MSmRaeyJwj

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) December 14, 2025

The crash stats are pretty grim

Tesla’s pilot fleet has logged eight accidents since June, racking up a crash every 62,000 miles while the average American driver goes about 500,000 miles between fender benders. So, yeah, maybe hold off on that robot ride for now.

Regulators in Texas are letting Tesla run wild, while in California, rules still stand between these bots and a public launch.

The Austin fleet barely tops 30 cars, but Musk’s big talk of “covering half the U.S.” has quietly shrunk to doubling the Austin numbers to 60.

Oh, and about Waymo—Tesla’s main rival? Musk claims Waymo never stood a chance. Yet their driverless cabs still crash way less. Maybe it’s not the hype, but the hardware.

Bottom line: Tesla’s robotaxis are loose in Austin, the crashes are piling up, and the “future” looks… well, messy.

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com.