Tesla Launches Robotaxi: Features, Robotaxi App, Command Center and First Impressions [VIDEO]

By Karan Singh
@DBurkland on X

After years of anticipation, the wait is over. Tesla's Robotaxi network officially launched with its first public rides for early access users in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22nd.

The launch was a veritable firehose of new information, revealing everything from the booking process and in-car experience to new FSD features expected in the next version of FSD. Here’s a complete recap of everything we learned from what is sure to be a historic first day.

The Robotaxi App

The experience begins in a new, dedicated Robotaxi app. For now, access is invite-only and that app is not available in the App Store. Invitees received a special link to download the Apple-only app onto their device. Once you’re in the app, you’re asked to log in with your Tesla account, which will then bring over all your settings from the Tesla app, such as your profile photo and payment details.

While the app is only available for iPhone users today, an Android version is already confirmed to be in the works.

Booking a Trip

Once you’re in the app, you can set your destination and hail a ride. Once you have a ride booked, the app provides live tracking of the approaching Robotaxi, including its exact location and the estimated time of arrival.

One limitation noted by early-access testers is that the pickup point is currently fixed, and you can’t change it. The pick-up location will be relatively close to where you requested the ride, but some users noted having to walk up to a block to get to the pick-up location chosen by the app.

After initiating a ride, your phone will display a Live Activity, providing an auto-updating view of your taxi's location and ETA. This is similar to the Supercharger Live Activity that Tesla launched recently.

The Live Activities on iOS for the Robotaxi App
The Live Activities on iOS for the Robotaxi App
Joe Tegtmeyer on X

In-App Tips

While many early Robotaxi users are expected to be Tesla owners, Tesla is creating a user-friendly experience by offering in-app tips, such as how to open the Model Y doors.

When your ride arrives, its exterior lights pulse, letting you know this vehicle is picking up a passenger at the given location. This helps it differentiate between other Tesla vehicles on the road and other Robotaxis potentially dropping someone off at the same location.

The helpful tip on how to open the door handles.
The helpful tip on how to open the door handles.
@DirtyTesLa on X
The exterior lights pulse prompt in the app.
The exterior lights pulse prompt in the app.
@DirtyTesLa on X

Information Synced to Robotaxi

To get that special Tesla touch of magic, once your vehicle arrives, it automatically syncs the rider’s personal vehicle details to the Robotaxi.

That means when you go to play Spotify, YouTube Music, or other media, you’re already signed in and it’s using the same account you use on your own personal Tesla. Even Netflix and other video services are signed in, so that you can start streaming them in the back seat.

Inside Robotaxi: UI & Controls

The hub of the passenger experience, for now, is the 8-inch rear touchscreen of the new Model Y. The UI is clean and simple, displaying the trip map, estimated arrival time, and controls for media and climate.

The screen also provides passengers with access to key safety features, including a large “Pull Over” and “Support” button. For the early access program, a human Safety Monitor sits in the front passenger seat and has access to one additional control on the main screen - Stop in Lane.

Once you’re inside the vehicle and have fastened your seatbelt, the ride doesn’t begin immediately. You must tap the “Start Ride” button on either the rear passenger screen or within the Robotaxi app for the vehicle to start moving.

@DBurkland on X

The Ride and Geofence

One of the most important questions is: How does it drive? The first impressions have been overwhelmingly positive. Early-access riders have mentioned that FSD’s performance is extremely smooth, noting that it handles turns, speed bumps, and stops with a new level of grace. While FSD V13 is already incredibly smooth, Tesla may have tweaked it for this Robotaxi version, or it could be taking things a little slower with the initial rollout.

The service operates within a defined geofence in Austin, which initial reports suggest takes about 30 minutes to go from one side to the other.

Interestingly, you can actually book a trip that has a destination or start point outside the geofenced area. In these cases, the Robotaxi will simply take you to the edge of the service area or choose a pickup location that’s within the service area.

The current service area for Robotaxi
The current service area for Robotaxi
@SawyerMerritt on X

Robotaxi Command Center

The significance of this day hasn’t been lost on Tesla’s teams. Ashok Elluswamy, VP of AI, shared a photo from what appeared to be a launch party at the Robotaxi operations center.

The command center features various TVs showing real-time information from the active Robotaxis. According to what Musk shared a couple of weeks ago, Tesla planned to have 10 Robotaxis on the first day, which aligns with what is displayed on the list on one of the TVs.

Other TVs are showing live views from the Robotaxis’ cameras, displaying six of the vehicle’s cameras, which appear to include the front camera, repeaters, B-pillar cameras, and rear camera. The only cameras excluded appear to be the front bumper camera, the front-facing wide-angle camera, and the cabin camera.

Another TV is displaying a weather radar, while another is displaying a live view of the Robotaxi vehicles on a map. However, one of the most interesting is one near the middle, which is displaying Robotaxi statistics. The display shows that there have been 112 rides across 499 miles as of the time the photo was taken. Another statistic shows a value of 35, but it’s unclear what this number represents. Given the 10 expected Robotaxis, this likely has to do with how many users are queued for a ride, or includes active riders plus users waiting for a ride.

Celebration

Many team members have also taken to X and commented on the significance and status of the launch, celebrating a decade’s worth of hard work finally coming to a culmination. While there’s still a lot of work to do, the launch is a huge first step to Tesla opening up its Robotaxi service to everyone and releasing FSD Unsupervised for customer-owned vehicles.

Check out this smooth start-to-finish ride from Sawyer Merritt:

Next up? We expect Tesla to open up rides to the general public and gradually expand its geofence area. There’s also a new FSD update coming that increases parameters by 4.5x, which should make the vehicles even smoother and more capable.

Tesla Robotaxi to Expand Service Area / Geofence This Weekend

By Karan Singh
Tesla's Robotaxi initial service area
Tesla's Robotaxi initial service area
Not a Tesla App

Last night on X, Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla will be expanding the service area for its Robotaxi Network pilot in Austin, Texas, this coming weekend. This is the first official confirmation we’ve had of a date for expansion, following news that Tesla is hiring more Vehicle Operators and plans to expand the Robotaxi supervisor ratio in the coming months.

This is a sign of Tesla’s confidence in the Robotaxi pilot program and its current FSD builds.

Confirmation of Validation

The announcement confirms the sights we’ve been seeing of Tesla’s engineering validation vehicles focusing on areas outside the initial geofence. This public test shows that Tesla was likely finalizing FSD builds and gathering the necessary safety data to push the boundaries for the service, and this upcoming weekend’s expansion will be the first direct result of that work.

Given the increase in service zone size, this expansion will also likely include the addition of more vehicles to the initial Robotaxi fleet of approximately 20 vehicles. We expect the new number to be anywhere from 30-50 vehicles serving both the original and new areas, combined, based on Tesla’s previously expected rollout schedule.

What to Expect

While the exact new boundaries haven’t been released, it is almost certain that the expansion will include the South Congress Bridge and the downtown core areas of Austin. Expanding into a dense urban zone will include more complex intersections, heavy pedestrian traffic, and a unique road layout. That is a major vote of confidence for Robotaxi FSD’s capabilities.

The expansion will also help Tesla to close the service area gap with Waymo, its primary autonomous competitor in the city. This quick expansion is a sign of just how scalable Tesla’s vision-only approach is, versus Waymo’s arduous and drawn-out mapping processes.

We also expect that with this first service zone expansion, Tesla will continue to invite more people to its Robotaxi Network in the coming weeks. Tesla has already sent out various rounds of events, as they’ll need users to continue using the system. If you’re waiting for an invite, it may be time to start getting excited about the next rollout.

Musk: Grok AI Arriving in Teslas Next Week

By Not a Tesla App Staff
Greentheonly / Not a Tesla App

We’ve been hearing about Grok, xAI’s AI assistant, coming to Teslas for almost two years now, but this is finally coming to fruition soon. XAI unveiled Grok 4 last night, but the entire stream didn’t mention Teslas. However, Musk later posted on X that Grok will arrive in Tesla vehicles “by next week.”

Between leaks and the Grok mobile app, there’s a lot we already know about Grok, but there are a few missing pieces that will be cleared when it finally arrives.

Next Week, or Next Next Week?

Musk said that Grok would arrive by next week, meaning it could arrive before then. However, based on how Musk typically states Tesla timelines, there are a few things to consider that give us a better idea of what to expect.

First, whenever Musk posts a Tesla timeline on X, he typically means when it’ll be released to employees and not a public release. Expect this to be the same thing.

Tesla releases software updates to employees first for a final round of testing before starting a gradual release to the public. Sometimes issues are found, especially with FSD updates, and the update needs some fixes before being released publicly. So expect employees to get it by next week, and not necessarily normal Tesla owners.

The second part to this is that Tesla always rolls out their updates gradually, so when it does finally arrive, it’ll only be available on a small percentage of vehicles. Tesla will gradually monitor issues and logs, continuing the rollout as long as no major issues are found.

Which Software Update?

The entire Grok UI was already included in software update 2025.20, but it’s not exposed to users. Typically, a new feature like Grok requires a vehicle update to be added; however, this version may be different, as it’s locked behind a server-side configuration.

The Tesla app was recently updated to support logging in to Grok, so it appears that all or most of the necessary pieces are already in place.

Tesla likely has the ability to enable it for all supported vehicles with a simple switch. However, we feel more confident in it being rolled out in Tesla’s next major update, which is likely to be 2025.24 or 2025.26. Rolling it out in a new update aligns with how Tesla has historically introduced features.

If they turned it on for everyone at the same time, they could be exposing everyone to potential new issues, rather than only a smaller segment of users. While Grok is now well-tested through X and the Grok app, there are several elements that are new in Teslas, likely including the ability to control various vehicle functions, such as opening the glove box or other capabilities that voice commands are currently capable of. The Grok interface in the vehicle is also entirely new and may have some bugs associated with it that will need to be addressed, especially if they impact other features.

What we can likely expect is that Tesla will make some tweaks or bug fixes to Grok with the next major update that weren’t included in update 2025.20 and they’ll begin rolling it out to employees and then customers.

Supported Vehicles

Speaking of supported vehicles, thanks to the behind-the-scenes look at Grok, we have a good idea of the vehicles that will be supported. Tesla uses the same code for most of its vehicles, but then it’s compiled for each type of hardware. However, only the needed code is compiled for each vehicle, meaning that some pieces are left out entirely. Unfortunately, Grok code is not included in Intel software builds, meaning that only AMD Ryzen-based vehicles will receive Grok, at least initially.

We’ve seen Tesla go back and add support for Intel vehicles after it initially released a feature for AMD vehicles. We saw this with the weather radar overlay and several other features in the past. However, Tesla has been developing code with web technologies lately. While this makes development easier, it just doesn’t perform as well on the slower Intel hardware, causing it to be left out. We saw this with the new Dashcam Viewer, which is entirely coded in HTML, CSS, and JS. The new viewer was available on HW3 and HW4 vehicles, but only those that included the Ryzen infotainment processor.

What to Expect

There’s a lot we’re expecting in Grok for Teslas. Some people will absolutely love it because it’ll completely transform their drives from a singular experience to feeling like they have a knowledgeable person sitting right next to them. Given the recent controversies surrounding Grok, some people will strongly oppose it. Hopefully, Tesla makes it easy for those users to turn off Grok.

The voice command system, which is activated through the steering wheel, is expected to be replaced with Grok. This will mean that you’ll be able to talk to your vehicle much more naturally, rather than having to remember specific syntax and commands, which should be a major improvement.

We’re personally looking forward to just being able to ask questions that pop into our heads while driving, such as What’s the date of Tesla’s next event, or How many miles away is Mars? Knowledge will be available at the touch of a finger and more accessible than ever.

Grok is also expected to support continuous conversations, meaning that you’ll be able to hold a conversation with it and go back and forth about a certain topic. While there are hints of a wake word in the code, for now, it seems like you’ll press the steering wheel button once to activate it, and then again to turn it off.

For those excited about AI and Grok, this will be one of the biggest additions to Tesla’s software in years, possibly only rivaled by the Dashcam / Sentry Mode feature and FSD Beta.

It shouldn’t be long now before we all have a chance to try it out for ourselves.

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