The Tesla Semi has picked up some recognition from Top Gear. The electric truck won the TG Tech Award in Top Gear’s U.S. Car Awards 2027, with the publication praising it as an example of Tesla at its best.
“One thing is for sure: this is the version of Tesla we want to see. The version focused on making important vehicles that serve normal people brilliantly. Amid all the recent noise it’s become all too easy to forget what this company is capable of at its brilliant best. The Semi is a potent reminder,” Top Gear wrote.
A Refreshed Semi Built at Scale
The award comes as the Semi moves past its pilot phase. Tesla unveiled its refreshed Semi last fall in Standard Range and Long Range versions, featuring a Model Y-style light bar, up to 500 miles of range, and 1.2 MW peak charging.
The award also lands just days after an older Semi caught fire on a California highway without any collision. That truck was Tesla’s original Semi design, which has been running with fleets like PepsiCo since late 2022, and the cause hasn’t been confirmed.
No Supercar Award for the Roadster
Tesla’s new Roadster didn’t take home Top Gear’s Supercar of the Year award, which went to the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X instead.
Not a Tesla App
That isn’t much of a surprise. As impressive as the Roadster’s reveal event was, with a sub-1-second 0-60 mph run and gravity-defying stunts, Tesla has only unveiled it so far. Production isn’t expected to start until 2028.
With the Semi now in high-volume production, it’ll be a while before the Roadster gets its turn, but it could easily be in the running for Supercar of the Year once it’s out on the road in a couple of years.
If you haven’t tried Tesla’s Robotaxi yet, your first trip may now be on the house. As spotted by Ethan McKanna (@ethanmckanna) on X, the Robotaxi app now shows “First ride on us” on the booking page for new riders, along with a $0.00 fare.
Where the Promotion Is Live
According to McKanna’s testing, free first rides are currently available in Houston and Dallas. Houston recently got a rocket-shaped geofence expansion that grew its service area almost 10 times, from about 25 to 254 square miles.
@ethanmckanna / X
The promo doesn’t appear to be live in Austin, which is currently the only market with Cybercabs. Tesla currently runs Robotaxi in seven markets, with fully autonomous rides in six of them. There’s no word yet on whether the free ride comes with any terms and conditions or whether Tesla will bring it to other cities.
How Robotaxi Pricing Has Changed
Robotaxi fares have changed a few times since the service launched in Austin last summer:
June 2025: Robotaxi launched with a flat $4.20 fare per ride and no surge multipliers.
Mid-July 2025: The flat rate rose to $6.90 as the service area expanded into downtown Austin and the University of Texas campus.
A free first ride is an easy way to get new riders to give Robotaxi a try, especially in markets that just got bigger. Tesla is also expanding to new cities, having named Las Vegas, Phoenix, Jacksonville, and San Antonio as its next Robotaxi markets.
It’ll need that growth. During Tesla’s Q3 2026 earnings call, Musk said he expects Robotaxi to start making a noticeable difference to Tesla’s finances around Q2 2027 and become a big deal by Q3 or Q4 next year. That’s also when Tesla expects to let owners add their own vehicles to the Robotaxi network once unsupervised FSD rolls out.
With Cybercab rides set to launch in Dallas next month, free first rides there could bring in plenty of new riders curious to try Tesla’s purpose-built robotaxi for themselves.
