Austin Company Plans to Rent Out Tesla Robotaxis Starting in 2026

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Just days from now, Tesla reportedly plans to deploy its first commercial robotaxi service on Austin’s public streets. Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled plans to launch them in June as part of its new autonomous vehicle ride-hailing service.

On Tuesday, social media posts circulated online of one of those vehicles driving on South Congress Avenue.

Tesla robotaxi service reportedly launching next week in Austin

Austin-based RV rental agency, The Outdoorsy Group, said it plans to incorporate this new technology in the future.

“We see outdoorsy as a platform for all forms of mobility,” said Co-Founder and CEO Jeff Cavins. “Motorcycles, trucks, cars, camper vans, airstreams. Of course, the autonomous vehicle is important to us because it enables a whole level of autonomy.”

Cavins said he jumped at the idea when it was first announced.

Cavins said along with Outdoorsy, they built their own insurance company called Roamly Insurance Group.

“I think the insurance component is very important,” Cavins said. “You want to make sure, if you’re a city or a municipality or city council or a mayor’s office, that the insurance company that’s backing these fleets of robotaxis is an insurance company you can rely on.”

US agency asks questions about robotaxi plan

Still, some questions remain unanswered. In a letter sent to Tesla in May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration asked the company to explain how it plans to operate safely.

Questions focused on things like:

• Crash reporting
• Complying with traffic safey laws
• Automated responses to emergencies

NHTSA asked how the robotaxis will safely operate in low-visibility, like sun glare, fog, rain or snow. Those conditions are tied to previous accidents involving the company’s driver-assistance software.

KXAN reached out to see if NHTSA heard back. The agency told us on Friday that its investigation remains open and that Tesla’s response must be submitted by June 19. NHTSA said any updates will be posted in the investigation file online.

Limited regulation in Texas

Attorney Donald Slavik represents people across the country who were injured or killed by Tesla autopilot and full self-driving. He shared multiple stories with KXAN about some of the cases he’s taken.

“A family in Texas where a gentleman, father and husband was putting trash cans out on the street in the neighborhood,” Slavik said. “Vehicle coming by with the driver using autopilot so that he could talk on his phone or work on his phone. Hit the man and very, very seriously injured [him]. He survived for a year and a half and died.”

Slavik said, unlike states with established autonomous vehicle oversight, cities in Texas cannot regulate AVs. The Texas Legislature passed a bill in 2017 that prohibited that.

Slavik worries about how a robotaxi would respond in severe weather conditions as well.

“Is it going to pull over safely and stop, or is it going to try to drive through it?” Slavik wondered.

KXAN has repeatedly reached out to Tesla about its robotaxi plans. We’ll update this story if we get a response.

Safety of autonomous vehicles in Austin

Dr. Kara Kockelman, a professor at the University of Texas’ Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, joined KXAN News on Wednesday to talk about the safety of autonomous vehicles as they become a more widespread option for ridesharing in Austin.

Kockelman said one difference between Waymo, which already runs driverless cars in Austin, and the Tesla robotaxi is that Tesla can produce a lot more vehicles than Waymo.

“Waymo is relying on other vendors like Jaguar and now Zeekr, which is out of China, all electric,” she explained.

“So I see the Gigafactory producing, you know, thousands of vehicles a day, all with FSD [Full Self-Driving], and whichever share of that they want to pull off for robotax utilization, they can, so they could spread a lot faster,” Kockelman continued.

She pointed out that one benchmark Tesla needs to meet is staying about 50% below the background human crash rate to gain riders’ trust. That rate is related to human crashes in the U.S.

“We do crash a lot. In fact, our crash costs every year are about $3,000 for every human in this country, and we crash about twice as much as our peers do, even in Canada, right across the border,” Kockelman said.

She added Waymo has already passed that bar in other cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix with a crash rate “about 80% less than the background human crash rate.”

Since Austin is new to Waymo, Kockelman said the city’s data could be added soon to that number.

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