Driverless taxi drops rider 5 km from destination because its shift was over

Tesla's robotaxi service in Texas is misrouting riders and stranding them kilometers from their destinations, according to complaints posted over the past two weeks by the company's own brand ambassadors and repeat owners. TexasTSLA, a Dallas account on X that describes itself as a four-time Tesla owner, said in a post published Aug. 18 that a robotaxi dropped him 4.8 km from his car because it was too late at night, and that support told him nothing could be done because the vehicle's shift had ended, Electrek reported.The same night, at 9:30 p.m., the app told him his destination exceeded the car's remaining service time.Two days later he took three rides in a day. On the second, he said the car panicked and missed the drop-off, forcing support to drive it remotely to the destination; on the third, it kept passing the group until they gave up and walked.By Aug. 21 he had filmed a robotaxi stopping in the middle of the road while his own car circled and missed drop-offs."I'm done taking these rides," he wrote, adding that he had been riding inside the small zone Tesla approved.Reggie Overton, whose X profile identifies him as a Tesla ambassador with an MBA and AI/ML certification, posted on Aug. 22 that the app quoted him 1 hour and 6 minutes for a 3.7 km trip.Support told him it was a bug, and the estimate dropped to 16 minutes before jumping back to 57, though he said the route displayed on screen never changed.A support representative confirmed seeing the same 57-minute estimate but said he could not reroute the car, and suggested Overton leave a review. The group changed their destination, got out and called an Uber, which Overton said covered three times the distance in 14 minutes."I didn't even get a refund," he wrote in a post that drew more than 630,000 views.Tesla's official robotaxi account replied after it spread, telling him the company had refunded the ride earlier that day and would keep improving the experience. A ride taken by a Tesla owner in a Tesla robotaxi in August 2026. Photo courtesy of TexasTSLA On Tesla's second-quarter earnings call on July 22, vice president of AI software Ashok Elluswamy said the fleet had driven more than 611,550 km unsupervised across six cities in two U.S. states with "zero notable incidents," a rate of roughly 24,140 km a week.Any reported incidents involved other vehicles striking stationary Teslas, he said.A video that surfaced Aug. 17 showed an unsupervised Model Y with no safety monitor aboard driving through a row of bollards in Austin, then continuing down the street. The bollards had been part of the street layout since early 2024.Unredacted submissions to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration described two Austin crashes in which remote operators were driving the vehicle, including one where the car mounted a curb and hit a metal fence, TechCrunch reported in May.Tesla had disclosed 14 crashes in Austin since launch, CBS News reported in February, and NHTSA contacted the company weeks after the debut over videos showing robotaxis driving on the wrong side of the road and braking erratically.When Tesla launched in Dallas and Houston on April 18, the Houston zone covered about 65 sq.km and the Dallas zone centered on Highland Park, against roughly 635 sq.km in Austin after nearly a year of expansion.Alphabet's Waymo had been running fully driverless service in both cities since February.Waymo was carrying about 500,000 paid driverless rides a week across 10 U.S. cities as of March, a figure it was still citing in mid-August as California regulators cleared it to expand further.Tesla will unveil the Cybercab in Austin on Sept. 3, a two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals that leaves passengers no way to take over.