Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car.
Congrats to the @Tesla_AI
team!
If you’re interested in solving real-world AI, which is likely to lead to AGI imo, join Tesla AI. Solving real-world AI for Optimus will be 100X harder than cars.
Just started Tesla Robotaxi drives in Austin with no safety monitor in the car.
Congrats to the @Tesla_AI team!
If you’re interested in solving real-world AI, which is likely to lead to AGI imo, join Tesla AI. Solving real-world AI for Optimus will be 100X harder than cars. https://t.co/OnP8gredWD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 22, 2026

Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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Not in the car, but they just moved them into another car that trails and monitors it. Still smoke and mirrors.
https://electrek.co/2026/01/22/tesla-didnt-remove-the-robotaxi-safety-monitor-it-just-moved-them-to-a-trailing-car/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=electrek/magazine/Electrek
Seems completely normal to me. If you’re going to switch to remote assistance you’re going to test that while you’re close to the vehicle so you know exactly how the system end-to-end performs. Then you just move that assistent to a centralized location. There is no way that car behind is controlling the vehicle other then general instructions such as when it gets stuck or in a loop.
Yes, but a title:
“Tesla robotaxis still require monitors, but now the monitor is in another car, and its reaction time might be hindered from not being in the car, and from having to operate remotely.”
Will not make customers and investors happy.
If you want to pump the hype, you go with “TESLA Removes Safety Monitor…”
Because its not a `time critical` intervention , its a possible I don`t know what to do intervention like Waymo had in a recent blackout
The system is either fully unsupervised or requires supervision.
If it requires supervision, you have not solved all the issues.
You cannot assume that you have solved all the time critical` intervention, leaving only non-critical ones.