Turns out, it’s not that simple. Electrek reported that, based on social media videos, it appears that Tesla hasn’t actually gotten rid of the safety monitors. Instead, the company appears to have simply transferred the person to a trail car that follows the robotaxi for the duration of his or her trip. Several videos have shown robotaxis being chased by Tesla vehicles, suggesting that Tesla’s autonomous driving may not be as advanced as the company wants to show it. It should be noted that Tesla has not confirmed whether it is operating trail cars or not. The company did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, but it also has not had an operational public relations department for several years.
my first insecure @robotaxi Ride here in Austin! Come join me on this first experience driving around Austin with just me in the car and in the back seat!
congratulations to @Tesla_AI Team! 🤠👍 pic.twitter.com/YVJ19zp2qZ
– Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😊 (@JoeTegtmeyer) 22 January 2026
In a video uploaded by Tesla enthusiast Joe Tegtmeyer, he can be heard identifying the “chase car” that is following his ride, which he identifies as his “first unsupervised robotaxi ride.” Tegtmeyer suggests that the car is for “verification,” which is a nice way of saying “to be on the scene if anything goes wrong.”
In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with the idea of a trail car for safety purposes – although when you’re trying to offer mass rides it seems like a very inefficient way to operate. But it’s the strange way Musk presented this change that makes it taste so bad. Musk said the robotaxis are being driven “without any safety monitors in the car.” This is technically correct. But the knowledge that the safety monitor is still involved and in a position to potentially intervene in every single ride undermines the idea that Tesla has achieved some new, meaningful level of autonomy.
The fact that safety monitors are still involved at such a detailed level shows that Tesla is still light years behind Waymo, which is currently operating a fleet of about 2,500 cars with no humans to physically intervene (though they still have remote operators who can take over at any time). Meanwhile, Tesla is reportedly operating about 80ish robotaxis in total, and typically only a handful at a time.
Despite this, Musk took to the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and claimed that Tesla had solved autonomy. “I think self-driving cars are essentially a solved problem at this point,” he said, before claiming that Tesla’s robotaxis “will be very widespread within the US by the end of this year”.
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