X user shares honest review after taking 3 Tesla Robotaxi rides on launch day

Tesla’s long-promised Robotaxi service is finally here and early users are already sharing what it’s like to ride in a car with no one behind the wheel. On the day of the launch in South Austin, an X (formerly Twitter) user named Farzad, who also happens to be a Tesla owner and Full Self-Driving (FSD) user, took three separate Robotaxi rides and shared his thoughts online.

In a post on X, Farzad described the experience as “very smooth and comfortable,” saying it felt just like riding in a regular Tesla with FSD. While he wasn’t surprised by how well the system worked, he admitted it was still “completely and totally surreal” to be driven around with no driver at all. Farzad did point out a few minor suggestions,  the app is easy to use but could improve, like allowing users to drop a pin anywhere or change the route mid-trip. But overall, he seemed impressed. “This breaks transportation,” he wrote, adding that the implications are “far-reaching and very disruptive.”

Tesla’s Robotaxi pilot uses a fleet of about 10 Model Y SUVs, operating daily from 6 a.m. to midnight within a geofenced area of South Austin. Each car charges $4.20 per ride — a classic Elon Musk nod — and a Tesla employee sits in the front passenger seat as a safety monitor, though they don’t touch the controls unless needed.

Unlike competitors like Waymo or Cruise, Tesla’s cars don’t use lidar or radar. They rely only on cameras and AI, which Musk believes is enough. “Humans drive with eyes and brains, so AI should too,” he’s often said.

Following the launch, Elon Musk posted on X to congratulate Tesla’s AI and chip teams. “Robotaxi wouldn’t be possible yet without that,” he said, calling it the result of “a decade of hard work.” Tesla engineer Srihari Sampathkumar also celebrated the achievement, thanking his team for building the software and hardware from scratch.