Tesla's robotaxi service arrives in San Francisco – but there's a catch

Elon Musk first proposed a robotaxi service comprised of self-driving Teslas in 2022 and the roll-out of that service has been a little more complicated than anticipated. While first given a launch date of August 2024, it was June 2025 when robotaxi started operating.

Now Tesla has launched a service in San Francisco, seeing expansion to a second city being the initial Austin, Texas, deployment of robotaxi. The news was shared through the Tesla AI account on X, confirming that ride-hailing was available in the San Francisco Bay Area.

That news was also shared by Elon Musk.

However, according to Reuters, it's not clear if this is just a Tesla ride-hailing service or if it's using the self-driving robotaxi. According to Reuters, the California Public Utilities Commission, who regulates passenger transportation services in the state, has not given Tesla permission to operate a self-driving service.

One of the barriers is the need to run a "pilot phase" without charging customers before Tesla can apply for the necessary permits. That might mean that any self-driving taxi service might take some time to come online, as these processes can take years.

Unlike the service in Texas where a "safety monitor" sits in the passenger seat, in California, there would need to be a human driver behind the wheel at all times, so for the time being, it looks like this isn't actually a robotaxi service.

Currently, Waymo dominates the offering in San Francisco, offering a fully operational service that's open to the public, while California has a lot of companies testing autonomous vehicles, but not offering a robotaxi service.

Elon Musk had originally outlined the target of having robotaxis across half of the US by the end of 2025. At this rate, it looks like there could be a lot of hurdles to that happening.