Tesla Robotaxi Safety Monitor Forced to Clamber Into Driver's Seat and Take Over, Passenger Says

Earlier this year, Elon Musk promised that Tesla's robotaxis would launch offering fully "unsupervised" rides with "no one in the car."

That turned out to be a lie. And less than a week into the robotaxi service's debut, which is currently limited to a tiny geofenced area in Austin, Texas, it's already become apparent that the self-driving cars are very much reliant on the human supervisors — or "safety monitors" — that Musk was adamant he wouldn't need.

In an incident shared on Wednesday, a popular Tesla content creator who goes by the handle "Dirty Tesla" said that after his robotaxi ride dropped him off, the vehicle struggled to exit the tight parking lot and appeared to back up into a parked car. 

After that car left, according to Dirty Tesla, the safety monitor got out of the front passenger seat, climbed into the driver's seat to take over, and then drove away.

Footage uploaded to X shows the robotaxi abruptly stopping while trying to squeeze its way out and flashing its hazard lights — a sign that the safety monitor manually intervened. The video doesn't show the human supervisor taking over the vehicle. But if Dirty Tesla's account is true, it sounds like labelling them as merely safety "monitors" may be a little misleading, if they're having to actually drive the cars.

"I wouldn't even call this unsupervised," Dirty Tesla wrote in a reply to his video. "It's clearly supervised."

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