Musk has staked Tesla’s future on self-driving vehicles he has promised for a decade but hasn’t delivered, making Austin’s robotaxi launch closely watched as a potential milestone. Some analysts and investors attribute the majority of Tesla’s stock market value to hopes for robotaxis and humanoid robots it has yet to deliver.

We’ve had Waymo and Zoox operating in town for years. Waymo started road testing here almost 10 years ago now. Tesla is so far behind on this it’s not even funny. I expect their cars to be subject to vandalism, also.