Image: Tesla
Tesla’s new rocket-shaped Robotaxi service area in Houston includes parts of downtown where the service won’t actually pick you up, according to Ethan McKanna, creator of Robotaxi Tracker and former Tesla employee.
McKanna used the service after Monday’s expansion, calling Houston “by far the most egregious ‘fake’ AV service area” he’s ever seen. On one travel date, he spent about 40 minutes in a Robotaxi to travel two blocks.
On Monday, Tesla expanded its Houston Robotaxi geofence into the shape of a rocket. It took the small launch zone in northwest Harris County and extended it into a long corridor to downtown and Bellaire, announced with “Houston, we have launch.”
McKanna runs Robotaxi Tracker, the crowdsourcing site that tracks Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet and service areas, and worked at Tesla this summer, so he knows the program better than most. He went to Houston to try it out. This is what he posted last night:
The video shows the Robotaxi app with a fallen pickup pin in downtown Houston, well inside the polygon posted by Tesla. The app rejects it: “Location not available. Move the map to select a different location.”
McKanna acknowledged that AV service area maps are often “a little disingenuous,” as operators do not serve all streets within the polygon they advertise. But he singled out Houston as the worst case he’s seen and said he understands Tesla did it “so they could get the shape of the starship,” which doesn’t seem like a good reason to fake availability.
About 40 minutes to travel two blocks.
The day before, he posted a ride quote showing what this looks like for a passenger:
The app cited a 2:05 p.m. pickup on the east side of downtown and a 2:48 p.m. drop-off at the Houston Police Department headquarters on Travis Street, a couple of blocks away. Instead of running through downtown, the planned route runs south through Midtown and the Museum District to the Texas Medical Center area, and then returns north.
McKanna’s reading is that the Robotaxi appears to be avoiding rail crossings downtown, which he said fits in with “other strange routes in Houston.” Hope Tesla fixes it.
To be fair, the service wasn’t bad overall. He wrote that, aside from that issue, “Houston feels great,” with reasonable wait times and “significantly better driving than my recent Waymo trips.”
Waymo’s map isn’t perfect either
Tesla is not the only one. On Tuesday, Robotaxi Tracker reported that Waymo’s service area in Orlando had shrunk by 10 square miles, down 8.4% to 109 square miles. McKanna explained what happened:
The Orlando airport was on the map posted by Waymo, but McKanna reviewed the app and it still doesn’t allow passengers to set the airport as a drop-off point. Then the tracker took him out. Waymo’s airport service could be rolling out soon, and someone was ahead of the announcement.
That’s an airport on the edge of the map. In Houston, the dead zone is in the middle of downtown.
Electrek’s opinion
First, many thanks to Ethan. Tesla shares very little data about its Robotaxi program, and Robotaxi Tracker has become the best independent source for where Tesla’s fleet actually operates and its size. And as Orlando demonstrates, he holds Waymo to the same standard.
Every AV operator has gaps in their map, including Waymo. But Waymo’s gap in Orlando is an airport on the edge of the map it’s probably about to add. Tesla’s Houston gap is in the center of the city, and it took out a rocket first and figured out where the cars could go second.
Service and product should always trump marketing, and that is clearly not the case with Tesla’s Robotaxi. People rely on those maps to know if Tesla offers service where they are. Faking the map just to shape it into a rocket is completely stupid. Do it better.
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