4th Tesla Robotaxi Unsupervised Ride in Houston!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]All right, leaving Firehouse. I just had a great sub. Thank you very much for the sub. It was great.

[00:00:06]Absolutely. Firehouse Subs here.

[00:00:10]Yeah, exactly.

[00:00:14]All right.

[00:00:16]We've got 3 minutes till pick up.

[00:00:23]And it should come right back to where it was over here.

[00:00:27]So, let's get ready. Here there it is.

[00:00:29]And it's still running. Here comes the Robo-Taxi.

[00:00:39]We're getting the new black one again.

[00:00:41]Here it comes.

[00:00:45]Let's see how far it comes up. See, I don't think it's coming all the way up yet. So, we're going to have to go up to it. There it is.

[00:00:51]All right.

[00:00:53]So, I'm going to get in the front this time and Bruce is going to get in the rear.

[00:01:00]That didn't sound right.

[00:01:02]You know what I mean.

[00:01:05]Please enter the vehicle.

[00:01:08]Here we go.

[00:01:13]Whoops, sorry about that. Take a look at the beautiful.

[00:01:19]All right, let's get in.

[00:01:32]Oh, what's that there?

[00:01:35]I'm going to scoot this back a bit.

[00:01:38]Tell me if you got enough room there, Bruce.

[00:01:41]All right, I'm going to set this down for a second. Hopefully it Go, get my seatbelt on cuz you got to get your seatbelt on.

[00:01:52]All right.

[00:01:54]Bruce going to do his.

[00:02:00]All right, start ride.

[00:02:02]And off we are.

[00:02:04]And it got 16 minutes arriving at 4:30 at Dick's Sporting Goods.

[00:02:10]And you can tell >> [snorts] >> no driver.

[00:02:14]Got the ski seat my seat scooted up all the way on that side.

[00:02:19]Yeah.

[00:02:20]I'm purposely sitting >> Now, this is interesting. We're going back behind the shopping center, the strip mall, whatever you want to call it.

[00:02:29]So, it's going back behind and let's see if I can tell right here. Can't really tell. You can't do it on here. You can't see the map here, but on the app you can.

[00:02:44]So, we're going to go uh This is interesting.

[00:02:54]So, now we're going out this way. Okay, that I guess that makes more sense.

[00:03:00]Because um it would have been pretty tough to pull out that Well, you can't tell now.

[00:03:06]There's too many vehicles there. But, that would have been pretty tough to um take a right out of the parking lot there and then get over to the other side. I mean, I I guess it's six out of 12, half a dozen of the other. But, that was kind of interesting. It did a little loop-de-loop around the shopping center.

[00:03:39]So, technically this ride will probably be a bit longer than it was for me yesterday cuz we're close to the rush hour now.

[00:03:44]We're getting there at 4:15. Well, it's it's it's less time than um than coming over here.

[00:03:53]Oh, okay.

[00:03:54]>> Cuz it was 21 minutes, I believe, was our I could be wrong. I'd take a look at that again, but I thought it was like a 21-minute ride. And this one's going to end up being 16. So, there we go. So, we went around that way.

[00:04:07]Had we gone over here, I mean, it could have come out there and done a U-ey.

[00:04:12]But, again, six out of 12, half a dozen of the other.

[00:04:15]We got a lot of congestion here on 1960 as is usual for 4:15 in the afternoon on a work day.

[00:04:27]So far, not one other individual has noticed has noticed that we're in a car without a driver.

[00:04:38]So, honestly though, that I think is one of the good things.

[00:04:44]Right? It's not conspicuous. Yeah, we're not going to get something.

[00:04:48]>> Yeah. It's like, what are you going to do? Like, literally we've got a Model Y right next to us. So, look there.

[00:04:54]We are right next to a Model Y. Now, it'd be interesting if they realize it. So, there's somebody in a Tesla in a Model Y that doesn't realize that the Model Y next to them is driverless.

[00:05:09]>> [laughter] >> And you're literally pointing a camera being obvious and he still ain't And they still Well, they can't see us cuz we're Uh their windows are tinted really dark.

[00:05:20]>> But, I I point that out to say is like, yeah, you're not conspicuous. Like, what are you going to do?

[00:05:26]Um go after a all the Model Ys in Texas?

[00:05:30]Good luck. It does tell you that we're not we're not well known yet because we be getting some kind of honk or acknowledgement or you know, and waving his hand at us. Yeah. If he was a Tesla fanboy, he'd know Robo-Taxi.

[00:05:42]>> Yeah, I don't That's interesting because it's got the Robo-Taxi. So, again, some people just love Tesla. And they could give a crap about being a Tesla fanboy.

[00:05:53]In fact, they they probably don't want to be. They just love their Tesla. Look, person's got a beautiful dual motor Model Y and they're manually driving it, though.

[00:06:04]>> [laughter] >> She is.

[00:06:06]>> Yeah, they're So, they probably don't know they probably don't use FSD. Well, I shouldn't say probably. They don't use FSD.

[00:06:14]They're not in the quote-unquote Tesla nerdosphere.

[00:06:18]But, you know what? That's absolutely fine.

[00:06:23]You want those people, too, right? Their money's green.

[00:06:26]We want everybody buying Teslas, right, Bruce? Yeah, absolutely. Not just nerds.

[00:06:30]Absolutely.

[00:06:33]>> [clears throat] >> I'm excited what JC did some research earlier. So, when we booked this ride, he went ahead and looked up with Uber and we found out there was only a dollar difference in the fare. Yeah. And as a shareholder, I am so excited that we're not doing any funky pricing right now that we're actually trying to start making some money.

[00:06:51]>> Yeah, essentially just to summarize what you said, Bruce, is granted, you could argue about penny, but at the end of the day that right now Tesla is basically charging UberX pricing for these rides.

[00:07:05]So, yeah, I mean obviously they're not going to be exactly identical, but within the they're both it's within the realm of UberX pricing for this area at this time. With this one little price thing that we did today, they're within 10%.

[00:07:21]I think it was less than 10.

[00:07:22]>> Yeah, less than 10%. E- you know, let's let's let's Okay, I'm going to I'm going to nerd you down a little bit, Bruce. It was relatively the same price.

[00:07:31]Okay, thank you.

[00:07:32]>> [laughter] >> So, it was we we it is within UberX pricing, but there's no driver.

[00:07:43]Tesla's not paying a driver.

[00:07:46]Uber is giving You like it?

[00:07:53]No driver.

[00:07:56]>> [laughter] >> So, we did we we got somebody that noticed that we uh that there's no driver in here.

[00:08:06]So, she gave us the thumbs up. That's awesome. So, both at least one person noticed in Houston. What's she driving, by the way, Bruce? It looks It's an SUV, but I can't tell.

[00:08:19]It's definitely >> Nice lady, though. Gave us a thumbs up.

[00:08:23]She didn't give us the uh uh middle finger. She gave us the thumb.

[00:08:28]She gave us the first finger, not the the third. But, that's the one thing good about Texas. We >> Yeah, you don't have to worry about that.

[00:08:34]Well, you know, at least you could say Houston. I can't I can't speak for all of Texas, but Houston definitely not.

[00:08:43]Not directly. Yeah.

[00:08:45]You get EV hate, but you don't get like Tesla hate.

[00:08:51]Let her dri- Almost Well, you I was going to say let her come up to see it, but unfortunately, we don't control it.

[00:08:59]That she was That was pretty cool.

[00:09:02]So, we've got we had we finally had one individual notice.

[00:09:10]Very nice lady.

[00:09:16]Yeah, it's just driving so smooth. So, it's going 45 mph right now.

[00:09:22]And I'm pretty sure 1960 is a 45 mph It's This isn't 50, right? I don't think so. Yeah, I think it's 45.

[00:09:30]It feels to me like it's probably driving in standard.

[00:09:32]>> Yeah, that's what I That's what we were saying yesterday is that it definitely feels like it's in standard mode. Cuz it it doesn't um have that sloth or chill feel to it cuz it still feels peppy Yeah. and like it's uh >> Especially behind the store in the parking lot. Yeah.

[00:09:53]Yeah, that's what makes me think this does have 14.3 in it is how confident and decisive it is in in parking lots and um curbs and whatnot. You and I were talking about that at the end of the last Robo-taxi ride. Yeah. Yeah. And I was telling somebody that the other I now granted I have only had 14.3 for 2 days.

[00:10:21]But if somebody were to ask me, what's the biggest difference you've noticed?

[00:10:25]It is not even close. It's parking lots.

[00:10:28]It's so much better. I shouldn't say so.

[00:10:30]I mean, 14.2 is good in parking lots, too. Like it'll park for you and does curbside, but it's just it's a lot more decisive, little peppier.

[00:10:41]I don't know if this peppier makes sense.

[00:10:44]I don't even know if that's a real adjective.

[00:10:49]But I think you get my drift.

[00:10:50]>> Yeah.

[00:10:52]It's not lollygagging. Yeah. You know, it definitely is high high response.

[00:10:56]It's it's And I'll tell you for me, Bruce, that's that's it. So like somebody was asking me the other day, all right, JC, you've done 2,300 plus Uber rides in Houston. You use FSD all the time.

[00:11:08]Um is it Robo-taxi ready? And what I tell most people is that I from point A to point B I I it would it would be hard for me to sit there with a straight face and say no, the tech isn't ready. with 14.2.

[00:11:26]Right. But it's the point A and the point B that gave me a little bit of pause. Yes, I would agree. Parking lots and arrival and that's yeah, Like Leaving was never the issue.

[00:11:37]>> Leaving, yeah, I shouldn't say point A.

[00:11:38]I would say point B. Yeah, it was always arriving. Getting into point B and then leaving point B for the next point B, right? That that was the one thing that gave me some pause that I could see it just being stuck in a loop for 10 minutes trying to get out of certain parking lots or And so far, 2 days in with 14.3.1 I it seems like they've really licked that. So maybe that's part of this confidence in in putting these out here unsupervised.

[00:12:15]You know, I'm sure there's a lot of things that go into that decision by Tesla to go ahead and launch Robo-taxi in Houston unsupervised and and and pretty much you know, fully.

[00:12:26]Um I think 14.3 is a big reason cuz when they launched in Austin, you didn't have 14.3, right? I forgot I don't even remember what version we were on. It was probably still where we we were in still 13, right? Mhm. Yeah, obviously we were.

[00:12:44]We're at 13.2.8.

[00:12:47]The school bus driver's noticing. Look, he's looking down.

[00:12:51]Got the bus driver.

[00:12:52]>> Yeah, he's he's noticing there's nobody driving. So we got a bus the bus driver right there just noticed.

[00:13:02]Yeah, he wanted to pull up and verify.

[00:13:04]He pulled up to see I just see [laughter] this staring at him. He wanted to see.

[00:13:08]>> Not I'm surprised he didn't uh Well, he can't cuz he's driving a school bus.

[00:13:12]>> looking, too. Are the students looking?

[00:13:14]There's a couple kids are looking.

[00:13:17]So we got kids looking at a driverless Robo-taxi in a school bus.

[00:13:24]It's hard to tell with the Yeah. or hard to take a picture through the cuz they've got tinted windows. Yeah.

[00:13:30]But they're all looking.

[00:13:33]It's the future.

[00:13:36]So most of the kids in that school bus may never have to drive.

[00:13:42]>> pointing. He's pointing. He's snapping the picture.

[00:13:44]>> Yeah. Oh, two two or three kids Yeah, they're definitely snapping. Look, they're pointing and Yeah, they're definitely getting the idea.

[00:13:51]>> [laughter] >> That's funny. That is funny.

[00:13:56]That's great though that it was a school bus, too. Yeah.

[00:14:00]It's just going to happen more and more.

[00:14:01]It's day two and people are starting to realize.

[00:14:06]Day three, I guess technically. Uh yeah, this is tech Man, day one was Man, talk about a soft Yeah, it was a soft >> they call that? A soft opening, yeah. I would say Sunday was like the real part of >> real day. But technically, yes, they launched on Saturday and they did give two rides that we know of. Yeah. For sure.

[00:14:28]Um So yeah, this is still we we'd have to call it day three.

[00:14:34]But man already got another one in the fleet.

[00:14:39]They're just running perfectly.

[00:14:43]So it makes me well like you know, Bruce, do you think they're going to continue to do like onesies and twosies in Houston and Dallas?

[00:14:52]Or do we up our game and you know, throw about three or four of them in tomorrow and then see how that goes for a day or two and then throw another four or five in and It'll be interesting to see the current pattern. I mean, I think maybe [clears throat] they'll go with the first analogy that you know, they said they were going to try to do which is just double the fleet each week.

[00:15:18]Yeah. That would be which they already did that in one day.

[00:15:21]They doubled the fleet. So who knows if I don't think they're prepared to do that.

[00:15:25]>> two more tomorrow though. I I'd really shock me if they did two So two tomorrow, but Well, look at it this way.

[00:15:31]It you know, if you take Saturday out of the mix where all they did was two drive two rides and then the uh skies opened up and they essentially they shut it down around 3:00 or 3:30, right? So if we were to say Sunday was really day one, a full day. Yeah. They added a second one on day two. Right. Right. So basically they're adding they've added one each day. Right. So what do you think they're going to do tomorrow?

[00:15:57]I don't know. We'll see. I mean, the technically they have the cars to do it.

[00:16:01]Oh, we know that. Yeah.

[00:16:02]>> them there. So they're >> Yeah. They've got plenty of cars to do it. Yeah. So it's it's not like they don't already have plans, right? Because we've seen them at the delivery center.

[00:16:13]The question is is what is their tactical process going to be? And technically we know today is going pretty good cuz we already spotted the other Robo the other other Robo-taxi while we were driving. So we know they're both in good shape today so far.

[00:16:29]>> Yep.

[00:16:30]Well, I mean, the the real the way we really know they're in good shape is you and I are not holograms right now.

[00:16:36]>> That's right.

[00:16:37]That I mean, let's just be blunt. That's what we're looking for. Don't create holograms and you and I are fully living biological beings, sir, still. Correct? Yeah. I mean, we don't know for sure. We could be just talking to each other in another dimension.

[00:16:54]>> little on the wild side. We don't have neuro implants embedded in our heads, this is real. We are in reality.

[00:16:59]>> Yeah. At at least to us right now, we we I think we'll have to get out of the Robo-taxi and have somebody say hi to us and acknowledge our existence to know for sure.

[00:17:10]But until that time, I'll just I'll just say that that's how you know the thing is working. No incidents, but the main thing, even if there are some fender benders here and there, the main thing is are you getting folks from point A to point B alive and unscathed?

[00:17:29]Now that's interesting. It got over to the right and it slowed down a bit. So yesterday it actually put me through that parking that parking area that we were just we were at. The light was backed up with cars and it turned in early back there. So what do you think So I'm going to go ahead and point that out, Bruce. Would you agree with me that that there did seem to be a little bit of of a hitch in the get-along. And here we are Some kind of rerouting issue.

[00:17:54]Yeah, it was rerouting. So it's rerouted to go a different Well, I mean, it got us to the mall. All of this is the mall.

[00:18:02]So when it was um pulling up to the mall area it seemed to have a little bit of a hitch in the get-along trying to figure out which way it wanted to go into the mall. So anybody that like you know what I'm talking about. Y'all all probably have malls in your hometowns or areas.

[00:18:19]So you know exactly what I'm talking about. There's like 18,000 different ways to get to the mall.

[00:18:25]You know, I shouldn't say 18,000, but you know what I mean. Like 20 20 to 30 different paths it could take, right?

[00:18:33]And it was obviously doing some hard calculus there to figure out which way it wanted to go into the Does that make sense, Bruce?

[00:18:40]>> Yeah, I it's probably doing some risk assess. Yeah. Risk assess. But I would say out of the four Robo-taxi rides I've been in, that was the only the first time and the only time where I'd say something wasn't just perfectly smooth.

[00:18:57]Right? I uh feel like it was smooth.

[00:18:59]It's just been hesitant.

[00:19:00]>> Yeah. You know, like it it Yeah, I just want to be fair be I fair to the people viewing and that are interested in how Well, there it goes again.

[00:19:10]>> Yeah. Yeah. Fair to Robo-taxi, but also fair to folks that are watching this and >> The critics. Right. Yes. That that was not the smoothest uh pulling over to the right lane and figuring out which um For sure.

[00:19:26]>> entrance you want to take. It wasn't perfect for sure. Yeah.

[00:19:31]But everything else is literally just been perfect.

[00:19:33]>> But definitely not unsafe. No, no, no, no. Again not unsafe at all, but and that's Oh, she waved it on. Did you see that?

[00:19:45]Did you see that? And she does not even She just like So we just she waved on the driverless Robo-taxi and it went and it followed her hand wave.

[00:19:56]That was so cool, Bruce.

[00:19:58]>> was cool. And then she smiled at me.

[00:20:01]I mean, I I get why she smiled at me.

[00:20:04]>> Yeah, let's see what >> was parked where I got dropped off.

[00:20:06]>> Now, there's a ride share drop. Look at this, it's going to the ride share drop off.

[00:20:10]>> new. That was new. It didn't do this for me yesterday. This is cool. All right.

[00:20:16]That's very cool. And there we go. Make sure to So, that's pretty cool. So, we saw something really cool on this one, too.

[00:20:22]It It obeyed that lady's uh Hand commands.

[00:20:26]>> Hand commands.

[00:20:27]All right.

[00:20:28]>> is recognizing that there's no >> recognizing no driver.

[00:20:33]All right, let me grab my Got everything?

[00:20:37]How you doing?

[00:20:38]>> car driving itself? Yeah, the car's driv- It's a driverless Tesla.

[00:20:42]Oh.

[00:20:43]Oh, wow. Yeah.

[00:20:45]You want to see? You want to look? You want to look? There's nobody in there.

[00:20:48]There's nobody in there. We just got out of it. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:51]Is it really driving itself? Yes, yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.

[00:20:53]Oh, wow.

[00:20:56]Oh, man.

[00:20:57]Pretty cool, huh?

[00:20:58]>> That's cool. I don't know. Yeah, so just it took us all the way across 1960. No driver. And watch this. Stay here for a second.

[00:21:06]All right. You watch it. So, now we're going to finish ride. I'm going to say confirm you've exited. Yes.

[00:21:13]Now, watch this, young lady.

[00:21:16]Uh leave a tip.

[00:21:18]Close. And Oh, let me leave the And there we go.

[00:21:24]And it should be on its way here in a second. What?

[00:21:27]It'll take a few minutes.

[00:21:28]>> Take a few Yeah, just So, it's going to get the destination from somebody else.

[00:21:35]It's about to leave.

[00:21:37]The car's going to go by us. Go.

[00:21:38]>> Yeah. It's going to leave Yeah.

[00:21:40]Wait. Like it may take it a a minute or two to get the new destination.

[00:21:46]It's uh driving itself. It's AI.

[00:21:51]It's like you want to go. Oh, it's it's take it Like I said, it's got to get the next destination. So, it's going to it's going to come back and get us? No, it well, It's like an Uber. we could get it again. Yeah, it's like an Uber. Oh, for real? It's a driverless There it goes.

[00:22:06]All right, it's about to go. It might have been scared.

[00:22:08]>> Well, maybe waiting for those people right there. Oh, I see the time.

[00:22:12]So, we've got couple individuals coming through right here, but as soon as they >> This is so Oh, wow.

[00:22:17]>> There it goes.

[00:22:18]Oh, man. There it goes. Now, wait, it's get it Now, it's going to wait for Watch that. Now, we've got They it's stopping for the babies.

[00:22:27]You got to let them get through.

[00:22:29]Man, would this work, man? This is the jam. And then once they clear out, there it goes.

[00:22:36]Oh, it's about to go. Now, it's probably going to let them clear out completely.

[00:22:43]There it goes.

[00:22:45]>> I mean, it's cool.

[00:22:49]All right.

[00:22:50]And it's off to go get somebody else.

[00:22:53]You want to watch it? You see it? I mean, you're seeing it with your own eyes.

[00:22:57]>> right.

[00:22:58]I mean, do you do you believe your eyes?

[00:23:01]I don't know.

[00:23:02]I guess so. Yeah, yeah, you guess so.

[00:23:05]>> [laughter] >> Man, that is so cool.

[00:23:06]Yep. And then it's going to get up there to that stop sign, and my guess will be it'll take a right. And it'll get back on 1960. Or actually, I guess it's going to go the other way to the So, it's going to stop at See, watch it. Watch it stop at the stop sign. All the other traffic has the right-of-way, so it's going to wait for that traffic to come on through, and there you go.

[00:23:26]>> god, that is cool. That is so That's pretty cool, huh? That is cool.

[00:23:31]And there it goes. Bye.

[00:23:34]>> [laughter] >> Oh, that was cool. I didn't Pretty cool.

[00:23:38]That was so cool. So nice meeting you, man.

[00:23:40]>> Nice to meet you, too. Absolutely. You have a good You, too. Bye-bye. You, too.

[00:23:42]Yes, sir. Thank you.