Tesla Robotaxi Ride Along, How Accessible Is It for a Blind Person?

[00:00:03][music] >> Hey YouTube, Gallagher123123 back with another video for you all and another autonomous vehicle ride.

[00:00:14]So, back in March, if you've been watching this channel for a while, we did a look at a Waymo in Los Angeles.

[00:00:23]Well, today, Thursday, July 9th, 2026, I am waiting on a Tesla robotaxi to pick me up from this waterfront and take me back to the JW Marriott.

[00:00:46]So, apologies that I slowed my speech down, but basically I was checking to see when it would arrive.

[00:00:55]Okay, it says 2 minutes away.

[00:00:59]And the plate number confirms the address for pickup.

[00:01:05]So, it'll pick us up at 1:48.

[00:01:08]JW Marriott 1:55 So, I was a bit surprised there, but it said it would pick us up at 1:55.

[00:01:18]Why is it saying later in this app? It was earlier. It was earlier.

[00:01:30]Okay, we're going to have a bit of fun, I think.

[00:01:38]Okay, the car is arriving. So, I'm going to have to go locate it.

[00:01:45]And then we'll go from there.

[00:01:47]All right.

[00:01:54]There's our car. All right, so we're getting in.

[00:02:07]Okay, so here I am getting settled and getting into the car, buckled up and all that fun stuff. We'll be ready to go.

[00:02:17]And guys, here we go.

[00:02:26]Oh my god, guys. We are in a Tesla Robotaxi. It's a Model 3. Oh, no, Model Y.

[00:02:35]And we have no one in the vehicle.

[00:02:38]This is really cool.

[00:02:49]Now, I'm expecting this to be a pretty short ride.

[00:02:52]It's actually a bit longer than I expected, and I was happy about that, so I could really try the service out.

[00:03:00]Just adjusting the phone a bit in the video, so I can cut back on notifications. That's what I'm doing there.

[00:03:09]No.

[00:03:14]So, one thing this does not appear to have is the Waymo vehicles had the feature of it being descriptive about turns.

[00:03:24]We don't have that here, it seems. And I wish we did. Like, there was no vocal feedback when I started. You just heard the little um chime.

[00:03:35]Now, that chime, if you've been in a Tesla before, would be familiar.

[00:03:41]Because that's the same chime it uses for full self-driving. And I know that cuz I have a friend who has a Tesla, and that's what it does.

[00:03:51]Yep, that chime is used for both self-driving and I think autopilot as well.

[00:03:55]>> Model 3 uh Model Y. Why I keep saying Model 3? Model Y.

[00:04:03]Okay, so we'll be arriving in 6 minutes.

[00:04:13]Now, I did make a little bit of a cut here because I wanted to also get some short-form content, but most of the ride is here.

[00:04:28]Unfortunately, I was only able to take the one ride in the robo-taxi, so I kind of had to do a bit of everything during this.

[00:04:37]Including in a minute, we'll look at the app. So, trying to do it all was tough. It's how how drop-off is going to go.

[00:04:47]And in the app, there is an option for it to play a sound for it to honk a horn, but it's not really a horn honk. So, if that's what you were listening for, hopefully I got it on this video.

[00:05:02]But, it's not a true like it doesn't honk the actual horn.

[00:05:11]It's too subtle in my opinion.

[00:05:16]All right, let's come back into the robo-taxi app and have a look.

[00:05:22]Okay, we're going to get there in 3 minutes.

[00:05:25]JW Marriott Austin.

[00:05:27]So, we could change it if we wanted to go someplace further.

[00:05:41]So, you have all the tips and all that here. And the climate controls. I do wish I I time to have seen a bit more of how that worked.

[00:05:49]I actually do [clears throat] wonder if I could change the destination a little bit to go a little bit further.

[00:05:54]I kind of would like to.

[00:06:01]Let's just see how that interface looks.

[00:06:11]So, I knew there was a Krispy Kreme about 4 miles from the hotel, and I was trying to set that as the destination, but unfortunately, it didn't quite work. And as you'll hear, we ended up arriving at the hotel pretty soon after that. So, maybe that's part of why it didn't work.

[00:06:37]Krispy Kreme.

[00:06:54]Oh, I think over here.

[00:07:03]Okay, that chime it just made indicates that we're arriving.

[00:07:15]So, I do wish this actually had spoken messages as opposed to just chimes.

[00:07:30]Oh, I guess we're here, are we?

[00:07:34]Okay, we are. So, again, I wish it spoke that.

[00:07:40]Okay, so we are going to work our way out of here and I will see where it let us off. So, we shall get out and find out. So, the Tesla door opens.

[00:07:51]You have the button on the bottom.

[00:07:54]And we will get ourselves out of here momentarily.

[00:08:02]Cuz I'm sure it wants to drive.

[00:08:04]And we will feel it driving away.

[00:08:06]This Come on, sigh.

[00:08:13]Okay.

[00:08:17]Get out.

[00:08:19]Okay.

[00:08:23]Oh, let me step out.

[00:08:26]Okay, let's go ahead and look.

[00:08:29]Close this.

[00:08:46]Still here.

[00:08:56]I was honestly surprised by how long it stayed parked outside of where it let me off by the hotel.

[00:09:03]Way longer than I expected and quite a bit, longer than the Waymo stayed that time back in the March.

[00:09:24]Is this still here?

[00:09:26]Let's see.

[00:09:28]I know it's locked. Okay.

[00:09:31]Okay.

[00:09:33]Well, I guess we're good.

[00:09:42]>> Okay, got everything, too.

[00:09:47]So, now what I'm going to do Oh.

[00:09:53]All right, this is me. All right, got this too.

[00:09:59]I feel like I actually do remember this being very long.

[00:10:22]Oh, here it goes.

[00:10:27]Bye-bye, Tesla Robo Taxi.

[00:10:29]Okay, I'm going to find my way back to the hotel.

[00:10:32]And from there, we'll wrap this up.

[00:10:35]Made it back up to my room here at the JW Marriott. So, just recap the that part of it and then I'll give my overall brief impressions of Tesla Robo Taxi.

[00:10:46]So, it did not let me out like right at the hotel.

[00:10:50]It was about from what I gathered, about 250 ft away.

[00:10:55]However, it did let me off on the same side as of the street. So, I did have a much easier time finding the hotel when I got out of the Robo Taxi compared to my stay at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport in March, where it let me out like 600 ft away and I could just couldn't find the hotel. I was getting so lost.

[00:11:16]So, it was a little bit better this time.

[00:11:20]Not perfect, though.

[00:11:22]Um I still think I don't know, maybe they need there needs to be some work with hotels to either have an easy to locate drop-off point or I'm just opening this view up.

[00:11:33]Something or [snorts] something like that. Like it's just it can be difficult to find to get to find the vehicle at the hotel if it's picking you up. That was an issue I had.

[00:11:46]Um I had first attempted to book Tesla Robo-taxi to go to the Whataburger for lunch. And it arrived and I couldn't find it. And finally the car left and you know, I was like, "Okay, well, that's that for now." And then I figured, "Okay, I'll book an Uber."

[00:12:07]Because Waymo is available here in Austin, but on in Austin to get a Waymo, it's through the Uber app. You can't use the Waymo app like we could in Los Angeles. Booked an Uber hoping I get a Waymo. Of course I didn't.

[00:12:25]Um but then I was like, "Okay, after I eat, I'm going to try one more time."

[00:12:32]And this was the result. Finding the Robo-taxi at pickup was definitely for for getting back to the hotel was definitely easier.

[00:12:41]It wasn't right where I was, but I was able to find it. The app did give directions like 100 ft left. So it has a very similar directions feature that Waymo does. So that's really cool to see.

[00:12:53]So Tesla has definitely taken the time to make the app accessible for the most part. It's I don't think it's a perfect app, but it you know, it does work.

[00:13:04]>> [snorts] >> Um it does work. So that's ultimately my experience is that it does seem to work reasonably well.

[00:13:13]The thing I'm not going to give Tesla a bit of a knock off some points for is in-car accessibility. So you know, I've ridden in Teslas many times cuz I've a friend who has one and I love Tesla's Model Y, which is what this is.

[00:13:34]So, I'm familiar with the inside of the car and how to unlock the door and do all that stuff.

[00:13:40]But, what I don't like is that um there is no like spoken announcements at all.

[00:13:51]Like there's none. I thought there might be some like when we got to the destination.

[00:13:56]You know, but there's literally nothing. It just played a little chime as you hopefully heard.

[00:14:04]But, there's no spoken feedback at all in terms of what streets we're traveling or anything like that and that is something that Waymo offers and does a really good job with.

[00:14:21]is the feedback that is provided.

[00:14:23]But, Tesla can improve that. I will say I thought the ride quality was perfectly good with Tesla robotaxi. I mean, that doesn't surprise me because I've been in a car with their full self-driving technology and yes, you do have to pay attention to the roads with that, but it's it's always been impressive to me how well it does.

[00:14:48]So, I don't know if there's anything I think there could be something to that that could eventually help robotaxi maybe scale quicker, but I don't know.

[00:14:59]I'm not going to speculate too much on that aspect.

[00:15:03]So, I guess that's my overall thoughts.

[00:15:05]Like you know, definitely robotaxi is a good experience. It works.

[00:15:12]Um I do wish Oh, the other accessibility thing that the sound for locating the vehicle, I wish it was louder. Waymo gives you a choice between two. You can either have it honk the horn or you can play a musical chime. You know, they had the horn option, so I figured that's what this would do.

[00:15:28]But, it doesn't. It's just a a sound that sounds cool.

[00:15:33]But, it's not really an actual horn.

[00:15:37]Honk.

[00:15:38]And at least if it was an actual horn honk, if I was further away, I would still be able to tell that oh, okay, I have the right vicinity.

[00:15:49]But, it doesn't do it that way.

[00:15:52]It's just a subtle kind of chirp.

[00:15:58]So, would I take Waymo taxi again? My answer is actually yes, I would. To say that I'm impressed by self-driving technology It's close. That's getting a little bit right. Is is, you know, an understatement. I cannot wait to have access to it. And again, like I said in the Waymo video, I really wish we could get on board in Boston.

[00:16:19]I know they're wanting to, but they just got to do it.

[00:16:23]Come on.

[00:16:25]All right. Well, let me know what your thoughts on this.

[00:16:28]Have you tried Waymo taxi? If you have, I'd love to know about it and know what the experience was like for you.

[00:16:38]Um and if you've taken Waymo, you know, let's compare.

[00:16:43]What do you think is the better one for accessibility?

[00:16:47]What's your experience on that? I would be interested to know.

[00:16:51]All right.

[00:16:52]That's going to do it for this video.

[00:16:55]Let's keep driving. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you for watching [music] this video. If you found it helpful, please give the video a like, subscribe, and click the bell icon [music] to get notified about upcoming videos. Follow me on Twitter at Gallagher123123.

[00:17:09][music] You can also find me on Mastodon at [email protected].

[00:17:14][music] Thank you again for watching. We will see you in an upcoming video.

[00:17:20]>> [music]