Chief Executive Elon Musk has tied Tesla's financial future to self-driving technology, and with Tesla sales down, the stakes are high.
The Tesla fans invited to the trial were strongly supportive and posted videos of hours of trouble-free driving, but issues drew questions from federal road safety regulators and auto safety experts.
In one instance, a robotaxi drove into a lane meant for oncoming traffic for about 6 seconds.
Then the steering wheel wobbled momentarily, and instead of turning it proceeded straight into the lane meant for oncoming traffic, prompting a honk from a car behind it.
The passenger jerked forward and their belongings were thrown to the floor. In a third video, taken from another vehicle, a robotaxi abruptly stopped twice in the middle of the road while passing police vehicles with flashing lights.
A fourth video showed the safety monitor hitting a button to stop the robotaxi when a delivery truck in front of it started backing up.
"I was not expecting as many videos of problematic driving on the very first day," he said.
Reuters was able to independently verify the locations of at least 11 videos showing issues.
A City of Austin spokesperson said officials are aware of the Tesla issues documented on social media and that "when a potential legal or safety concern is brought to our attention, we promptly share it with the company."
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"So far so good. It handled the situations very well and likely better than even good drivers," Alain Kornhauser, Princeton University professor of operations research and financial engineering, said by email.
Other companies faced similar issues:
City officials logged dozens of instances over the past two years where residents and authorities reported that robotaxis blocked traffic by stopping in the middle of roads, failed to respond to police directions and could not deal with emergency vehicles and road closures.
Waymo is the only robotaxi service in the U.S. to ferry paying customers without a human backup driver or in-car safety monitor. It started offering rides to the general public through Uber in Austin earlier this year.
Tesla rolled out the service for a flat fee of $4.20 to a limited number of handpicked riders.
Riders were rarely bothered much by driving issues.
"The car should have known to not stop there," Mesbahi is heard saying after the ride. "Opportunities for improvement," the co-passenger says.
"Dropping off people in the middle of a six-lane road or edge of a busy intersection when the traffic is going in the opposite direction is pretty dangerous.
They definitely did not want to do this or be caught on camera," she said.
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