Tesla has officially crossed another major milestone on the road to autonomous driving. Over the weekend, multiple Tesla Model Y vehicles were spotted driving themselves on public roads in Austin, Texas, with no one in the front seats and no safety driver on board. According to Tesla and Elon Musk, these were public tests of “Unsupervised” Full Self-Driving (FSD).
The first footage of an empty Model Y robotaxi navigating Austin streets was captured and shared online by X user @Mandablorian, who posted that they had just seen “a Tesla with no one in the car.” The video started making waves online, and shortly after, it was confirmed that more than one vehicle was involved. A second Model Y Robotaxi, with a different license plate, was also spotted operating autonomously in the South Congress area of southeast Austin.
Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy simply responded with “And so it begins!” while the official Tesla X account added fuel to the fire, stating, “The fleet will wake up via over-the-air software update.” Elon Musk later confirmed what many were already speculating, posting that “Testing is underway with no occupants in the car.”
This development didn’t come out of nowhere. Just last week, Musk said Tesla had “pretty much solved” unsupervised Full Self-Driving and that the company would begin rolling out Robotaxis in Austin without safety monitors or anyone in the front seats in roughly three weeks. Based on what was spotted Sunday, it appears Tesla has already entered the first phase of that rollout.
Musk has been steadily compressing the timeline all year. During Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting last month, he said the company was only “a few months away” from unsupervised FSD. Back in September, Musk also promised that Tesla’s Austin Robotaxi pilot — initially launched with safety monitors in the passenger seat and no one behind the wheel — would transition to having no one in the vehicle except riders before the end of the year. Given that Tesla is now testing with no safety driver or monitor at all, that timeline suddenly looks very realistic.
Tesla’s aggressive pace is also reflected in its software updates. The company continues to iterate rapidly on FSD as it pushes wider adoption. Musk has previously noted that Tesla’s Robotaxis run FSD builds that are more advanced than what customers currently have access to, meaning features tested here could eventually trickle down to consumer vehicles.
The latest public release, FSD version 14.2.1, already allows drivers to text while behind the wheel when road and traffic conditions allow — a strong signal that Tesla is increasingly confident in the system’s capabilities. Meanwhile, Musk has hyped the upcoming FSD 14.3 update, expected in the coming weeks, as the “last big piece” needed for fully autonomous driving.
With unsupervised Robotaxis now quietly navigating Austin streets, Tesla’s long-promised autonomous future suddenly feels a lot closer.
