Tesla Cybercab Rider Stuck 14 Minutes as Robotaxi Circles Austin Parking Lot

A Tesla Cybercab rider in Austin says his driverless robotaxi was stuck in a parking lot for about 14 minutes on Monday, October 5, after the car couldn’t reroute itself and spent 7 minutes driving in loops trying to get out.

David Moss shared a 14-minute video of the whole thing on X. He wrote that the Cybercab kept circling the pickup lot instead of finding the exit, and that Tesla support then got on the line, stopped the vehicle remotely, and needed another 7 minutes to restart the car’s software before the ride could keep going.

It’s one of the earliest concrete looks at how Tesla’s driverless ride service handles a routing failure with a passenger on board. The car didn’t crash or need a tow, and the remote stop let support staff step in even though the vehicle has no steering wheel. Moss himself called it an “interesting edge case” rather than a safety scare.

The timing is worth keeping in mind, since Tesla only started paid Cybercab rides in Austin in early September, and the Austin fleet has grown to 169 registered Cybercabs since then. Musk has said the company is being “extremely careful” with the rollout, with remote support staff able to step in when a car gets confused.

This also comes while Tesla is already under the microscope. NHTSA opened an investigation into how Tesla certified nearly 1,000 Cybercabs under federal safety standards, and early coverage has rounded up rider complaints about long wait times and pickups in the wrong spot.

For riders, Monday’s video shows that support can see a stuck car, stop it, and restart it when things go sideways. The bigger question is how often edge cases like this one pop up as the fleet keeps growing, and whether Tesla ends up saying anything about this one.