TESLA ROBOTAXI — CURRENT STATUS
● Miami launch: Now live — fifth city, no safety monitor
● Previous cities: Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose
● Target by end of 2026: Dozen US states
● Vehicle: Cybercab (purpose-built Robotaxi, no steering wheel)
● Safety approach: Remote monitoring only — no in-car human safety monitor
● AI model powering FSD: Grok 4.5 in private beta for next-gen FSD reasoning; current production uses FSD v13 with Dojo 2 training
● Regulatory status: Operates under state permits — no federal Robotaxi framework exists
What Makes the Miami Launch Different
The Miami Robotaxi launch is Tesla's fifth city deployment but the first outside of its original Texas and California markets. More significant than the geography is the operating model: Tesla is running without an in-car safety monitor, relying entirely on remote monitoring infrastructure to oversee the fleet. The Information reported the launch on July 5, 2026, describing it as Tesla's most aggressive expansion of its fully unmonitored Robotaxi program yet.
The contrast with Waymo is deliberate and stark. Waymo operates its Robotaxi fleet with what it describes as the most comprehensive sensor suite in the industry — lidar, radar, and cameras — and maintains safety monitors available for remote intervention at all times. Tesla's FSD relies primarily on cameras and AI, with no lidar, and no in-car human. The debate between these two philosophies has been active for years. Miami is Tesla's most public bet yet that cameras-plus-AI is sufficient for fully unmonitored urban public operation.
The AI Stack Behind Tesla's FSD
Current production FSD (version 13) runs on Tesla's Dojo 2 training infrastructure — a custom AI supercomputer built for video-based neural network training at scale. The FSD system processes camera feeds from eight exterior cameras and makes real-time driving decisions without lidar or high-definition maps. Tesla's neural network approach requires training on vast quantities of real-world driving data — the company has accumulated over 5 billion miles of FSD data from the existing fleet.
Grok 4.5 — currently in private beta at SpaceX and Tesla — is being evaluated for next-generation FSD reasoning capabilities. The integration is not in production yet. The public Miami launch runs on the current FSD v13 stack. If Grok 4.5's reasoning capabilities deliver as xAI claims, future FSD versions could incorporate frontier-model reasoning for edge-case handling and complex urban navigation — the scenarios where camera-only systems currently face the most challenges.
The Regulatory Landscape
Tesla's Robotaxi expansion operates under state-level permits rather than any federal autonomous vehicle framework — because no federal AV framework exists. Each state Tesla operates in has issued its own approval under its own standards. Florida's regulatory environment for autonomous vehicles is among the most permissive in the US, making Miami a logical next expansion city after the Texas and California deployments. The absence of a federal standard means Tesla's 12-state target by end of 2026 requires 12 separate state regulatory engagements.
NHTSA has opened multiple investigations into Tesla FSD incidents over the past two years. None have resulted in a mandatory operational restriction on the Robotaxi service. Tesla's position is that its data — including incident rates per mile versus human drivers in the same cities — demonstrates FSD safety at or above human baseline. The company has not published incident rate data for its Robotaxi fleet by city, making independent verification of the safety claim difficult.
Source: The Information, Grace Kay reporting, July 5, 2026 · Related: Grok 4.5 private beta at SpaceX and Tesla → · Today's full AI news digest →