--- title: "The Tesla Robotaxis Roaming Austin ‘Without Safety Monitors’ Are Accompanied by Cars Full of Safety Monitors" date: "2026-01-23" modified: "2026-01-23" authors: - name: "Byron Hurd" job_title: "Editor" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/byron-hurd" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-tesla-robotaxis-roaming-austin-without-safety-monitors-are-accompanied-by-cars-full-of-safety-monitors" categories: - "Car Tech" - "Electric Vehicles" - "News" - "News by Brand" - "Self-Driving Tech" - "Tesla News" tags: - "Electric Vehicle" - "Robotaxis" - "Tesla" --- # The Tesla Robotaxis Roaming Austin ‘Without Safety Monitors’ Are Accompanied by Cars Full of Safety Monitors ![Tesla Robotaxi]() Elon Musk took to X earlier this week to announce that Tesla is now operating robotaxis in Austin, Texas, without safety monitors in the car. While we're happy to call Musk out on a fib, it appears he was being quite literal about the whole situation. Tesla is indeed operating robotaxis in Austin without safety monitors *inside* those taxis, but that doesn't mean they're absent. Instead, they're accompanying them from the confines of a separate chase car—or chase *cars*, as [video from a robotaxi user demonstrates](). While Tesla's launch of the supposedly unmonitored vehicles made big headlines this week, the presence of spotters was not widely reported. It came to our attention by way of *Electrek*, which [reported]() on the story Thursday. Recent updates to Tesla's so-called "Full Self-Driving" suite have finally enabled users to see the sort of reliability Musk promised nearly a decade ago, as Alex Roy and his merry band of autonomy geeks demonstrated yesterday by [pulling off a drive from Los Angeles to New York with zero interventions](). FSD was far from flawless, and weather and human error conspired to stretch it hours longer than previous attempts, but the car completed the journey without human takeover nonetheless. https://twitter.com/JoeTegtmeyer/status/2014410572226322794 The secret sauce that enabled this transition was introduced in a recent build of FSD, which is now in revision 14.2.2.3 as of the time of publication. Now, when FSD encounters an error that would have previously resulted in an immediate hand-off to the driver, rather than shutting down entirely while awaiting manual input, the software will continuously attempt to recover on its own. It's known as TOI ("Take Over Immediately") Recovery, or as I've already taken to calling it, "Try, Try Again" mode. The end result is fewer FSD disengagements, which is likely why Tesla's confidence level has improved so much. Roy told us that he saw the feature trigger twice on his [trip](), both times resulting in successful recoveries by the software. In other words, without TOI Recovery, Musk's promised Los Angeles to New York trip would still be a hypothetical—nine years after he promised it. But even with TOI Recovery, there are still limits to what FSD can do without human intervention. As long as that remains true, we expect the safety monitors to remain in tow. Sounds expensive, but if anybody can [afford it](), it's Tesla. *Got a news tip? Let us know at tips@thedrive.com!* ## Author Byron is an editor at The Drive with a keen eye for infrastructure, sales and regulatory stories. He brings a light, punchy style to all of his content, believing that there's plenty out there to be laughed at—himself included. Born and raised in Maryland but now based just a stone's throw from Detroit, Byron is an auto enthusiast and generalist who enjoys building and tinkering with things of all kinds, from cars, computers and digital cityscapes, to the new garage that will soon house his fleet (a CT4-V Blackwing, a JK Wrangler and an NA Miata). Inspired by an early love of rollercoasters, Byron quickly caught the high-performance driving itch. He's been tracking and auto-crossing his cars since 2007. In his downtime, Byron enjoys reading, playing city builders, and studying the history of the Motor City. ### Author social links [Bluesky]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()