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Tesla Robotaxi Service in Florida
Tesla has now launched its robotaxi service in Tampa and Orlando, Florida. Service is pretty limited right now, but we have someone on our team who lives right next to the service area and will report back on using it once he has that opportunity. Tampa is one of the most dangerous cities in the country when it comes to road safety, so if robotaxi deployment from Tesla, Waymo, and others can help with that, great — but there’s a long way to go, and I can’t imagine robotaxis take over most of that driving anytime in the coming decade or more.
Reportedly, both of the initial geofenced areas target tourist use. But, frankly, no tourist comes to Florida without a car or a rental car. Orlando is the #1 city in the world for rental cars. So, if these are tourist focused, they will likely be used more as a fun “try this out” kind of thing than for actual transportation needs.
A very small number of vehicles have been deployed where Tesla already operates its robotaxi service, making it hard to get a car in a reasonable amount of time, so we’ll see if that’s also a problem in Tampa and Orlando or how long it takes to not be a problem.
