A Robotaxi took me for a ride in my hometown, the birthplace of Tesla (www.businessinsider.com)

Tesla has begun offering Robotaxi rides in the Bay Area, and a local test ride in San Carlos shows the service works in everyday suburban conditions — you order via the Tesla app, a Model Y arrives with a human safety driver in the seat, and the car runs on Tesla’s latest FSD (Full Self-Driving) software while the driver remains ready to intervene. During two short trips the vehicle handled stop signs, narrow, winding streets with parked cars, blind curves, and a storm-dip in the road by slowing and steering around hazards; the system even auto-connected to the rider’s Spotify. Rides are cheap (under $6 for ~2 miles), billed through the Tesla app, and typically show short waits, though pickup time can increase in less-trafficked spots. For the AI/ML community this is a concrete, consumer-facing deployment of Tesla’s autonomous stack — more advanced than the supervised FSD the author previously tested, but still a supervised system under regulatory scrutiny. Key implications: Tesla continues transitioning from EV maker to autonomous-mobility provider, demonstrating real-world behavior models that detect road anomalies and navigate dense suburban scenarios. The presence of novice safety drivers and restrictions on what they can disclose highlight both operational maturity and lingering safety, transparency, and regulatory questions as Tesla scales Robotaxi operations.