Tesla Cybercab turns 10-minute Austin trip into 70-minute detour

A Tesla robotaxi rider in Austin says a trip that normally takes about 10 minutes turned into a 70-minute ride after the driverless car took a long detour across the city. The issue is a known limit of Tesla's system: its robotaxis, including the new Cybercab, can't drive on highways and reportedly avoid road-level railroad crossings too. So instead of a quick hop up the freeway, the car wound through surface streets on a long southern loop before it could cross the tracks. The fare was still about the normal $20, but Tesla's app only shows a price estimate when you book, not a time estimate, so riders don't know they're getting the long route until they're already in it.

This isn't unique to one car. Tesla runs the same highway-avoiding software on its Model Y robotaxis and the Cybercab, so the same detour could happen to any rider in Austin. For comparison, competitor Waymo already runs driverless rides on highways in some cities. Tesla's robotaxi service is also new and has had other rough patches, including a recent federal safety review of the Cybercab's design and an earlier incident where one of its cars drove through bollards.

None of this affects home energy upgrades directly, but it's a reminder that self-driving taxi service, robotaxi routes, and pricing are still changing fast and vary a lot by city and company.