Live from a Tesla robotaxi: Farzad Mesbahi calls in from Austin's first paid driverless ride

hopefully calling in to the show. Um I sent him the link. We'll see if we can bring him in. Hey, how you doing? Perfect timing. How's it going guys? Can you see the here? Let me see. Can you see it? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. There you go. Got our safety rider right here as well. Got some sick sick glasses on.

But yeah, we're uh we're in the robo taxi right now. This is my fifth ride. I'm also here with Harry from the UK. Oh, hey. What's going on? He's a fan of the channel. Uh yeah. So, yeah, this is my fifth ride. It's been amazing so far. It really does feel like um Tesla has hit this one out of the park truly.

Uh the geoence area is definitely much smaller than Whimo's right now, but I think they did that uh with the thought process of like, hey, we want to make sure we have a really good launch.

Uh we want to make sure that it's going real nice and smooth and uh but so far the rides I've taken have all been really really good, very smooth.

It's very hard to communicate just how smooth the the car is unless you're familiar with the with the software, unless you're familiar with FSD and how it operates on on the Teslas. It's very very similar to that experience. It's just there's just nobody there now.

And that that's the freaky part is that, you know, for for a lot of people that have been following the company, uh, a lot of us knew this day was going to come where Tesla would pull the trigger and start, you know, getting actual paid driverless cars on the road.

But nonetheless, now that it's here, it's kind of like this is this is wild. This is wild. So, uh, is that better? The stock is up. The stock is up 9% today. 9% today. Wow. Uh, yeah. You're welcome, everybody. I'm kidding. Yeah, give us your other takeaways.

Um, I I I saw you posted uh a good breakdown from your experience. Um, what else do you have to share about the process? Uh, did you need to go through a pre-registration to get onboarded? It feels like it's not completely uh open access just yet. Yeah. So, yeah, we were invited.

We were part of like a very limited group of people that were invited. I think Tesla was just uh here. So, somebody crossed over the road and it just navigated that no problem. Um, the um, yeah, it's a very small group of people. I think uh, a lot of us that have followed Tesla very closely uh, over the years.

Uh, Tesla went out of their way to sort of, you know, get us uh, some early access so we can go out there, test the test the system, get it out there for people to see how it performs. Uh, so far it's very very limited um, in its use case. And I'm showing you guys here just on the road hopefully. Does it come across?

Can you guys see the the road how it's driving? Yeah, it's very steep. Um, yeah, I think I think Tesla very specifically started this very small.

Uh, but now if you go and their zip code and their phone number and email address um so they can sign up for the service and that's probably a way for Tesla to get some uh some idea of how much interest there is for this thing out there. Uh but so far it's very small small geoence area, small group of people.

Um and uh I think I I don't know how many cars they have on the road, but I doubt is more than 10 right now. Uh we're at a four-way stop right now and it's navigating that no problem. Um but yeah, I I think I think it's very limited on purpose.

Uh but I will tell you that for those of us that are so lucky to be able to experience this firsthand, it's just it feels surreal because it works. It works.

It just it just takes you around and there's no one there and you're like, it's wild that uh it's wild that we got full self-driving cars before reliable cell coverage in major cities. You're breaking up a little bit on top of this. I I mean I have one more question. We'll let you go.

Um uh I mean what's remarkable about this is is not just that it's a self-driving car, but particularly that it looks like a stock $38,000 Model Y. Is there anything? Are you seeing anything on the car that looks like it might be aftermarket added to it? Extra cameras, anything? Nothing. Nothing.

Uh I mean that there's different software, but I mean that's just a that's a software update, right? It there's nothing that that I can gather that says, "Oh, this is a spec like a very uniquely equipped Tesla that has some additional sensors.

" This looks to me like the point you made is exactly and this is why this is such so mind-blowing. Like I just can't believe it's happening.

The bestselling car in the world where Tesla's making over a million of these per year that costs less than $40,000, potentially less than $30,000 to make is driving itself in Austin, Texas with a paid ride. I paid $4. 20 and it's driving me around the bestselling car in the world.

Like that that is that's a weird thing to process because it fundamentally breaks the like what how we think about self-driving transportation because you think about oh self-driving a lot of sensors, etc. , etc.

know that the cost structure for this thing is the is sca the scale that Tesla has able has been able to achieve that same car is going to drive itself right and and that just breaks everything cost per mile plummets the method they've taken uh as far as training the the software should allow them to get this thing to scale much faster than Whimo can and they have the cars right so Tesla makes as many of these cars every 5 hours that Whimo has on their fleet total right and that that's the mind-blowing piece of it and Whimo should be celebrated for the work they've done because it's such an incredible such an incredible technology and I'm really happy they exist but the scale piece is the challenge and it seems like now that Tesla has figured out how to get paid rides going as we come to uh to our destination that's my Cybert truck right there hanging out um you know it's like it's monumental this is really a monumental thing for them this is like uh Disneyland for tech bros you can just keep taking rides around all day longing this is like Thank you very much yeah thank you brother uh yeah dude it's like, you know, sometimes I'm like afraid.

I'm like, does my does my wife think I'm too nerdy? Like, am I am I getting too nerdy about this? What's going on?

But it really is like it's it's it's it's just upending, you know, what Tesla has been historically great at is just appending the equation around uh the technologies that they work in with the electric vehicle. Now, with self-driving, they're going to get into the the human robot space. This is what they do.

And so, I think this is just another reminder that they're they're full steam ahead. And it's uh it's very exciting and I'm it's just such an honor to be part of this this release. Truly, it's an honor. Historic. Amazing. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for calling in. This was great. Of course. Have fun out