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Less than a week ago, Tesla robotaxis began rolling out and giving rides to invited customers in Austin. As Sean O’Kane and I wrote this week, the rollout is the first big test of CEO Elon Musk’s belief that it’s possible to safely deploy fully autonomous vehicles using just cameras and end-to-end AI — an approach that differs from other players in the space, like Waymo.
By all accounts (including Tesla’s), this is a limited first run. The operating area covers South Austin, the fleet of vehicles is fewer than 20, and there is still a safety “monitor” sitting in the front passenger seat…