Tesla began driverless robotaxi rides in Miami on July 3, 2026, marking the service's first expansion into Florida and its first launch with no human safety monitor on board from day one. The Model Y vehicles operate across roughly 20 square miles of the city's core transit and commercial corridors, though pickups directly at Miami International Airport terminals are not yet permitted.
Riders must join a waitlist through Tesla's dedicated Robotaxi app, mirroring the rollout Tesla used in Austin, Dallas and Houston before removing in-car monitors there. Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy confirmed the unsupervised status within hours of launch, and the company has said it aims to expand robotaxi service to about a dozen US states by the end of 2026.
The timing is notable: Miami's heavy rain, glare and humidity pose a tougher test for Tesla's camera-only Full Self-Driving system than its existing markets, and the launch comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration keeps an active engineering analysis open into whether that camera-only system fails to detect hazards in degraded visibility — the step before a possible recall.