Tesla’s Robotaxis Are Going Poorly

Happy Thursday! It’s June 26, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at Tesla’s less-than-stellar robotaxi rollout, as well as automakers’ general distaste for regulation. We’ll also look at the ever-increasing range of electric cars, and Chinese carmakers’ bets on Africa. 

Elon Musk has said that if you don’t believe Tesla can “solve autonomy,” you shouldn’t invest in the company. You’d think that this would mean Tesla’s biggest autonomy rollout yet — self-driving taxis in Austin — would be good, as a way to show the company’s progress towards this goal. Well, you’d be wrong. From Reuters:

A first public test of robotaxis by Tesla in Austin, Texas led to multiple traffic problems and driving issues, videos from company-selected riders showed over the first few days.

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Issues included Tesla robotaxis entering the wrong lane, dropping passengers off in the middle of multiple-lane roads or at intersections, sudden braking, speeding and driving over a curb.

In one instance, a robotaxi drove into a lane meant for oncoming traffic for about 6 seconds. It had pulled into an intersection in its left-turn lane with its turn blinker on. Then the steering wheel wobbled momentarily, and instead of turning it proceeded straight into the lane meant for oncoming traffic, prompting a honk from a car behind it.

In another incident, the car suddenly braked with no obstruction apparent in the video. The passenger jerked forward and their belongings were thrown to the floor. In a third video, taken from another vehicle, a robotaxi abruptly stopped twice in the middle of the road while passing police vehicles with flashing lights.

The NHTSA already confirmed this week that it’s looking at the robotaxi rollout. I’m excited to see Tesla stock skyrocket on this news, as it’s entirely unmoored from the performance of the underlying corporation and now simply exists as a way for weird nerds to subsidize Elon Musk. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sets regulations that automakers have to follow, in order to ensure their vehicles are safe. The manufacturers, who would rather build whatever makes them the most money, dislike this. Now, they’re asking for a major restructuring of the organization. From Automotive News:

A major trade group representing General Motors, Toyota Motor Corp., Volkswagen Group, Hyundai Motor Co. and other automakers sharply criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, saying the auto safety regulator is impeding progress and struggling to modernize.

“Its fractured relationship with the industry, decades-old safety regulations, and lack of a clear strategic road map for emerging technologies are stifling innovation and threatening U.S. global leadership,” said Alliance for Automotive Innovation CEO John Bozzella in testimony prepared for a U.S. House of Representatives hearing Thursday.

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Bozzella reiterated industry calls to repeal automatic emergency braking rules and make it easier to deploy autonomous vehicles without human controls.”Unfortunately, federal inaction is holding us back. Despite years of dialogue, there is still no comprehensive federal framework for AVs,” Bozzella said, also calling for NHTSA to ease fuel economy requirements starting in 2027, saying they are “misaligned with consumer demand and current technology adoption rates.”

NHTSA has plenty of regulations that are, in fact, archaic and in desperate need of updating. “Mak[ing] it easier to deploy autonomous vehicles without human controls” is not a problem that needs to be solved. Those should not be easy to deploy. 

The average driver puts less than 40 miles a day on their car, but for some reason you’re all convinced that you do nonstop coast-to-coast road trips every day and thus could never own an electric vehicle. Automakers are now doing their best to meet your imagined needs, working with new solid-state battery tech to hit range numbers over 600 miles per charge. From Automotive News:

BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis are accelerating efforts to bring solid-state batteries to market, betting that the next-generation technology could deliver a decisive edge in the battery-electric vehicle race.

The automakers are ramping up road testing, forging partnerships, and allocating R&D resources to overcome the steep cost and production challenges that have long delayed commercial viability.

If successful, solid-state batteries would offer significantly higher energy density, enhanced safety, and the potential to push EV ranges beyond 1,000 km (621 miles).

Is that enough? 621 miles between charges? That’s about 16 days of average driving before you ever have to charge, which continues to be a thing you can do in your home overnight — or even, eventually, at the curb — and often for nearly no money. Is that enough to sate your infinite avarice for range?

Much of the Western world is caught up in a third red scare, deeming China’s private corporations to be some sort of global cognitohazard that must be fought against at all costs. As such, they’re doing their best to protect good, upstanding American and European citizens from the horror that is “owning a Chinese car.” In response, Chinese automakers are now targeting an often overlooked automotive market: Africa. From Reuters:

Chinese automakers are pushing to unlock Africa’s underdeveloped potential, with a focus on electric and hybrid vehicles, as restrictions on exports to the United States and Europe send them on a global quest for new markets.

Though home to over a billion people, low incomes and high import duties have long hampered manufacturers’ efforts to sell more cars in Africa. Unreliable power availability and a lack of charging infrastructure have meanwhile held back EV uptake.

But companies including BYD, Chery Auto and Great Wall Motor (GWM) are aiming to leverage low prices to advance where others have struggled and use an expansion in South Africa as a stepping stone in a continent-wide strategy.

“We treat South Africa as a very important market for our global expansion,” said Tony Liu, the CEO of Chery South Africa, calling Africa’s most developed auto market a “gateway to the African continent.”

I’ve long wondered what happens when the United States becomes entirely protectionist in its trade, making exports to the nation impossible. Will our market really be worth setting up onshored production in a country known for its high costs of labor, or will global companies simply seek different buyers? We may be starting to get our answer. 

Two June 26ths, two huge decisions for equality in America. 

I’ve been listening to a lot more radio recently — shout out to KEXP — and it’s really making me rethink my attachment to streaming. Sure, I’m technically “streaming” KEXP (even their 4,700 watts of effective radiated power isn’t enough to reach Brooklyn from Seattle), but it’s still a terrestrial radio station with human DJs curating the music. On Tidal, I find myself always going back to the same albums, but with radio I keep being introduced to artists like Little Simz — artists I likely wouldn’t have found on my own. I’m genuinely considering canceling Tidal altogether and just giving that money to KEXP instead.