--- title: "There’s Reportedly a Car Secretly Following Every Tesla Robotaxi, and the Reason Why Is So Absurd You Aren’t Going to Believe It" description: "Tesla Robotaxis no longer have a supervisor in the car. In unrelated news, Tesla Robotaxis are now secretly tailed by another car." date: "2026-01-23" modified: "2026-01-23" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/advanced-transport/car-following-tesla-robotaxi" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Self-Driving Vehicles" - "Tesla" --- # There’s Reportedly a Car Secretly Following Every Tesla Robotaxi, and the Reason Why Is So Absurd You Aren’t Going to Believe It ![Tesla Robotaxis no longer have a supervisor in the car. In unrelated news, Tesla Robotaxis are now secretly tailed by another car.]() *Getty / Futurism* When Tesla launched its Robotaxi service last summer, it came with an embarrassing caveat. Sitting in the front of each of the vehicles were human "safety monitors" who stuck out like sore thumbs — contradicting CEO Elon Musk's [promises]() that the service would hit the road fully driverless. That the silent human employees sat in the front passenger seat, instead of the driver's, only served to further underscore how Musk had speciously weaseled his way out being true to his word. Now, over half a year into the service's launch, Musk insists that Robotaxis will start giving rides in Austin, Texas "with no safety monitor in the car," he [announced]() on his website X on Thursday. This comes about a month after fans [spotted several of the cabs]() driving around without any occupants, prompting Musk to confirm that fully driverless testing was underway. But hold your horses and runaway self-driving cars, because this appears to be another bit of deception. The EV blog *Electrek* [reports]() that instead of supervising from inside the vehicle, it now appears that the safety monitors are simply watching from a car that follows the Robotaxis throughout their entire trips — a Rube Goldberg-style workaround that illustrates the lengths Musk will go to keep up a charade of progress. According to *Electrek*, this new operating procedure can be seen in a vlog [shared]() by Tesla enthusiast Joe Tegtmeyer on Thursday, which shows two black Teslas conspicuously tailing the red Robotaxi. Tegtmeyer himself comments on it during the video, calling them a "chase car" that he suspects are there for "validation." Tesla has struggled to refine its self-driving technology, including its Robotaxi software. The driverless-but-not-quite-superviserless cabs have already gotten into [numerous accidents](), have been spotted ignoring speed limits and other traffic laws, on top of instances of [driving dangerously]() or erratically. The human monitors have also been forced to [make interventions to prevent a potential accident](), and have even at times taken complete control of the vehicles. Musk once said Tesla was being "paranoid" about Robotaxi safety, and the automaker is clearly caught in a tug of war in which it knows that its tech isn't ready for primetime, but also has to show some semblance of keeping up with Musk's promised timelines, which include [claiming]() that the Robotaxi service would have over 1,000 cars in its fleet "within a few months" — it currently only has around 30 — and that over a million self-driving Teslas would be deployed across the US by the end of 2026. His latest announcement only highlighted that there was "no safety monitor in the car" and made no mention of the tailing vehicles. While you can't fault Tesla for going the safe route by still supervising its cabs, absurd as its new methods are, it's clearly misleading its fans and investors into thinking it's on the pathway to full autonomy. Having an extra vehicle tail every Robotaxi obviously can't be scaled up if those promised thousands end up roaming cities across the country. **More on Tesla:** [*Tesla Cybercab Spotted Dripping Liquid*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()