Tesla appears to have finally allowed its Robotaxi fleet in Austin to operate fully driverless, according to a report by The Verge. This development comes just ahead of the company's Cybercab launch. The information, which hasn't been officially confirmed by Tesla or Elon Musk, comes from a crowdsourced web app called Robotaxi Tracker. The site's creator, Ethan Mc Kanna, told The Verge that all 170 Tesla Robotaxi rides in Austin monitored by the app in the past two weeks were unsupervised, involving 54 different vehicles. This is further corroborated by social media posts showing new Tesla robotaxi license plates in Austin.

Mc Kanna has also noticed an increase in unsupervised Robotaxi rides in other cities such as Dallas and Houston. This marks a significant change from earlier this summer when the unsupervised fleet appeared to be shrinking, with only 28 unsupervised vehicles across six markets reported last week.

However, Tesla has previously been accused of misleading claims regarding autonomous operations. Earlier this year, it was revealed that some Robotaxi rides that appeared to be unsupervised were actually connected to remote human drivers. Despite this history, the timing coincides with Tesla's preparation for the Cybercab launch, with employees told to expect a release sometime this month in Austin. The company has also announced a contest for select Robotaxi riders to attend the launch event.

While this increase in autonomous rides represents a milestone for Tesla, it remains a small presence compared to competitors like Waymo, which operates over 300 driverless vehicles in Austin alone.