Tesla Robotaxi Quoted 66 Minutes for a 2.3-Mile Ride — and Riders Are Getting Dropped Miles Away

Tesla's Robotaxi service in Texas is collecting a rough batch of rider stories this month — and the loudest complaints aren't coming from skeptics. They're coming from Tesla's own fans, ambassadors, and repeat owners.

According to Electrek, one self-described "Tesla Ambassador" was quoted 66 minutes for a 2.3-mile ride, gave up, and called an Uber. Another rider — a four-time Tesla owner — has been logging missed pickups and drop-offs left blocks, and sometimes miles, from where he actually wanted to go.

A 2.3-mile trip, estimated at 1 hour and 6 minutes

Reggie Overton, who lists himself as a "Tesla Ambassador, MBA, AI/ML certified," posted a detailed account on August 22. His destination was 2.3 miles away. The Robotaxi app estimated 1 hour and 6 minutes.

He called support and was told it was a bug. The estimate briefly dropped to 16 minutes, but as Overton put it, "the actual route never changed" — then it jumped back up to 57 minutes. A support rep confirmed he was seeing the same 57-minute estimate, said he couldn't reroute the vehicle, and suggested Overton "leave a review."

The group changed their destination, got out of the Robotaxi, and called an Uber instead.

"For a 2.3-mile trip, this was an incredibly frustrating experience especially when support had no way to correct what was clearly a routing problem." — Reggie Overton

He added that he didn't even get a refund. The post went viral with more than 630,000 views, and only after that did Tesla's official Robotaxi account reply, saying it had provided a refund and would "continue to improve the rider experience at every level."

A four-time Tesla owner's running log of failures

Overton isn't a one-off. TexasTSLA, a Dallas-based account that bills itself as a "4X Tesla owner" who loves "finding bugs and hacks for Teslas," has been documenting botched rides on video — while pointing out he's riding inside the small area Tesla approved.

• August 17: A Robotaxi "dropped me off 3 miles away from my car because it was too late at night." Rider support said there was nothing they could do because it was the end of the vehicle's shift. The same night, the app told him his "destination exceeds vehicle's remaining service time" — at 9:30 p.m.
• August 19: Three rides in one day. The second "had a scary moment where it panicked and missed our drop off," and rider support had to "manually drive us to our destination." The third "kept passing us up" at the destination until the group gave up and walked.
• August 21: He filmed a Robotaxi "glitching out and getting stuck and staying in the literal middle of the road" while his own vehicle looped around, missing drop-offs. "Do better @Tesla," he wrote. "I'm done taking these rides."

He's also had to defend himself against fans accusing him of fabricating it: "for those who think I just make this stuff up… I'm literally in the tiny geofence that they approved." His pinned post, from Tesla's April Dallas launch, shows a Robotaxi missing a highway exit and trying to pull over "as traffic is flying by 80-90mph."

The pattern behind the complaints

None of this is brand new. When Tesla launched Robotaxi in Dallas and Houston in April, the service areas were tiny from day one, and the convenience problems — wrong drop-offs, highway avoidance, remote-attendant interventions — have been reported since.

The detail worth noting is the one about support "manually" driving a car to its destination. That's a reminder that the "unsupervised" service still leans on remote humans to finish rides the car can't complete on its own.

For context, Waymo is running more than 500,000 paid, driverless rides a week across 10-plus U.S. cities without this steady drumbeat of missed-pickup videos. And Tesla heads into its Cybercab event on September 3 in Austin, where it will pitch the robotaxi vision to investors again.

What this means if you're an EV owner in a robotaxi city

The practical takeaway is simple: if you're in Dallas, Houston, or Austin, don't treat a robotaxi as your only ride plan — especially late at night, when vehicle "shift" limits appear to kick in and support may not be able to fix a bad route.

• Have a backup app ready. Overton's group solved their problem in minutes by switching to Uber. Keep a second rideshare app installed and funded.
• Check the estimate before you commit. A wildly inflated ETA for a short trip is a signal something's wrong with the routing, not the traffic.
• Plan for a walk. Multiple riders reported being dropped blocks or miles short. Comfortable shoes and a charged phone matter more than you'd think.
• Screenshot everything. Refunds in these cases weren't automatic — one only came after a post hit 630,000 views. Keep your trip record.

The bigger picture for your own Tesla

If there's an upside here, it's a reminder of why owning and prepping your own EV still beats depending on someone else's software. A car you control doesn't strand you three miles out because a remote shift ended.

That's the same logic behind keeping your own vehicle road-ready: a portable charger and the right adapters so you're never stuck hunting for a specific plug, a compact roadside safety kit for the nights that don't go to plan, and a phone mount plus a fast charging cable so navigation and a backup rideshare app are always within reach. None of it is exciting gear — it's just the stuff that turns a bad night into a minor inconvenience.

Robotaxi will likely improve; Tesla says as much. But until the missed-pickup videos stop, the smart move for EV owners is the one that's always been true — keep your own car ready to go.