Tesla made waves when it announced it was entering the robotaxi universe. The company made big promises but it also chose to enter at a deliberate pace and even chose to do the pilot program in Austin, Texas.

The company recently expanded the service to other cities in Texas but a new report suggests Tesla’s grand scheme is falling off the rails as the company struggles with multiple challenges.

Bugs and other challenges loom over the program

The service itself has proven to be very popular with riders, but as is the case with anything that grows in popularity, the surge has exposed some glaring weaknesses in Tesla’s plans. According to Reuters, the main problem is excessive wait times, with customers reporting long wait times between requesting the car and when it actually shows up. A reporter from the publication even had to wait over two hours before he was able to get a five mile ride with the subsequent trek having its own fair share of problems.

Part of this could be due to the number of vehicles Tesla has on routes and if the company boosted the amount of vehicles cruising the streets, these wait times could decrease as the supply of vehicles grows. At this point though, the company’s initial planning called for a handful of vehicles to be in service and that means little to no flexibility in increasing the amount of vehicles to accomodate high demand times.

However, the robotaxis are also exhibiting other problems with some of the routes bypassing faster sections of roadway for “scenic routes” through side streets and other roads nowhere near the destination which increase commute times. Other taxis have actually misinterpreted turns and speed limits raising questions about safety.

What could be done to help fix these problems?

With the robotaxi program still in its early stages, Tesla is still gathering data and using the real world situations its vehicles are encountering to improve the service for customers.

This may be hard to see since Tesla redacts certain information when reporting crashes involving its automated fleet of vehicles to federal authorities. In Austin, the cars were reported to be in 15 crashes but Tesla’s redactions prevent the public from learning about injuries, the severity, and who was considered at fault in the accidents.

The report also features a statement from Police Lieutenant William White who helps oversee the safety of automated vehicles within city limits. White said that while the automated taxis do conistetly go over posted speed limits, they have not caused any major crashes in the city during their time in service and they didn’t get any citations from the police.

The core problem however is that ride hailing services of any kind are built on the first impressions from customers especially first time riders. If a service can’t adequately meet the needs of those customers, their long-term success will be in jeopardy. In the case of Tesla, it appears things ar veering towards the wrong direction.