Tesla is testing a goofy camouflaged Robotaxi prototype ahead of reveal
Tesla is gearing up for its October 10 Robotaxi unveiling, which will take place at Warner Bros. Studio, and it’s currently running a fleet of (normal) cars around the lot to map the area.
But one of the cars, photographed late yesterday by a lot employee, stands out – and it stands out because it seems to be a heavily-camouflaged version of the heretofore-not-seen Robotaxi.
The photo was taken and first posted by u/boopitysmopp on reddit. It shows an oddly-shaped, bright yellow vehicle on what looks to be the Warner Bros. lot, leading in front of a another Tesla. It seems to be passing by the costume department and heading in the direction of “Warner Village,” a fake street of suburban houses.
The yellow coloring looks to be automotive camouflage pasted onto the vehicle, along with additional pieces of bodywork to obscure the shape of the vehicle body. Instead of going with camouflage of zebra-like line patterns like vehicles often do, Tesla looks to be having some fun with it and making quite a cartoony-looking vehicle.
While the photo was taken at night from a distance, so it’s somewhat noisy, we can still tell a little bit from it.
u/boopitysmopp also said that the rear end had a Cybertruck-like taillight that went across the whole rear of the car, but that they didn’t get a picture of it. They were also asked if there’s a steering wheel, and they responded that they couldn’t tell. Although, by boosting the exposure of the photo, there does seem to be something like a steering column in the vicinity of the driver’s seat.
Overall, the camouflaged prototype does look a lot like the concept render we’ve seen of the Robotaxi, which we used for the featured photo of this article. The general shape with the low nose and swept windshield/rear end are all roughly visible in the camouflaged vehicle.
There is a large boxy… thing in the back, but that looks like kind of like Tesla bolted a box onto the back of the vehicle just to make it look different.
It also looks smaller than the car following behind, though it’s hard to tell from the perspective of the photo. Rumors suggest that the Robotaxi will be a 2-door, 2-seat car, and a smaller size would fit with this. u/boopitysmopp described the vehicle as “tiny,” which fits with this observation.
The final prototype – if what’s under the camouflage is indeed the version that Tesla intends to reveal – probably doesn’t look exactly like the concept render, from what we can see. For example, the rear end may actually be flatter, once you take away the boxy shape in the back… but some of the general lines seem to be there.
(Frankly, it looks like if the box were removed, it might look like a Ute, which are popular in Australia. But that feels like it can’t be right, given the concept and intent of the vehicle…)
The camouflaged Robotaxi also has strangely dark wheels, and it’s tough to figure out the design from the photo. Perhaps the car was just moving at the time (though it’s at a stop sign, and the one behind is not moving), or maybe the Robotaxi’s wheels look quite solid, just like the concept drawing above.
Is that a LiDAR bump? (*probably not)
Another feature the spotted prototype sports is a small bump near the center of the roof, at the top edge of the windshield. While this could be a visual artifact or part of the camouflage, it could also be a “LiDAR bump” – which would be very interesting indeed.
There are various ways for vehicles to incorporate LiDAR into their designs, but one of the popular methods is to go with a bump at the top of the windshield, somewhat reminiscent of the bump of a taxi sign. Placing the LiDAR up high increases visibility as compared to putting it down low in the bumper.
If it is a LiDAR bump, this would be a big departure, given that Tesla has consistently said over the years that LiDAR is not necessary for autonomous operation. Tesla has always focused on either vision-only or vision-plus-radar, always taking the position that LiDAR sensors are expensive overkill.
It would also perhaps put into question whether the rest of Tesla’s vehicles, which Tesla has been saying have the hardware to be capable of full self-driving since 2016, will ever actually gain that promised capability. Tesla has been backing off from these promises (which it nevertheless made and owes to its customers) lately, possibly finally seeing a dead end for vision… but this is highly speculative, given that the “bump” in the photo could be nothing at all.
But, one thing we do know from this: Tesla is testing something like a Robotaxi, at Warner Bros., where lots of people with cameras work, so we expect to see more along these lines, perhaps in full daylight, soon enough.
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Hyundai’s electric fastback is due for some major upgrades that could finally make it the Tesla Model 3 challenger it was designed to be. The new Hyundai IONIQ 6 is better than ever, featuring a stylish new look both inside and out, an NACS port for charging at Tesla Superchargers, and even more driving range than expected.
The new Hyundai IONIQ 6 is a long-range, stylish EV
It’s been just about three years since Hyundai unveiled the IONIQ 6 for the first time at the 2022 Busan International Motor Show.
Hyundai’s “electrified streamliner” arrived as what was expected to be a genuine rival to the Tesla Model 3, boasting over 350 miles of driving range, fast charging in under 20 minutes, and an affordable price tag.
Despite this, the electric sedan has failed to live up to its hype. In the US, IONIQ 6 sales fell 6% last year, with only 12,264 units sold. According to Cox Automotive, Tesla sold 189,903 Model 3s in the US last year, a decrease from 2023, partly due to the launch of the refreshed model.
With the upgraded IONIQ due out later this year, Hyundai’s EV might finally match the Model 3 as another long-range, fast-charging, affordable electric sedan.
The new Hyundai IONIQ 6 has just become Korea’s longest-range electric sedan. It was officially certified by the Ministry of Environment with a range of up to 568 km (353 miles), surpassing the Kia EV4 at 549 km (341 miles).
On the WLTP scale, that could translate to nearly 700 km (430 miles) range. The current IONIQ 6 is rated with a WLTP range of up to 614 km (382 miles).
For those in the US, the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 6 already provides an EPA-estimated range of up to 342 miles. The new model is expected to achieve a range of over 350 miles.
The new IONIQ 6 features an upgraded 84 kWh battery, similar to the 2025 IONIQ 5, providing increased driving range. Hyundai’s new IONIQ 5 is now rated with an EPA-estimated driving range of 318 miles, up from 303 miles in the 2024 model.
Like the IONIQ 5 refresh, the new IONIQ 6 is expected to arrive with a built-in NACS port, allowing access to Tesla Superchargers.
Hyundai unveiled the new IONIQ 6 design at the Seoul Mobility Show in April, saying it “enhanced every line and detail to make the IONIQ 6 simpler and more progressive.” And last week, Hyundai teased a sporty “N” line mode coming soon. We got a sneak peek of it in public a few days later after it was spotted driving in Korea. You can tell, it’s already shaping up to be a significant upgrade.
As for prices and final specs, we’ll have to wait until closer to launch later this year. Check back soon for more info. We’ll keep you updated with the latest.
Will Hyundai’s electric sedan finally compete with the Model 3? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Yucca Post Korea
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Environment
Markets are shrugging off the Israel-Iran conflict. Some strategists warn of complacency
Fire and smoke rise into the sky after an Israeli attack on the Shahran oil depot on June 15, 2025 in Tehran, Iran.
Getty Images | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Global investors may be underpricing the impact of a conflict between Israel and Iran, market watchers warned on Monday, as stocks rallied despite escalating warfare in the Middle East.
The two regional powers continued trading fire on Monday, marking the fourth consecutive day of fighting since Israel launched airstrikes against Iran last week.
Despite the continued fighting — with hundreds reported dead — global stock markets sustained a positive momentum on Monday, seemingly shrugging off broader concerns about the conflict.
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, warned on Monday that there was a risk markets were underpricing “the risk of a major conflagration in the Middle East,” particularly when it comes to the energy market.
European shares opened broadly higher on Monday, with Asia-Pacific stocks and U.S. stock futures also trading in the green. Even Middle Eastern indexes saw gains on Monday, with the Tel Aviv 35 index last seen trading 1% higher after falling 1.5% last week.
“This is partly because there are so many moving parts and geopolitical considerations, and partly because the potential outcomes are so unthinkable,” Mould said. “In a worst case, oil and share prices would be the least of our worries.”
In a Monday morning note, David Roche, a strategist at Quantum Strategy, warned that the conflict between Israel and Iran “will last longer than the Israeli lightning-strikes that the market is used to.”
Torbjorn Soltvedtp, principal Middle East analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, agreed, saying an escalation remained of “huge concern.”
“What we have now is very different, and what we’re seeing is effectively a war and an open-ended one,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“And of course, that is something that has huge implications, not just for the region, but also for energy markets and how they interpret what is happening. You know, minute by minute and day by day.”
Energy markets have moved the most on news of the attacks, as the Israel-Iran conflict stoked supply concerns.
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While Friday marked the biggest single-day gain for crude since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, however, global benchmark Brent crude futures — last seen at $73.75 a barrel — were still far below the prices seen in the aftermath of Moscow’s incursion into Ukrainian territory.
“A lull is the most likely outcome before later escalation when Iran rejects US Trump’s overtures,” Roche said. “The market is likely to mistake the lull for lasting peace. I would use the lull to buy into energy assets as a safe haven.”
‘Very modest’ market reaction
Some market watchers are taking a somewhat less pessimistic view, however.
In a note on Monday, Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid noted that while both Iran and Israel had traded retaliatory blows, they had so far avoided “the most extreme escalatory steps.”
“As geopolitical shocks are becoming more frequent it seems it’s now at least a yearly occurrence that we refer to our equity strategists’ work on the impact of such shocks and how long it takes for the market to recover from them,” he said.
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“The typical pattern is for the S&P 500 to pull back about -6% in 3 weeks after the shock but then rally all the way back in another 3,” Reid said. “[Our strategists] believe this incident will likely be milder than this unless we get notable escalation as they highlight that equity positioning is already underweight … and a -6% selloff would need it to fall all the way to the bottom of its usual range.”
Philippe Gijsels, chief strategy officer at BNP Paribas Fortis, told CNBC on Monday that he feels the market is correct in not pricing a huge escalation, such as the U.S. being drawn into the fray, or a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait of Hormuz, nestled between Iran and Oman, is a vital oil transit route through which millions of barrels of oil are transported every day.
“Still, the market reaction has been very modest, so there is room for disappointment if things were to escalate,” Gijsels conceded on Monday.
Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, is increasingly looking like a game of smoke and mirrors, and a dangerous one at that.
CEO Elon Musk claims Tesla is being “paranoid with safety”, but it is taking risks for the purpose of optics.
It’s all about optics
Musk has been wrong about self-driving for years. His track record is marked by missed deadlines and broken promises.
He said:
“Our goal is, and I feel pretty good about this goal, that we’ll be able to do a demonstration drive of full autonomy all the way from LA to New York, from home in LA to let’s say dropping you off in Times Square in New York, and then having the car go park itself, by the end of next year. Without the need for a single touch, including the charger.”
That was in 2016, and therefore, he claimed it would happen by the end of 2017. Today, in 2025, Tesla is still not capable of doing that.
Musk has claimed that Tesla would achieve unsupervised self-driving every year for the last decade. It has become a running gag, with many YouTube videos featuring his predictions and a Wikipedia page tracking his missed deadlines.
Famously, the predictions are about Tesla achieving self-driving “by the end of the year” or “next year.”
This time, Musk has set a clear deadline of “June” for Tesla to launch its robotaxi service.
With Waymo pulling ahead in the autonomous driving race, now operating in four cities, providing over 200,000 paid rides per week, and soon expanding with 2,000 more vehicles, Musk needs a win to maintain the illusion he has been pushing for a while: that Tesla is the leader in autonomous driving.
He recently claimed about Tesla’s self-driving technology:
No one is even close. There’s really not a close second. We felt like it was a bit of an iPhone moment — you either get it or you don’t, and there’s a massive gap.
This is becoming increasingly difficult to claim amid Waymo’s expansion. Still, Musk believes that the robotaxi launch in Austin will help maintain the illusion, even though Waymo has already been operating like Tesla’s plans in Austin for years in other cities and for months in Austin itself.
Moving of the Goal Post
We have often described what Tesla is doing in Austin with its planned “robotaxi” launch as a moving of the goalpost.
For years, Tesla has promised unsupervised self-driving in all its vehicles built since 2016. Musk explicitly said that customers who bought Tesla’s Full Self-Driving package would be able to “go to sleep” at the wheel of their vehicles and wake up in another city.
Now, Musk is claiming that Tesla has “solved” self-driving with its “robotaxi” launch, but it is vastly different from prior promises.
Tesla plans to operate its own small internal fleet of vehicles with dedicated software optimized for a geo-fenced area of Austin and supported by “plenty of teleoperation.” This is a night-and-day difference compared to deploying unsupervised self-driving in customer vehicles, as promised since 2016.
Musk himself is on record saying, “If you need a geofence area, you don’t have real self-driving.”
Now, Musk is on record saying that Tesla will only launch the service in a limited area in Austin and even avoid certain intersections that Tesla is not sure it can handle:
We will geo‑fence it. It’s not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident it’s going to do well with that intersection. Or it will just take a route around that intersection.
In addition to geofencing, Tesla is also utilizing teleoperation to control vehicles with human operators remotely.
We reported last year when Tesla started building a “teleoperation team.”
Despite Tesla originally planning to launch the robotaxi service on June 12, and now “tentatively” on June 22, the automaker posted a new job listing days ago for engineers to help build a low-latency teleoperation system to operate its “self-driving” cars and robots.
The use of geofencing and teleoperation results in Tesla having the same limitations as Waymo, which Musk claimed means it’s “not real self-driving and not scalable to the customer fleet as promised by Tesla for years.
‘Paranoid’ about Safety
Musk claims that Tesla is being “super paranoid” about safety, but you have to take his word for it.
We have pointed it out before, but it’s worth repeating: Waymo tested its self-driving vehicles in Austin for six months with safety drivers and then for another six months without safety drivers before launching its autonomous ride-hailing service in the city.
As for Tesla, it tested its vehicles with safety drivers throughout Austin for a few months. Then, Musk announced in late May, only weeks before the planned launch, that it had started testing without safety drivers.
Despite many people being on the lookout for these driverless Tesla Robotaxis, they were only spotted for the first time last week.
Since then, only two confirmed Tesla vehicles without drivers have been spotted testing.
Furthermore, several of those vehicles were spotted with Tesla employees in the front passenger seat. While Musk claims that there are “no safety driver”, these “passengers” pay attention at all times and have access to a kill switch to stop the vehicle.
They virtually operate like “safety drivers”, but they are on the passenger seat rather than the driver’s seat.
Tesla is currently still in the “testing” phase based on the listing with the state regulators, which also mentions “no” safety drivers:
To go back to the “optics” for a second, Tesla’s head of self-driving, Ashok Elluswamy, has shared this conveniently cropped image of Tesla’s “robotaxis” being tested in Austin:
The image crops out the passenger seat of the car in front, which would show a Tesla employee, and the driver’s seat of the trailing car, which would show a driver, as spotted in Austin over the last week.
There’s also no way to know precisely at what rates these safety passengers and remote operators are intervening on the self-driving vehicles.
Tesla has never released any intervention or disengagement data about its self-driving and ADAS programs despite using “miles between disengagements” as a metric to track improvements and Musk claiming for years that self-driving is a “solved problem” for Tesla.
As we have previously reported, the best available data comes from a crowdsourced effort. Musk has previously shared and misrepresented the dataset in a positive light.
Currently, the data for the combined two most recent updates (v13.2.8-9) on Tesla’s latest hardware (HW4), which is reportedly the same hardware used in Tesla’s “robotaxis” in Austin, currently sits at 444 miles between critical disengagements:
That would imply a high risk of an accident every 444 miles without a driver paying attention and ready to take control at all times.
Tesla is also currently actively fighting in court against organizations trying to access its self-driving crash data.
There are currently efforts to raise concerns about Tesla’s “robotaxi” deployment in Austin.
The Dawn Project attempted to convey the potential danger of Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi fleet by demonstrating how Tesla vehicles fail to stop for school buses with their stop signs activated and can potentially run over children on the latest public Supervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) v13.2.9:
Musk has repeatedly highlighted that the vehicles used for the robotaxi service in Austin are the same that it currently delivers to customers, like this one used in this test.
However, they use a new, custom software optimized for Austin, with supposedly more parameters, allowing for greater performance. Still, there is no way to verify this, as Tesla has not released any data.
Electrek’s Take
I can’t lie. I’m getting extremely concerned about this. I don’t think that we can trust Musk or Tesla in their current state to launch this safely.
As I previously stated, I think Tesla’s FSD would be an incredible product if it were sold as a regular ADAS system, rather than something called “Full Self-Driving,” with the promise that it would eventually become unsupervised.
Tesla wouldn’t face a significant liability for not being able to fulfill its promises to customers, as it has already confirmed for HW3 owners. Additionally, safety would be improved, as drivers wouldn’t become so complacent with the technology.
Speaking of those failed promises, they are also what’s driving Tesla to push for this launch in Austin.
As Waymo’s former long-time CEO John Krafcik said about Tesla’s effort: “There are many ways to fake a robotaxi service.”
Musk badly needs a win with self-driving, and he saw an opportunity to get one by getting his gullible fanbase of Tesla shareholders excited about a glimpse at its long-promised future full of “Tesla robotaxis.”
As he previously stated, he knows full well that the way Tesla is doing this is not more scalable than Waymo even if the hardware cost per vehicle is lower. The hardware cost is negligible compared to teleoperation, development, insurance, and other expenses.
Even with all the smoke and mirrors involved with this project, it’s becoming clear that Tesla is not even ready for it.
Now, the question is whether Musk lets the June deadline slip and takes another ‘L’ on self-driving, or if he pushes for Tesla to launch the potentially dangerous service with lots of limitations.
With the federal government in complete shambles and the Texas government being too close to Musk and Tesla, I wouldn’t count on the regulators to act here. Although they probably should.
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