Pole Position: More Than 50 Cybercabs Work F1 Race Day In Austin, Undercutting Uber By 40 Percent

AUSTIN, Texas - Formula 1 brought more than 120,000 fans to Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, and a good number of them arrived in a car with no driver and no steering wheel.

By mid-afternoon, Central time, more than 50 Tesla Cybercabs had been spotted dropping passengers at the United States Grand Prix, according to Sawyer Merritt, who posted video of the gold two-seaters peeling off at the circuit. Tesla stretched its Robotaxi service area to take in the track a few days before the race, a move CyberCab.news reported on 23 October.

The harder test came after the chequered flag, when tens of thousands of people tried to leave a circuit on the far southeastern edge of the city at once. Cybercabs were back at the track picking riders up as the crowd headed home, with video from fan Ben Steindl showing the cars working the exit roads.

The price was the part that travelled fastest online. Fare screens shared by Cern Basher and compiled by Teslas.R.Us showed a Cybercab ride from the circuit back to downtown Austin quoted at $76.07, and a Robotaxi Model Y four minutes away at $78.33. On the same trip, Uber Comfort was quoting $126.98 with a 12-minute wait, and Uber Premier $127.99.

That works out to roughly $4 a mile for Tesla against about $6 a mile for Uber. Nic Cruz Patane, who posted his own side-by-side screenshots, put the Cybercab at about 40 percent cheaper, and that is before any tip on the Uber side.

Waymo, which also runs a driverless service in Austin, was not in the picture. Maps of the two service areas shared by Patane show Waymo's zone ending well short of the circuit, while Tesla's extends out to it.

Race weekend lands as Tesla's Texas fleet grows quickly. State records showed 970 Tesla robotaxis registered in Texas on Saturday, 463 of them Cybercabs, and Tesla's Austin service now runs until 1am, long enough to cover a Grand Prix night out.

Sightings and fare screenshots are a snapshot, not a full count, and Tesla has not said how many rides it gave over the weekend. Prices on every ride-hailing app also move with demand. But on the busiest day of Austin's sporting calendar, the cheapest way home from the track was a car that drove itself.