Okay, that headline is sort of a trick question. I think I know why exactly why Tesla is sticking its safety drivers in the passenger’s seat, where a driving instructor might sit: Theater. Pure theater — no other reason. Well, I suppose we can say marketing, which is really just a sort of directed theater, but basically the same thing. The overall goal is to give make it appear that Tesla Robotaxis are happily driving themselves, free from the judgy hands of some moist human, but that’s not entirely true.
I’m not the only one noticing this, of course. There’s other articles making note of this as well, and it’s worth pointing out that there’s no shame in having a safety driver in an automated vehicle, especially in an early test period like this; pretty much every major robotaxi company started this way, like Waymo did until October of 2020. In fact, while driving a beat-to-hell taxi across country just the other day, I saw Zoox automated vehicles driving around Las Vegas, with people monitoring and supervising from the driver’s seat.
When Waymo launches its robotaxi service in New York, which it is currently planning to do, it will launch with safety drivers even though Waymo has demonstrated the ability to go without them – but New York is a new city for Waymo, and it just makes sense to have a human monitoring things for at least the early part of a rollout into a new city, especially one with as unique a traffic situation (pedestrian-focused, dense, complex) as New York. We’ve known Tesla Robotaxis would be supervisors for a while; that’s not been hidden, though the details we now have are interesting.
For whatever reason, Tesla didn’t want to deal with the optics of a human in that driver’s seat. They’re not the only automated vehicle company to do this – the Russian company Yandex did this (now AVRide) back in 2020, but only after having a period of safety drivers in the driver’s seat.
There’s no question that a safety driver’s job is harder if they’re in the passenger’s seat. Have you ever tried to drive from the passenger’s seat? It’s not great. I did it once when I was 17 or so, trying to teach a girlfriend how to drive stick on my old Super Beetle, and she just kind of quit, mid-road, so I had to grab the wheel and shift between my legs – honestly, I was pretty proud of myself for getting the car to a safe place to pull over.
But there’s also no question it’s a less safe way to handle a car than actually being in the seat in front of the controls, so why do it that way? Maybe it’s because the hype around Tesla’s Robotaxi service is so absurdly high, the company felt it had no choice but to make it clear that a human is not driving the car.
I mean, look at the kind of stuff they have to deal with from their fans, which tend to be, um, wildly enthusiastic, to levels like what we see in posts like this one:
what a ridiculous moment this is. this image might be in textbooks at some point.
“tesla launches robotaxi” doesn’t even begin to do any justice in any meaningful way.
kinda just the beginning of post driving civilization. second only to space because it basically rewrites… pic.twitter.com/82WLia85b2
— signüll (@signulll) June 22, 2025
Jeezis, dude, calm down. Check out this quote:
“kinda just the beginning of post driving civilization. second only to space because it basically rewrites daily life on earth, commuting, cities, car ownership, jobs, time, autonomy. the ripple effects are fucking civilizational.”
…I’m not sure there’s enough lubricant in the world to make possible all the eye-rolling this kind of delirious hyperbole demands. I can appreciate the enthusiasm, but join a real cult — you’ll be happier!
So, with unhinged hype like this floating around, you can see why Tesla may have felt pressure to make it clear that safety driver is not actually driving the car. And putting them in the passenger seat instead of the driver’s seat absolutely accomplishes this.
I understand why, for marketing reasons, this move made sense for Tesla. But this also means that for all their crowing about safety, this move pretty clearly shows that safety is not their biggest concern.
Here’s some pictures of a Tesla Robotaxi interior with the safety driver, so you can see the actual setup:
This reaction from @waymo is interesting. We'll wait and see supervisor on passenger seat becomes safety standard of self-driving tech in the U.S or here in S.Korea.
Seoul is currently operating mid-night self-driving taxi which has a steering and pedal. Supervisor for safety… https://t.co/VPOdV8AjxA— Jaehwan Cho 조재환 (@hohocho) June 23, 2025
Also, in case you weren’t clear, Fred Lambert there was being sarcastic, and the re-poster doesn’t seem to have gotten the joke. Waymo has been operating without safety drivers for about five years; they’re not “shook” and they’re not considering adding supervisors in the passenger seat.
Those pictures also call out how the safety driver seems to be keeping their hands on the door release, which appears to be acting as an emergency stop control. You can also see from the layout how difficult it would be for the safety driver to get over to the driver’s seat if they really needed to take over. They can likely grab the wheel, but there’s no quick way to get to the pedals, if needed.
Others have noticed the safety driver’s hand on the door handle, which, again, may be an emergency stop control. Here’s a video of another Robotaxi ride from a very enthusiastic YouTuber who also notes the safety driver’s hand position, among other things, as he shows the whole process in detail:
That YouTuber, Out Of Spec Reviews, also notes they’re a regular and happy user of FSD itself.
And while Tesla’s FSD (which forms the basis for the software the Robotaxis use) is quite impressive, especially for a camera-only system, it’s hardly flawless, making errors of varying degrees of severity that require human intervention on a pretty regular basis.
In fact, since Tesla launched Robotaxi service in Austin less than a week ago, there have been enough incidents that the National Highway Transit Safety Administration (NHTSA) has taken notice and is looking into the issues. People are even recording lists of incidents already, too.
In fact, here’s one incident, captured on video, where the Robotaxi starts to make a turn in an intersection, then changes its silicon mind for some unclear reason, and drives for a bit into oncoming traffic, crossing the double yellow line:
The safety driver just let the situation play out, perhaps because there was thankfully little traffic on the road, and no immediate and especially dire danger. But this is clearly not safe driving.
There’s another report of an incident where the safety driver had to exit the car and get into the driver’s seat to extract the Robotaxi from the situation – it’s not shown in the video, just noted in this tweet and its responses:
Super tight squeeze for robotaxi in one of my last drives ????
The owner of the parked car asked if it was my car and I told him it was a robotaxi. The robotaxi backed up and then the driver of the parked car left. It looked like the tire touched the parked car. The safety driver… pic.twitter.com/DzNuAQk6Su
— Dirty Tesla (@DirtyTesLa) June 25, 2025
All of this is complicated because the safety drivers are not in a good position to take control of the car when needed, and it’s just for optics. David, my co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Autopian, thinks it makes sense from a marketing perspective, and while he’s not necessarily wrong, that doesn’t mean it’s not a bad idea.
Most people know that the person in the passenger seat is a Tesla employee. They probably even know they’re there to supervise the car’s driving. But by keeping them out of the driver’s seat, the spot where they can most effectively perform their job, Tesla is prioritizing appearances over safety, and deliberately confusing the level of capability their Robotaxis have.
Now, we make all kinds of sacrifices of safety in cars to get other things we want; off-road cars with high ground clearance handle worse, extremely fast cars can introduce all kinds of safety issues, small cars are more vulnerable in wrecks, and, of course, motorcycles exist. But in each of these cases we understand why we have sacrificed some bit of safety, which is because we want something else: to go rock climbing or drive fast or save on gas or whatever.
But in the case of sticking the safety driver in the passenger seat, all that is gained is that Tesla is making their cars appear more capable than they actually are, at potentially some cost of safety. It feels deceptive and shallow to me, and I sincerely hope both that no one is actually fooled, and that there are never any incidents where a safety driver must really get control of that wheel or pedals quickly, because that’s not happening with this current set up.
This feels silly. I hope they just move the damn safety driver into the correct seat.
Tesla gonna Tesla ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This sounds like the Tesla we all know. “Hey, your new supervisor is this car. Work harder and it probably won’t run you down!”
They have RHD cars, would it really have been that difficult to use those for this purpose? Still gives the illusion of ‘no driver’ to passers-by, but the ‘Supervisor’ can actually do something if needed. Or, they could even have whipped up some dual-control ones.
This whole stunt is just so damned lazy. I wish we could go back to a world where obvious stunts to manipulate shareholder value were illegal.
Tesla stopped producing RHD cars and told customers in RHD countries to just deal with it. For a bit, there were videos of folks using grabber claws to reach across the car to scan into parking garages and things.
Only the S and X. 3 and Y are still available – at least, according to the internet. They’re made in China though. Not that they couldn’t ship a few modules to the US to put in ones they make here.
Shoot, I guess I should have looked it up. I just remembered a bunch of Reddit posts and things when they decided to drop RHD, and never looked into the whole thing.
If FSD is that great have some balls and put the safety driver in the back seat.
I somehow doubt Musk will get in any real trouble with NHTSA no matter how bad this goes.
Let’s crank this shit up even further to ELEVEN. SAFETY DRIVER IN THE FRUNK BABY.
I suspect two scenarios about the ‘safety drivers’ sitting there. One, they are stoned off of their ass, and two, they are stoned off their ass and think they are going to visit Adrion in England to hear him bitch about bad car design.
They’re really on ketamine
This could be a case of malicious compliance.
Maybe a rule exist that a driver has to be present unless certain criteria is met, but nowhere is stated that this driver has to be able to drive…
Reminds me of taking Driver’s Ed in ’73 with European Civ teacher and basketball coach Mr. Curry (father of WNBA star Leigh Ann Curry) in the right seat of a Toyota Corolla with a second brake pedal on his side. My classmate was taking his turn at the helm, and I was in back seat when someone blew a stop sign in front of us. They both nailed the brake pedal pretty much simultaneously, perhaps bending them. No harm, no foul.
I had some wild taxi rides in Russia in the mid and late 80s. And one in Boston, in the mid-90s, unsurprisingly piloted by a Russian immigrant. Those guys were nuts. Maybe still are.
I feel pretty safe in Lyft/Uber cars these days. And I will be happy to pay someone to take me somewhere rather than go through alpha and beta software on this stuff and save a dollar or two and fatten the wallet of someone whose wallet is already ridiculously fat.
I like to imagine the safety passenger opening their door to activate whatever kill switch is in the handle. Then they climb out to circle over to the driver door, but out of habit they close the door behind them. The car, sensing all doors are closed, reasons that the issue causing the killswitch must have cleared, so it drives off, leaving the safety passenger running desperately behind.
You had a girlfriend when you were 17?
Just a codriver for the machine…
“100 yards into slight left, into baby stroller, right seven, don’t cut, into square left, ignore red light because sun is in your eyes, through pedestrians, GPS signal weak, issuing NDAs and waivers, left three, into fire hydrant…”
…open door, discharge passenger. “Trip successful, Mission Accomplished, obtain next task.” Offer free Tesla-embroidered swag towel to hydrant-drenched passenger.
Jason, you could have made a much more crass lubricant joke referring to these rabid Tesla fans. I admire your restraint.
They aren’t “Safety Drivers” they are “Supervisors” so that Tesla can claim they launched w/o safety drivers, so no you won’t see them in the driver’s seat as a standard practice.
I think that’s it. Also, since they can really drive per se, aren’t these really safety passengers?
Since it seems they can’t do any driving from the passenger seat — I don’t see a laptop or even a game console controller — their main function must be to remove the traffic cones people will put on the hoods to mess up the cameras.
I’ve been in marketing for nearly ten years now, and in theory you could say it’s good marketing. It certainly states that they are very confident in their product…
but no major company should touch that liability with a 20 foot pole. I know there’s exceptions (probably a lot), but most large, reputable businesses want to avoid any possible misrepresentation of their product. When I worked at an ad agency, clients always gave us a huge list of things you could and couldn’t say about them or their product, specifically to avoid misrepresentation. They are very careful when it comes to making big, sweeping claims. It’s a huge deal in healthcare. They still fuck it up, of course, but there usually are standards.
I mean this is Tesla so it’s all irrelevant, and I’m sure nothing much will change, unless there’s some horrible, well-publicized accident. But from a marketing standpoint…well, I guess we’ll have to see if there’s any lawsuits.
I sincerely hope one day we have a functioning US government again that will squash this and the entirety of Tesla they way they should have been a long time ago. I swear I get closer to the line every day of becoming crazy and putting all my time and effort to offing people like Mr. Musk.
Musk is becoming crazier faster. Bladder-busting amounts of ketamine will do that. He’s been at the “Dearborn Independent” phase of billionaire decline for a couple years now and seems to be speedrunning to the “Kleenex-box slippers” end stage.
One can only hope he puts himself in a Ketamine grave soon
Yikes. When you’re making Tesla superfans look normal and well-adjusted, might be time to log-off.
Maybe the driver wants to feel JDM and shit LOL
or maybe the driver wants to feel proper and have some tea or go to the pub LOL IDK
…the medallion, radio car, and ride share drivers will set them on fire. Probably.
They’re Jaguars whose electrical systems have been hacked seven ways to Sunday to load up all the sensor and computing gear designed by people who are mainly from software backgrounds. It’s surprising more of them don’t spontaneously catch fire more often.
Why not just put a side stick on the door or the center console, and some pedals on the floor?
The current arrangement is literally the least Tesla could do while still having a safety driver.
Whoa, whoa, hold on…
Are you saying that Musk has chosen the appearance of progress, marketing, and hype over safety, and what’s actually best for people?
Absurd! I refuse to believe it.
/s
I hope you’re collecting royalties from them using your butt cheek controller.
A coworker who once worked as a contractor in Tesla’s Cali plant told me an interesting anecdote:
When he took the required safety course before being allowed to work, there was a multiple choice quiz. One question asked what the official safety motto is. Among the choices were:
a. Safety is our top priority.
b. We integrate safety into everything we do.
The correct answer was “b”, which is pretty much saying the quiet part out loud.
Huh, I recently watched a YouTube video somewhere where someone was talking about OSHA and then very deliberately said something like your b. which made me think it might be part of the official OSHA language or something. Your take is kinda the opposite.
Taken by itself, statement b isn’t so bad. It’s the juxtaposition to statement a that makes it suspect. The implication is that the wellbeing of their employees takes a back seat (or passenger seat in this case) to profit and productivity. A very 19th century attitude.
Although, my experience with OSHA is that they don’t care much about worker safety, either, at least not until after someone gets hurt. And they certainly don’t take it as seriously as their European counterparts.
Kinda hope that’s a Deadman switch.
Maybe it can’t prevent finding a firetruck at 80mph, but maybe it can prevent the “safety driver” from cruising town as ghost rider in his flaming tesla.
I’m a terrible front seat passenger on the best of days. I’m always looking for that phantom brake pedal.
This just gives me the heebie jeebies.
So true. There’s not a lot of people I trust enough to entirely relax while they’re driving.
You would feel even more stressed out if you saw a Waymo in person and the amount of technology is slathered on that car- sensors, lidar, external signage telling pedestrians and drivers the state of the vehicle- and then look at the fact that Tesla is trying to do this without ANY of that. The Waymos are shockingly competent in their limited way. Tesla is so far off, that I don’t see them catching up if this is the approach they are taking.
It is indeed deceptive and scummy. However, I expect nothing less from Musky. He made a choice to use cameras only and basically bet the entire company on it. It was clearly an error and now he has to find some way through. Given his Ends Justify the Means attitude about pretty much anything and you have the current willful ignorance of safety.
The solution to this is obviously a bench seat, then they can just slide over.
Bench seats are the best!
And vinyl seats. So they can slide over on a hard right turn.
Stick shifts and safety belts, bucket seats have all got to go.
Yeah, there’s no shifter, so no reason not to have a front bench seat 😀
Jason I am surprised that you missed the most important aspect of the article. In a car which requires and has no drivers why not install that SAF crazy Y steering wheel? I mean you know they have thousands in Inventory, they were useless why not install them when no drivers will be thrown off by the. And tbh I thought the safety driver was using a game console controller until I got a close up