From Joe Tegtmeyer.
Gigafactory Texas! This is where Model Y’s, and Cyber Truck production happens and in 2026, the Next Generation Car(s), Cybercab & the Optimus Robot!
Rare Thursday flight today for two main reasons. First, a massive winter storm is about to come through a big part of the United States and Texas is expected to get extremely low temperatures, freezing rain and ice and possibly snow, so I decided to fly today while the conditions were still very good. Second, I was able to be one of the first to take an Un-Supervised Tesla Robotaxi as today was the start of this new part of the service for the public!
Timestamps:
Drone flight overview with discussion & illustration: 0:06 to 3:32
Drone flight footage & infographics: 3:54 to 33:10
In the video introduction, I talk about the major milestone day for Tesla as public rides in Robotaxi’s that are unsupervised, meaning no driver, safety monitor or any other human input to the vehicle and the entire ride is conducted autonomously!
Back on 22 June 2025, Tesla rolled out the new Robotaxi Service in a relatively small service area in Austin, Texas and about a dozen people (me included) got the opportunity to try out this new service firsthand!
In the ensuing months, the service area has expanded, the ability to hail rides expanded to the entire public and some vehicles have been added to the fleet. However, the most important milestone has always been when could Tesla roll out unsupervised rides. This is the key to scaling the service to many more states, cities and eventually, world-wide.
Today. 22 January 2026, is that day. Initially, a portion of the fleet will be unsupervised while Tesla uses Chase cars to ensure safety and collect additional data. Over the next few weeks, the unsupervised fleet will grow, the chase cars will be no longer needed, and the service will scale much faster than it has in the first 7 months of the program.
I am glad to be able to share this experience with you as one of the very first to get this opportunity!
As Telsa has said, the future arrives slowly at first, then all at once. It’s is a truly exciting time to be alive!
A few items of interest around Giga Texas today includes big changes at Cortex 2 including the assembly of a massive Sarens crane, 38 Megapacks now delivered on site, more screw piers being installed & chiller parts 1 & 2 making very fast progress.
Additionally, the chiller system fan housings were delivered on site at the south end of Megapack #2, along with more FRP beams and cooling pipe segments.
On the far northeast, I was able to identify the equipment and conveyor systems that are being set up. These are Lippmann crushing systems and will be used to breakup all the concrete debris in this area and perform cleanup ahead of what I believe to be another large future construction project that is about to begin.
Over on the far west side, I noticed a lot of dust rising just west of the outbound lot and it turned out there is another construction project about to begin. There was a huge tree mulcher at work clearing up all the old tree debris and other vegetation was removed, preparing the site for a likely extension of a roadway and possibly prepare the site for more construction.
Thank you for watching and I hope this has been informative, educational, and entertaining for you. If you would like, please consider supporting me via Patreon (link is in the description of this video and in the video itself) so I can continue to make and share these incredible videos.
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Be sure to check out additional Texas Gigafactory footage on these channels:
@Jeff Roberts
Video, photos, illustrations, and commentary on this video is by me, Joe Tegtmeyer unless otherwise annotated.
Music in this video is obtained from the YouTube free and unrestricted and royalty-free use library. Ending song is Mr. Sunny Face – Wayne Jones
Drones used are DJI Mini 2, Mavic Air 2 & Air 3.
Drone flight over Giga Texas is with permission of Tesla and CEO Elon Musk
