“Your Tesla car will earn you money.” Did you spot Elon Musk’s post on X, promising yet again that Teslas could supplement your income?

Perhaps you didn’t see it. You might be one of the 11 million former daily users in the EU that has deserted X in recent months. That figure was revealed in the company’s transparency report that the EU’s Digital Services Act compels it to publish.

But either way, hopefully you weren’t counting on that extra cash any time soon. Musk first floated the idea of robotaxis in 2019, promising that the driverless cabs were the future. He said a fleet of a million would be available by 2022. That hasn’t happened yet.

The Tesla chief has been promising full self-driving for his cars for almost a decade. In 2016, in Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux, the company said that once regulators had approved self-driving cars, owners of Teslas could add their vehicle to a shared fleet through the company’s app. From there, they could have it generate income while they’re at work or on holiday.

The idea might have appealed to some would-be owners, but it seems unlikely that it was the deciding factor in buying one of Musk’s electric cars. It’s a good thing too, because there are no fleets of unmanned Teslas roaming the streets in the US jostling with taxis, Ubers and Lyft cars. At least not yet.

The key phrase in the plan was “regulatory approval”. In case you are confused, Tesla does offer a service called “full self-driving”, but under current laws it requires human supervision.

On the scale of self-driving technology as measured by SAE – a standards firm – it is rated as level two rather than level four (operating in a limited geofenced area) or level five (fully autonomous).

Robotaxis may indeed be the future, with Tesla preparing for a pilot with Model 3 cars in Austin, Texas. But Musk is also the king of missed deadlines. The 2022 target he mentioned for robotaxis was pushed back by a year, and then again, before the Tesla Cybercab – an autonomous vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals – finally made its debut late last year.

Musk has said it will go into production before 2027, but given the experience of previous Tesla releases – including the Cybertruck, the Model 3 and the cheaper, mass-market EV that has now been scrapped – that may also shift again.

Despite Musk’s tough talk, the reality is that Tesla is starting from behind in the robotaxi space. Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, is already on the streets of San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix in the US and completes about 250,000 journeys a week. It plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami and Washington DC in the future.

The Waymo experience is actually not bad. I got a chance to try out the service on a trip to San Francisco, just after it was opened up to general users instead of a small test group. At the time, the idea of getting into a driverless car would give even the most ardent tech fan pause for thought.

The cars are completely unmanned these days, with the autonomous driving technology, called Waymo Driver, controlling the wheel and tapping into its millions of miles driven on public roads.

A driverless car certainly makes for a peculiar sight, but there is nothing ordinary about the Waymo cars. They stand out thanks to the multiple sensors and cameras.

Getting into a car with no driver certainly feels odd, particularly when it pulls away from the kerb, into traffic and starts making turns. As a passenger, all you are required to do is buckle up – it won’t move off until you do – and keep your hands to yourself.

Would I use it again? Absolutely. In the time we were in the car, it obeyed traffic signs, stopped for pedestrians and drove cautiously. It was the safest I’ve ever felt in a taxi in San Francisco.

Before the Waymo trip around San Francisco, I wasn’t keen on the idea of driverless taxis. It just seemed like a little too much trust in technology.

There are so many “what if” scenarios and questions. What happens if a child flies out in front of the car on a scooter? What if someone throws something at the vehicle? How does Waymo monitor the cars to make sure passengers behave themselves?

There are some advantages to driverless cars though. While the service is available 24/7, there are no drivers behind the wheel to get tired or distracted. There is no speeding or risky manoeuvres and there is no cash on board to steal. Cameras inside the car monitor the vehicles around the clock.

Before people start bemoaning the march of the machines into yet another area of our lives, it is unlikely that we will see an influx of robotaxis in Ireland any time soon.

The rules around autonomous cars on the roads in the EU versus the US are very different, with only a handful of EU countries offering level-three self-driving, which still requires a human paying attention behind the wheel.

If robotaxis do finally get the nod in Ireland, it is worth remembering that people don’t always want the tech option. Self-scan checkouts incite mutiny in some shoppers. The idea of having a drone deliver your takeaway on a Friday evening is an abomination to others.

It follows that some people will always prefer to see a human behind the wheel. Perhaps by then, though, the idea of sending your car off to make money while you stay at home will be a much more palatable option.