Yesterday, I rode in my first Tesla Robotaxi.

Not a demo. Not a test track. A real, fully autonomous ride across Austin, Texas.

I hailed it using Tesla’s Robotaxi app the same way you’d order an Uber.

Download the app, enter your name and credit card, choose a destination, and wait.

Within five minutes a Tesla Model Y arrived.

No spinning lidar dome on the roof. No obvious sensors sticking off the sides.

Just a normal-looking Tesla with “Robotaxi” scribbled on both sides.

I hopped in and headed across Austin for a quick 10-minute ride.

My vehicle did have a safety driver sitting in the front passenger seat.

Tesla is still early in its rollout, so some rides include a human supervisor.

But the car itself handled all the driving. The safety driver didn’t even have controls on his side.

And I have to admit, I was impressed.

The ride was incredibly smooth.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying it was smoother than the autonomous rides I’ve taken with Waymo.

Waymos have a reputation for being a bit jerky.

Sudden stops. Quick accelerations. Sharp lane changes.

You can often feel the system constantly recalculating.

This Tesla ride felt calmer and more human, which is exactly what autonomous driving should feel like.

“Fantastically boring” is the best way to describe the ride.

No drama. No weird behavior. Just a car quietly driving you from point A to point B while you sit there.

At one point during the trip we pulled up alongside a Waymo.

The difference between the two approaches was immediately obvious.

Waymo cars are covered in visible technology. Cameras, lidar units, radar sensors. Hardware sticking out in every direction so the car can map the world around it.

Tesla’s approach is the opposite.

Robotaxis look like a normal car because they are one.

Tesla relies almost entirely on cameras that blend into the vehicle design.

No giant rooftop sensors. No spinning lasers.

Just software interpreting the world through vision.

And based on my ride, that software is getting very good.

For years, Tesla insisted its camera-only approach could eventually compete with the lidar-heavy systems used by companies like Waymo.

Many skeptics doubted that would work.

To be fair, I’ll reserve full judgment on the technology until I see how it performs in less-than-perfect conditions.

A sunny 80-degree afternoon in Austin is about as easy as driving gets.

But based on the experience alone, Tesla now offers the best autonomous ride I’ve personally taken.

Of course, being impressed with the product doesn’t mean I’m buying the stock.

Tesla is currently valued around $1.5 trillion.

That’s an extraordinary number for a company that, at the moment, is still primarily an automaker whose core business is in decline.

Even the most optimistic Robotaxi scenario struggles to justify that price tag.

That’s why I still prefer other ways to invest in the autonomous vehicle trend.

1. Alphabet (GOOG) owns Waymo, which already operates one of the largest commercial robotaxi fleets in the world.

2. Uber Technologies (UBER) could become the distribution layer for autonomous transportation, connecting riders with fleets of self-driving vehicles regardless of who builds them.

And then there’s a lesser-known dark horse.

3. Nebius (NBIS) owns Avride, another autonomous driving company already operating vehicles on the streets of Austin.

Unlike Tesla, Avride receives almost no investor attention inside Nebius.

It doesn’t carry a massive valuation premium. Most investors barely know it exists.

Which makes it one of the more interesting asymmetric bets in the space.

But when I glanced at the suggested tip amounts?

Well… see the screenshot below.

It’s Elon’s world.

I’m just riding in it.