They barely hit the streets of Austin this summer (and still aren’t free of human attendants), but there’s apparently been enough activity in Tesla Robotaxis that reports exist about the cost of making messes in them, from puke to spilled coffee to vape stink. While the fees don’t seem overly stringent on the face of it, there’s enough vagueness in these policies that you may want to second-guess bringing anything that might spill in one of these vehicles.
According to InsideEVs and @sawyermerrit on X, Tesla can charge a rider $150 for what, according to Merritt, the company considers “severe messes, such as biowaste or smoking in the vehicle” that’s currently available only in parts of Austin. Lesser offenses like “food spills, significant dirt and minor stains” result in a $50 fine.
Those charges aren’t on Tesla’s page about Robotaxi Rider Rules other than being charged an “additional fee” at “Tesla’s discretion.” Merritt, however, says Tesla will assess any additional cleaning required after a rider’s trip and then add a fee it determines appropriate through the user’s app.
Users who are charged can reportedly contest their fees by calling a customer support number.
In terms of fairness, the closest comparison is Waymo, a service that has far more vehicles on the road, all of which can operate without a human on board—which potentially means more of a feeling of privacy and the resulting lax attitude toward cleanliness. Waymo charges $50 if the rider remembers to “self-report their mess during their ride.” However, an unreported, uh, incident in a Waymo can result in a fine of up to $100 from the company for the first violation and, “up to the cost of cleaning and your account standing may also be impacted,” on second violations.
And Waymo puts smoking or vaping in a separate violation category. Waymo issues a $100 fine for the first offense and, like Tesla, reserves the right to charge for a cleaning and put your account’s standing into question if there are any subsequent smoking-related offenses. For better or worse for riders, though, apart from smoking, Waymo doesn’t parse the concept of “mess” into categories as much as Tesla.
Uber, which has launched a limited, human-supervised self-driving taxi in Dallas ahead of an autonomous version planned for 2026, also does not explicitly specify the terms of its Robotaxi damage fines in its code of conduct or payment terms. The Uber information page for riders of the non-self-driving service simply states that on all trips, “riders are responsible for damage to the interior or exterior of a vehicle caused by incidents such as vomiting or food spills,” with fees handed over to the driver in full.
Zoox, for its part, is very new, operating in Las Vegas with a waitlist forming in San Francisco. For now, it doesn’t specify how much it can charge a user, but it may charge you not only if a mess was left by you or your group, but also if another rider reports an earlier mess, and you failed to. The company says it, “may determine in our sole discretion that you or your guests caused the damage.”
Should you choose to drive yourself around in a rented car, these charges are still better than the $400 smoking fine at Hertz and on par with the $150 fine Turo imposes for fluid spills or pet hair, for example.
All of these cost comparisons are important because these so-called robotaxis gaining momentum in 2026 will continue to be promoted by their respective operators as autonomous even though they require various levels of human intervention, including at times paying gig workers to close stuck doors. And Tesla’s own vision of self-cleaning car interiors from a 2023 patent still exists primarily on paper.
That still leaves humans to pick up after you, your pet or your drunk friend.
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