"hey have lots of Model Ys in Austin as Robotaxis right now with no drivers"

They do not. They have a very small number of them open to a select number of people, not the general public. And they are limited to even smaller areas. You need to understand that Musk is NOT an engineer, he is more of a con man desperate to inflate tesla stock price. If he says self driving cars don't need LIDAR then they must actually need it.

https://futurism.com/future-society/polymarket-fortune-betti...

Polymarket user David Bensoussan has made $36,000 by betting against Musk's wildly optimistic self driving predictions.

linking to grokipedia feels like intentional rage-baiting.