Farzad: "I don't see how Waymo survives into next year" + Grok Bot "made me want to tear my hair out"

The @robotaxi account posted "Robotaxi available in San Antonio starting tomorrow, 5am" and, later, "Bigger Austin service area now live." Farzad quoted the Austin post: "I don't see how Waymo survives into next year." That's his projection. He sent detailed Grok Bot feedback Sunday, and that evening Elon said fixes were being implemented overnight.

"Robotaxi available in San Antonio"

The @robotaxi account, Monday at 12:27am CST:

Robotaxi available in San Antonio starting tomorrow, 5am

That's the full text, plus a map labeled "Launch geofence." The post went up just after midnight CST on Monday, and service opened that same morning: Monday, November 9, 2026, at 5am local time. A rider posted at 7:05am CST about taking first rides "right as the service started at 5am," and TechCrunch and Not a Tesla App also report a Monday start. About 35 minutes after the @robotaxi post, Sawyer Merritt wrote of "today's launch."

Farzad liked the @robotaxi post and RTd it at 6:11am CST Monday without comment. At pull time it had 7,935 likes, 352 replies and about 527,000 impressions.

Sawyer's 1:02am CST Monday post, which Farzad liked:

With today's launch of @Tesla's Robotaxi service in San Antonio, Texas, its unsupervised Robotaxi geofences now cover a combined 4.2 million people, or 1.2% of the entire U.S. population, across 8 cities, up from 1.0% last week.

Those are Sawyer's numbers, and Tesla hasn't published a population tally. His post doesn't name the eight cities. Apart from the Bay Area, where TechCrunch says a human drives, the official @robotaxi account has announced service in eight: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Worth and San Antonio. Not a Tesla App also reports about 4.2 million people across eight unsupervised cities. Against the Census Bureau's July 2025 estimate of about 341.8 million Americans, 4.2 million is about 1.2%. His attached image is a photo of a Cybercab, not a breakdown. His post had 1,727 likes at pull time.

James Cat (TSLAFanMtl) quoted the @robotaxi post at 6:21am CST Monday:

2nd largest city in the state of Texas, ahead of Dallas.

Tesla now operating in the top 5 cities in the state.

$TSLA

Farzad liked it. James Cat's ranking matches Census Bureau city estimates for July 1, 2025: San Antonio had 1,548,422 people, second to Houston and ahead of Dallas at 1,329,491. The top five were Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, and the official @robotaxi account has announced service in all five. These are city-limit figures; metro rankings differ.

Check @robotaxi here. Farzad's RT here. Sawyer here. James Cat here.

"I don't see how Waymo survives into next year"

At 5:00am CST Monday, the @robotaxi account posted:

Bigger Austin service area now live

That's all the text says. The attached map shows the old and new geofences, with new area east toward Manor, southeast past the airport, and to the west and southwest. Tesla doesn't give a size. RobotaxiRadar, a tracking account, estimates the area at about 442 square miles, up about 170. That's its measurement, not a Tesla figure. Farzad liked it. At pull time it had 4,557 likes, 198 replies and about 183,000 impressions.

Farzad quoted it at 6:21am CST:

I don't see how Waymo survives into next year.

That's his projection, and that one line is the whole post. He doesn't give reasons, numbers or a date beyond "next year," and nothing in this pull includes Waymo data. He attached it to the Austin post, not San Antonio. At pull time it had 587 likes, 38 replies and 12,089 impressions, the most likes on any of his own posts in this pull.

On Saturday he said he'd seen Cybercabs as far north as Leander, and that he "Wouldn't be surprised if Austin gets a MASSIVE expansion with v15." Monday's post doesn't mention v15, Leander or Cybercab. The new map grows east, south and west, and its north edge doesn't reach Cedar Park or Leander. Whether a bigger expansion comes with v15 is still his forecast.

Check @robotaxi on Austin here. Farzad here.

"Please reply with feedback"

Yesterday's Digest covered Farzad's Saturday 9:59pm CST post about spending "WAY more time working through changes" in Grok Bot. It also covered Elon's Sunday 7:17am CST post saying fixes were underway.

Matt Palmer (mattyp) quoted that Elon post at 10:58am CST Sunday:

Improvements to token efficiency & behavior in Grok Bot are underway

Many of you have built important workflows on @bot - we want to keep supporting you

Please reply with feedback on this post. I will read it all

Thank you sincerely for your support

Farzad liked it and RTd it at 12:48pm CST. By pull time it had 2,872 replies. Seven minutes after his RT, at 12:56pm CST, Farzad replied:

Token usage is WAY faster than before.

Have to restate conditions constantly, and even when I explicitly define a process it will sometimes ignore steps or create its own.

Will fail to finish out multi-step processes unless it's insanely well defined. It used to be way better at intuitively understanding that it needed to execute long running jobs.

It will forget conditions around which machine it should run sessions on or save to - for example there's many jobs where I want sessions for Claude to run on the local machines or save files on those local machines but it will instead save it on its own cloud computer.

These are the biggest ones from the last couple days. These were not an issue prior.

That's his experience. He lists symptoms and doesn't name a cause, so the reply doesn't establish what changed behind the product. It goes further than Saturday's post, which said things he'd already set up still worked but changes took WAY more time.

Matt answered at 1:19pm CST: "Thank you for your continued support, we will improve". Farzad liked that and replied "<3" at 1:59pm CST. His feedback reply had 286 likes and 7 replies at pull time.

Check Matt Palmer here. Farzad's RT here. Farzad's feedback here. Matt's answer here. Farzad's "<3" here.

"A dramatic improvement by tomorrow"

Elon, Sunday at 8:25pm CST:

Just did a round table review with the Grok @Bot engineering team.

Fixes are being implemented overnight and you should notice a dramatic improvement by tomorrow. If not, reply to this post and we will address any remaining issues right away.

That's Elon's promise. He doesn't say what the fixes are or what went wrong. "Dramatic improvement" is a forecast. This pull ends Monday at 8:44am CST, and it has no post from Farzad saying whether things got better.

Farzad replied at 9:26pm CST: "Thanks so much!" Two seconds later he RTd the post, and he liked it too. His reply had 201 likes. At pull time Elon's post had 49,501 likes, 7,117 replies and about 4.63 million impressions.

Check Elon here. Farzad's reply here. Farzad's RT here.

"Made me want to tear my hair out"

Marco d'Amore (mdamore9) quoted Elon's post at 8:50pm CST Sunday:

We hear all your feedback, especially on usage limits and model routing and will be improving things overnight. Over the coming weeks many improvements to the harness and routines will further enable you to get much more out of each subscription. @bot team is dedicated to bringing you the very best product in a way that is also sustainable - it's on us to make that possible

Marco names usage limits and model routing as the feedback he's heard. He says things will improve overnight and that harness and routine work will follow "over the coming weeks." He doesn't say what will change. Hearing feedback about routing isn't the same as confirming a routing change, and he doesn't say which models Grok Bot uses. Farzad liked it. At pull time it had 1,851 likes and 236 replies.

Farzad quoted it at 10:31pm CST:

Love seeing this.

Grok Bot has been truly incredible and the last couple days has made me want to tear my hair out.

What's SUPER interesting is that I've had this same exact experience with every other model company.

I think once SpaceX gets Grok Bot fully figured out and scalable, it's going to dominate agentic workflows, especially for small businesses.

In one sentence, he calls Grok Bot "truly incredible" and says the last couple days made him want to tear his hair out. Both are his own experience. The "every other model company" line is his comparison, and he doesn't name the companies. "Dominate agentic workflows, especially for small businesses" is his projection. It depends on the product first being "fully figured out and scalable," and he gives no timeline. The post had 267 likes, 17 replies and 15,445 impressions at pull time.

Marco replied at 10:35pm CST: "We are determined to get this right". Farzad liked it.

Kiara (kiaraplds) posted Monday at 5:40am CST:

We hear you! We're always working to improve @bot , and your feedback matters a lot. We are rolling out changes, and you should see improvements right away. Thanks for using Grok Bot and for sharing your thoughts. Keep them coming; our team is listening 🚀

Farzad liked it. Kiara's post doesn't say what the changes are either. "Improvements right away" is Kiara's expectation, not a measured result. It had 702 likes and 158 replies at pull time.

Check Marco here. Farzad here. Marco's reply here. Kiara here.

"I'm in my churn era"

Theo (theo), Sunday at 9:41pm CST:

I'm in my churn era.

Charging me too much? I'll slop up a replacement.

Bad MCP server? I'm sure Claude can make a better one.

Slow to respond? Claude isn't.

Missing important features? You know what's a prompt away...

Seriously, if you aren't keeping up with the needs of your fastest moving customers, you are going to be replaced.

Farzad liked it and RTd it at 11:14pm CST, 42 minutes after his "tear my hair out" post. He added nothing. That's Theo's opinion. He doesn't name Grok Bot or any vendor he's leaving, and the tool he names is Claude. Farzad's RT doesn't say how he reads it. Set next to his Grok Bot posts from that evening, Theo's last line works as a counterpoint for any vendor that doesn't keep up with its fastest-moving customers. That reading is this Digest's, not Theo's or Farzad's. At pull time Theo's post had 2,334 likes, 281 bookmarks and 102,700 impressions.

Check Theo here. Farzad's RT here.

"A blank slate mentally every 3-6 months"

Dave Lee, Sunday at 1:36pm CST:

I agree that it's helpful to have a blank slate mentally every 3-6 months when you're trying out the latest AI models. Things are progressing so fast that what was impossible to do 6 months ago might be not just possible but easy to do.

Farzad liked it. Dave was quoting a 12:50pm CST post from Aaron Levie (levie). It opens: "A good lesson in AI is that you need to check back in on the latest with every 3 to 6 months to try something that wasn't possible before and see if it works again. At no point in AI's history is that more true than today." The full post goes on to argue that models can now use existing software and tools, which he says gives agents leverage. Both posts are opinions. Dave's had 88 likes at pull time.

Check Dave Lee here. levie here.

"How SpaceX Becomes the Most Profitable Company Ever"

Farzad posted a video with that title Monday at 7:42am CST. This Digest checks the title only, not the video's claims, and doesn't quote the narration as his words. A second later he replied "Made with my Grok Bot Solo:" with a link to the bot. The link preview calls it "Solo · Long-form video maker by Farzad" and describes it as "One bot that takes a YouTube long-form topic from research to a finished video link for review, with no helper bots." At pull time the video post had 102 likes, 40 bookmarks and 5,159 impressions.

On Sunday, under his "Why Elon Says We're About to Run Out of Internet" video, he described how Solo is built. At 8:50am CST, PalantirMafia asked:

Your videos are making great improvements

Do you just use Solo or use other tools also?

Farzad, at 10:35am CST:

Solo is hooked up to Gemini for the script, elevenlabs for the voice, and opus for the animations.

That's his description of his own setup. Earlier in the same thread, at 9:36am CST, Novahyphenz asked, "Was this all made by AI? Or you voiced over?" At 10:32am CST Farzad answered: "All AI."

Check the video here. The Solo reply here. PalantirMafia here. Farzad's Solo reply to PalantirMafia here. Novahyphenz here. Farzad's "All AI." here.