A new chapter in Tesla’s story is set to begin in a few days as the automaker pivots away from its core passenger vehicle business towards self-driving taxis and artificial intelligence.
After years of promises, Tesla will begin its driverless ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, on June 12, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday citing a person familiar with the matter. We knew that self-driving Tesla taxis were coming to Austin in June, but this is the first time that a publication has reported a final date on when that actually might happen.
CEO Elon Musk previously said that Tesla would begin its robotaxi service with only about 10 Model Ys ferrying passengers around the “safest areas of Austin” in the beginning, followed by a cautious and gradual increase in the number of deployed vehicles. The service won’t immediately be available to the public, but instead be offered to an “invite-only” group of riders.
Photo by: Tesla
However, Musk reiterated in an interview with CNBC recently that Tesla plans to scale to thousands of robotaxis “within a few months” and then expand to other cities depending on how fast the permits are granted. It’s worth noting that Musk has himself previously acknowledged that he tends to be overly optimistic with timelines and targets.
The State of Texas has relatively simple rules around autonomous vehicles. The rules state that “AVs must adhere to the same regulations as cars in which a driver is present (e.g., insurance, registration). State law also requires AVs to comply with all traffic laws.” Austin has formed a task force to collect information about incidents and communicate with AV operators.
As of the time of publication, the city of Austin has not listed Tesla as an AV operator.
In the initial phase of the rollout, Tesla is expected to employ remote human operators. The automaker has been hiring “teleoperations” specialists who can intervene remotely, sitting thousands of miles away in California, if the vehicle encounters complex traffic situations. We’ll see how effective this approach will be, especially after the company scales up.
Tesla will also compete with Waymo, which recently began its robotaxi service in Austin with Jaguar I-Pace EVs and is now clocking over 250,000 driverless rides per week across four U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles. Tesla, however, says that it can scale up faster than its rivals because it already has millions of cars on the road equipped with the Full-Self Driving (FSD) software.
However, the true safety of Tesla’s camera- and AI-based system is yet to be proven on a large scale as FSD’s safety data isn’t publicly available yet. And Tesla’s advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) have been linked to hundreds of crashes and multiple fatalities.
Have a tip? Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
insideevs.com
#Teslas #Robotaxi #Service #Coming #Austin #June #Report
