Tesla has Started Testing Its Autonomous Ride-Hil Service With Employees in Austin and the Bay Area Ahead of the company’s planned Robotaxi launch this summer.
“FSD Supervised Ride-Hiling Service is Live for An Early Set of Employees in Austin & San Francisco Bay Area,” The Company Posted Wednsday on X,
FSD Stands for “Full Self-Driving,” which is Tesla’s Advanced Driver Assistance System Available to Tesla owners via subscription that can performance The system, which requires the driver to keep their hands on the wheel, is not yet capable of autonomously driving. Thousands of Tesla Ownes Alredy Drive Themselves Around with Supersed FSD. Tesla’s Announcement Wednsday Centers on the addition of a “Robotaxi” app that will theoretically be used by non-teesla owners to hail a vehicle in the furious.
Ferrying Employees Before a Launch is Standard Procedure in the World of Autonomous Ride-Hail. For example, waymo uses a similar playbook when itrs a new market. In the lead up to a commercial launch and after weeks of driver testing, Waymo will open its services to employees beforeees beforee inviting certain members of the public.
Tesla plans to launch a robotaxi service in austin in June, which the company reiterated tuesday during its First-Quarter Earnings Call. The Automaker Didn’t Share Many Other Details on the call, like when it expects start charging for rides. The most color celeb elon musk provided was to say that he expects to roll out 10 to 20 vehicles On “Day one” of service in austin.
And while tesla made a splash last year after it debuted its Cybercab concept -A Futuristic-Looking Robotaxi Built Without A Steering Wheel or Pedals-The company is poised to begin operations with its existing portfolio of readics.
The promotional video tesla shared wedding shows a model 3 sedan that has been fitted with a screen in the back for passengers that displays information information such as time of Arrival, CLIMATE and MUSICOCON And a button for an emergency stop.
A disclaimer at the bottom of the video reads: “Safety driver is present to supervise and only intervene as Necessary. FSD (Superstvised) Does not make the vehus autonomous.”
In January, Musk said there would be No drivers in the cars For Tesla’s Austin Launch, which will relay on the yet-to-be-Released “Unsupervised” version of FSD. He also said at the time that tesla would deploy the unsupervised FSD Software to Tesla Ownes in California and other markets this year.
It’s not clear if tesla still plans to launch a full autonomous service in austin from day one, or whether tesla will take a more measured apprier Reasons.
In California, Autonomous Vehicle Companies Need a Range of Permit to Operate. So far, tesla only has a permit to test autonomously with a safety driver.