Tesla has been talking about robotaxis for, what, over a decade now? The brand’s CEO has also made the claim that by 2020 there “there would be “over a million robotaxis on the road,” something that, if my math serves (0≠1,000,000?) did not come to pass. Now, it seems Tesla is taking another step towards this dream of robotaxi services, though, I’m not sure we can really call them “robotaxis” because according to the recently-filed permit application in the state of California, it sure seems like they’re planning on using human drivers, unless they want to use AI that has driver’s licenses and no problems with drugs.
The permit application, which is technically known as a Transportation Charter-Party carrier permit from the California Public Utilities Commission, is essentially the same as what actual self-driving robotaxi services like Waymo has. Unlike Waymo, Tesla has not applied for any sort of permit to allow for human-driverless operation.
As the Washington Post describes it,
In its communications with California officials, Tesla discussed driver’s license information and drug-testing coordination, suggesting the company intends to use human drivers, at least initially. Tesla is applying for the same type of permit used by Waymo, Alphabet Inc.’s robotaxi business. While Tesla has approval to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver in California, it doesn’t have, nor has applied for, a driverless testing or deployment permit from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles, according to a spokesperson.
So, is this just a normal taxi service? I mean, some outlets are reporting that it will be free, which is nice, but also begs the question of why they are doing this. I think a reasonable assumption could be that they want to gather real-world data about what these sorts of drives require, which could be used as training data for their eventual actual self-driving systems.
It also seems likely that a human-driven Tesla taxi service would make use of their Level 2, supervised driver assist system, still confusingly called Full Self-Driving (FSD). All of this would mean that the actual cars used could not be the two-seater Cybercabs we saw late last year, since those have no human driver controls. They’ll most likely be Tesla Model Ys.
Earlier this year, we saw Tesla was planning to deploy some sort of unsupervised, automated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. Texas is remarkably hands-off when it comes to self-driving car regulation, so Tesla would be able to deploy possible unsupervised FSD-equipped cars there without all the regulatory hurdles and testing that a state like California would require. They like to live on the edge in Texas, I suppose.
A possible hedge when it comes to attempting to deploy actual self-driving Cybercabs or whatever could be hinted at in the Tesla job application for software engineers to work on teleoperation software for robotoaxis, excerpted here:
Tesla AI’s Teleoperation team is charged with providing remote access to our robotaxis and humanoid robots. Our cars and robots operate autonomously in challenging environments. As we iterate on the AI that powers them, we need the ability to access and control them remotely. This requires building highly optimized low latency reliable data streaming over unreliable transports in the real world. At Tesla, we control the entire hardware and software stack, end to end. Our goal is to integrate our hardware, firmware and backend expertise to achieve a cutting-edge system. Our remote operators are transported into the device’s world using a state-of-the-art VR rig that allows them to remotely perform complex and intricate tasks. Working with hardware teams, you will drive requirements, make design decisions and implement software integration for this custom teleoperation system.
This is interesting to see, because it’s an approach similar to what Waymo does: geofenced level 4 automated driving with remote operation to various degrees employed when needed. It’s an approach that Tesla’s shy, reclusive CEO Elon Musk has criticized before.
A free Tesla-operated taxi service in California is definitely not being done out of sheer altruism. Tesla expects to get something out of this, and my suspicion is that it will be a way to test and gather data for a future, closer-to-actual robotaxi service. But, of course, we’ve had that promised for over a decade, so I think it’s best we just wait and see what actually happens here in our dirty, messy reality.
It this is approved, nCalifornia is another state I will be avoiding.
OOps.
Well, no wonder. Their state government seems to believe the world is flat.
“Negative, I am a Meat Popsicle”
Maybe a way to hurt and displace existing Taxi services so that it weakens the market before they go in to save it?
Or maybe I’m just being overly negative here.
Most likely they’re just trying to brute force their terrible self driving learning model with more real world data
Can’t they just pull all the data from existing cars already?
How many Tesla owners are actually paying for the full self driving to get that data?
And with a corporate fleet they can run tests with different equipment and whatnot
I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up with LIDAR units at some point
Did you know that if you have enough money you don’t care about liability? What a great way to live.
Didn’t you know that when you own the courts and the government – anything is possible?
Indeed!
File that under “I’d rather walk”.
Or “I’d rather crawl”
The only “humanoid robot” is Lone Skum himself. The rest of us are actual humans.
Humanoid is a bit of a reach for muskbot.
He tops out at bipedal robot
Nothing Tesla loves more than using regular humans as their test dummies
Is Robo the name of one of Musk’s offspring? Not that I’m sure they’d qualify as human.
Isn’t he the one who told The Felon in Chief to shut the fuck up?
Only way I’d get a ride in a Tesla taxi is if I have multiple car escape tools securely strapped to my body.
Failing electric door handles are an amazing design choice
They need airplane-like safety placards mounted to the backs of the front seats explaining where the manual release is.
“Do you know this one weird trick to opening a Teslas door while you have a concussion, are partially deafened by airbags and the cabin is rapidly filling with water/smoke/fire?”
Theres also the story of some guy burned to death after a crash and bystanders couldn’t open the retractable door handles to get em out.
It sounds like they setting up a system where if the adas gets confused and stops an “engineer” will take control remotely using VR. California is unfortunately too big of a market to ignore they probably gaming the regulation somehow commercial drivers aren’t banned from using adas but I don’t think they can be compelled to either. Either way I’m sure they will get some kind of data and training out of it.
Jason, you’re looking at this all wrong. You’re looking at people as people.
Instead, think like Elon. People not on his plane of existence are simply autonomous squishy robots without wants, needs, or feelings.
Ergo, success! Elon has achieved Level 4 driving!
Elmo will make them wear that idiotic robot suit from when they debuted the Tesla “robot”
Or Dot Matrix from Spaceballs.
There is zero chance of me ever getting into a car that can be controlled entirely by the whims of a narcissistic sociopath. Musk could order any Tesla to lock the doors and drive off a cliff at any point, and there is absolutely nothing anyone could do about it.
-check that passengers payment cleared
-check that passenger has good rating
-check that passenger hasn’t said anything mean about daddy musk on social media
“A free Tesla-operated taxi service in California is definitely not being done out of sheer altruism.”
Next headline: “DOGE Offers Alternative Employment for Fired Federal Employees”
If someone wanted to help them gather real world data and had extra time on their hands, repeatedly requesting these things take you through the worst areas (those with higher numbers of aggressive drivers, poor signage, poor visibility, etc.) repeatedly would hopefully help them see that those “edge cases” are a lot more common than sometimes indicated.
I would argue that, depending on where you live, you could encounter an edge case scenario damn near any time you drive.
Torch has pointed that out repeatedly. I’m impressed with his restraint in this piece.
I know I’m on edge whenever I encounter a Tesla.
Absolutely. The world is filled with edge cases, but Tesla and other autonomy believers would suggest they are infrequent enough to justify ignoring them. So I think increasing the odds of encountering an edge case would be beneficial, insofar as they’d be more motivated to prepare for them.
Good way to use some of that inventory they have sitting around.
Hey! Who you calling inventory?