The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has promised self -employed cars for a decade, and the moment of truth can finally be here.
Musk, who is mainly back in the private sector after his chain turn in the Trump administration, has said that Tesla plans to launch a Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, Sunday. Although he said that the exact day could still change, Tesla seems to be approaching an attempt, with videos that extend online of the road tests where there is no human in the driver’s seat.
But Tesla is also starting from behind. Waymo, a Google spin -off, is already executing a Robotaxi service in several cities, including Austin, and the service has a growing monitoring.
Security is still a key question. Musk has rejected the idea of using radar and lidar sensors in Tesla vehicles, instead of depending on the cameras in a deviation of some rivals. He has said that Tesla robotaxis is using a “new version of software” that has not been tested relatively.
Federal regulators have been raising concerns about Tesla drivers assistance software for more than a year, saying that it contributed to hundreds of avoidable accidents, including some fatal accidents.
The Waymo service has not reported any death.
This is what you should expect from the planned Tesla service.
When will it start?
Musk said this month that the launch of Robotaxi would be “tentatively, June 22”.
Musk has predicted for years that Tesla’s autonomous vehicles were just around the corner, to the point where he has become a meme. Musk told Fortune magazine in 2015 that autonomy was two years away, and said in 2019 that Tesla would have 1 million robotaxis on roads in 2020.
Texas Democrats asked Tesla on Wednesday to delay its launch until September, when a new state law could enter into force and require Robotaxi operators to obtain a state permit. Tesla did not respond to comments requests.
Who can use this service?
Very few people, at least to start. Musk has said that the service will begin very small, with only 10 vehicles the first week. They will operate in Austin, but Tesla has not said how big their service area will be. There is no public waiting list, although Musk has said he wants to increase the service in a few months to catch up with Waymo.
On Friday, some people in the application of social networks X of Musk published screenshots of what seemed to be invitations to the “early access of Tesla Robotaxi”.
Robotaxi services work as a Lyft or Uber Ride-Hail service: a user orders a trip on a telephone application upon entering their starting point and destination. The key difference is that there is no one in the driver’s seat, although it is not clear if Tesla will have someone in the front passenger seat, as he has done during the test units, or how much remote control of the car will have Tesla.
How does this compare with Waymo?
Waymo says that his service covers 37 square miles in Austin, and customers can ask for trips through the Uber application, in an association between the two technological companies. Waymo is also available in Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Francisco and Atlanta, with plans to expand to Miami and elsewhere.
Nationally, Waymo says it has 1,500 vehicles on the road, in addition to parking, electric charge stations, maintenance personnel and engineers to support vehicles.
“Waymo is the leader of technology development here, and in the last 15 years he has evolved both technology and related infrastructure to support what they are doing,” said Bryan Reimer, a research scientist at the Transport and Logistics Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tesla is calling Robotaxi service, but so far the company has failed to obtain a registered trademark for the deadline.
How safe will Tesla Robotaxis be?
Experts say that nobody knows how sure will be Tesla’s service.
“I’m glad they are starting small,” said Greg Stevens, Mcity research director, an autonomous technology test laboratory at Michigan University.
“As an engineer, I am a true fan of small releases. Keep it simple at the beginning: it launches a small amount of vehicles and look very closely,” he said.
Phil Koopman, associate professor at Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said that only a history of dozens of millions of miles will determine the security of Tesla.
“Success is not accidents or serious mishaps for the rest of the year, at least,” he said. “Security is not something in which you can see the car and see what is safe.”
Tesla has a different approach to the security than its main competitor. While Waymo uses a combination of cameras, radar and lidar to maintain their bearings, Tesla is based only on cameras. It is an approach that Musk says that it is less expensive and “superior” to the use of Lidar, while federal regulators have said that Tesla cameras can have problems seeing in certain conditions such as fog and sliding sun.
Musk has said that Tesla is “being super paranoid about security.” He has also said a more advanced version of Tesla’s autonomy software “still requires a lot of polished.”
Can you do this? Who has approved it?
Texas has had relatively permissive laws on autonomous vehicles: unlike California, there is no state regulator in Texas that must sign the service. That can change in September, when a Texas proposed law that requires Robotaxi operators to obtain authorization from the Motorized Vehicle Department will be established in force. The bill has approved the Chamber and the Senate of the State and is waiting for the action of Republican governor Greg Abbott.
If Tesla launches on Sunday and Abbott signs the bill, it is not clear what would happen under the new law this fall. A spokesman for the Texas Motorized Vehicle Department said Friday that the department would need time to put the law in force and begin to fulfill, a process that would probably extend in next year.
Austin city officials also say they are prohibited under the state law to regulate autonomous vehicles, but have been documenting examples of security concerns. In the first five months of this year, the city said it compiled data on 35 security incidents, such as blocking traffic, involving several companies.
Austin officials said until Friday, they had not documented any security incident that involves autonomous vehicles in Tesla.
“The city treats each AV company that expresses interest in Austin in the same way, offers training opportunities and provides information about the right of passage and the city procedure,” said Jack Flagler, spokesman for the Austin Transport Department, in an email. He said that the city had already provided other maps, special information on events and information on fire and police procedures.
Tesla has tried to prevent the city of Austin from publishing government records about its planned service, according to Reuters.
What happens if something goes wrong?
Tesla has not publicly described any contingency plan, but if rival companies are a guide, Tesla will have personnel ready to help in person or remotely. Test vehicles seen in Austin have been closely followed by what some people speculate to be “dragged” humans driven by humans.
Companies like Waymo and the now missing cruise say that they can and intervene remotely with vehicles if there is a problem, which for the cruise meant every 4 to 5 miles, according to CNBC. Cruise then closed after a very publicized accident that involves a pedestrian.
Tesla published a work related to teleoperations and told Wall Street analysts that they were waiting for Telesupport, according to Wired magazine and the Electrek car site, but the company has not provided details.
The bets are high for the entire Robotaxi industry.
“That is my great concern: that all the progress we have achieved is stopped by some kind of important security incident,” Stevens said.
How fast could you reach other cities?
Musk has said that security and regulations will guide the speed with which Tesla tries to expand the number of vehicles in the service. He told CNBC in an interview last month: “I think we will probably be in a thousand in a few months.” He also mentioned expanding to California, although Tesla does not have the required permission to operate there.
Musk has also promoted a new vehicle, called Cybercab, which Tesla could use for its Robotaxi service, although for now the company is using existing model vehicles. And finally, Musk has said that Individual Owners of Tesla could offer their vehicles for rent in the Robotaxi service, but has not set a date for when it could happen.
“How long did it take to climb? Years and years and years. And there is no reason to believe it is different for Tesla,” Koopman said.
What will be the impact on Tesla as a company? be?
The programmed launch of the Robotaxi service has helped boost the price of Tesla’s shares in recent months, after the sales and profits of the company racked during Musk’s time in the Trump administration and the protests resulting from “Tesla Takedown” against him and the company. Some investors think that Tesla will be able to expand their service quickly to dozens of cities during the next year, creating a new source of income while possibly also increases vehicle sales.
Some experts think that is the main point of the launch of Robotaxi.
“I think the objective that is essential is to stabilize the price of Tesla’s shares,” said Reimr de Mit. “This is a trick of both the media and anything else.”
