Tesla starts ride-hailing Robotaxi trials for employees in Texas, California

Tesla is aiming for a public launch of the Robotaxi by June this year in Austin, Texas.

Tesla Robotaxi
Tesla Robotaxi (Image: Tesla)

Tesla gave a sneak peek into a revolutionary full self-driving (FSD) technology with the unveiling of the Robotaxi last year. The Robotaxi is the first production-ready model from the American EV giant to incorporate the highest level of autonomous driving technology that has been in the making for a long time.

Tesla has now started ride-hailing trials of the Robotaxi for its employees in Texas and California. The Elon Musk-led company has now shared a new video on its social media handles with a video showing a person using their phone to hail a Tesla. The clip shows a driver sitting at the front as various passengers ride around in the back seat.

The post on X by Tesla AI says that the FSD programme is now live on a trial basis in Austin and San Francisco Bay Area for an early set of employees. As part of this trial, Tesla has already completed 1,500 trips and 15,000 miles (over 24,000 km) on FSD. This service has helped Tesla develop and validate FSD networks, the mobile application, vehicle allocation, mission control and remote assistance operations.

Musk’s unfulfilled promises on FSD

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has a long list of unfulfilled promises and FST right at the top. The FSD programme has missed its deadline on multiple occasions but with the new trial programme, things may be moving in a positive direction finally. 

He first discussed self-driving technology in 2015, predicting that autonomous vehicles would be ready within three years. However, that timeline came and went unmet. Since 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that Tesla vehicles would soon achieve full self-driving capabilities. In 2023, Musk acknowledged the delays by referring to himself as “the boy who cried FSD,” a nod to his unfulfilled promises.

Tesla earlier said it would release an “unsupervised” version of FSD, which presumably would not require human oversight, in California this year, without offering more information. On Tuesday, he forecast millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously by the second half of next year. 

Last month, the FSD programme was granted approval in California to begin carrying passengers. It’ll start with employees before expanding to members of the public in company-owned vehicles. The company will need further approvals to give fully autonomous rides.

With inputs from Reuters

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This article was first uploaded on April twenty-four, twenty twenty-five, at twelve minutes past two in the afternoon.
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