Days ahead of its anticipated commercial service launch, Tesla has formally begun the autonomous car “testing” phase in Austin, Texas.
Tesla has been talking about launching a fleet of self-driving ride-hailing vehicles in Austin, Texas, in June for months.
The action represents a significant departure from Tesla’s long-standing pledge to install unsupervised self-driving technology in the millions of cars it has sold since 2016, as we have reported.
Tesla now intends to run its own tiny internal fleet of cars using “plenty of teleoperation” and specialised software that is optimised for a geo-fenced area of Austin.
Although there have been reservations, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that the paid ride-hailing service will be available to consumers in June. Tesla only began testing the system without safety drivers at the end of May, Musk said.
In contrast, prior to introducing its service in Austin earlier this year, Waymo tested its system—which was already operating driverless in other cities—for six months with and without safety drivers.
The only business still identified as being in the “deployment” stage is Waymo.
It’s unclear if Tesla has just now formally begun testing its self-driving cars in the city or if the website is falling behind the test programmes.
By arguing that their technology is a level ADAS system rather than truly “self-driving“, Tesla has previously been able to avoid self-driving test reporting, leaving the driver in charge of the vehicle at all times.
For the past few months, people have been seeing Tesla cars with drivers in the driver’s seat with manufacturer plates while they drive around Austin.
Although it was still a shifting target, it was recently revealed that Tesla planned to debut its commercial autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin on June 12.
Tesla will not be able to take paid rides from users like Waymo if the deployment phase is not completed.
Musk has repeatedly stated that the service will start by the end of June.
Since the current public version of FSD hardly reaches 500 miles between crucial disengagements, I’m hopeful that Tesla has been able to considerably improve FSD for the geo-fenced zone and that it will limit the speed.
There may be some serious accidents if the driver is removed.
Teleoperation will also be beneficial, but any delay could be harmful. It’s concerning.
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