Tesla has started testing its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas without safety drivers over the last few days, according to Elon Musk.
The automaker reportedly aims to launch its robotaxi service on June 12.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Tesla had yet to start testing its planned robotaxi service in Austin without safety drivers.
It was worrying a month away from the start of the service and in comparison to Waymo, which tested its system with safety driver for 6 months and without safety drivers for another 6 months before launching in Austin earlier this year.
Now, CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that the previous report was true as he announced that Tesla has been testing the service with “no one in driver’s seat” only for the “past several days”:
For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents. A month ahead of schedule.
He claimed that it is “a month ahead of schedule”, but he has also said that Tesla would launch the service to paid customers in June.
If true, it would imply that Tesla didn’t plan to test the service without a safety driver in the vehicle.
The CEO then added that Tesla will deliver a car to a customer from the factory using self-driving next month:
Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.
Tesla is planning to launch a small fleet of 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles for its robotaxi service in Austin next month.
Bloomberg recently reported that Tesla is aiming for June 12, but the date could change.
The service is expected to be using “heavy teleoperation.” Musk nor Tesla confirmed the level of teleoperation, but it could be significant as one teleoperator per car.
Over the last few days, several reports came out pointing to Tesla not having communicated important part of the planned rollout of the service to local authorities.
Electrek’s Take
At this point, I think this is either going to be fake, meaning an extremely high level of teleoperation, or a complete shit show, or both.
Musk claims to be “a month ahead of schedule” even though Tesla started testing its service without safety driver about 2 weeks before the planned start of the service. That’s ridiculous.
It’s not victory to have “no incidents” after a few days of testing. You need to have no incidents over months of testing and hundreds of thousands of miles before launching.
At this point, I’m praying that Tesla is launching this in a small geo-fenced area without highways or any high speed driving to limit potential dangers and to ensure teleoperators can increase safety. But even then, I fear there will be avoidable crashes.
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