Tesla began testing autonomous ride services with Austin and Bay Area employees this summer ahead of the company’s planned launch of Robotaxi.
“FSD’s supervised riding service is live for early employees in the Austin & San Francisco Bay Area,” the company posted on X on Wednesday.
FSD stands for “Full Self Drive,” Tesla’s advanced driver assistance system that can be used by Tesla owners via a subscription that can perform automated driving tasks. Systems that require the driver to hold their hands cannot yet be driven autonomously. Thousands of Tesla owners are driving themselves using already monitored FSDs. Tesla’s announcement focuses on the addition of a “Robotaxi” app on Wednesday, which non-Tesla owners use in theory to evoke fleet vehicles.
Ferrying employees before launch is a standard procedure in the world of autonomous rides. For example, Waymo uses a similar playbook when entering a new market. After a commercial launch and weeks of unattended testing, Waymo opens up services to employees before inviting certain members.
Tesla is scheduled to launch its Robotaxi service in Austin in June, which it repeated on Tuesday during its first quarter revenue call. The automaker didn’t share many other details about the call, as when he expected to start billing for vehicles. What Elon Musk, the most coloured CEO, offered was that he hopes to deploy 10-20 vehicles on Austin’s “first day.”
And while Tesla created the Splash after debuting its Cybercab concept (a futuristic robotic taxi built without steering wheels or pedals) last year, the company is poised to start operations with its existing vehicle portfolio.
The promotional video Tesla, shared on Wednesday, shows a Model 3 sedan mounted on the screen at the back for passengers displaying information such as estimated arrival times, climate and music controls, as well as a button for an emergency stop.
The disclaimer at the bottom of the video says, “It exists to be supervised by a safety driver, and only intervene when necessary. The FSD (supervised) does not make the vehicle autonomous.”
In January, Musk said there were no drivers in the car due to Tesla’s Austin launch. He also said that Tesla will deploy FSD software that is not monitored by Tesla owners in California and other markets this year.
It is not clear whether Tesla plans to launch fully autonomous services in Austin from day one, or whether Tesla will take a more measured approach by keeping a safe driver in the front seats for safety reasons.
In California, self-driving car companies require various permits to operate. So far, Tesla has only permission to autonomously test with safety drivers.
