{"id":31540,"date":"2025-06-22T17:39:02","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T17:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31540"},"modified":"2025-06-22T17:39:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T17:39:02","slug":"tesla-to-launch-robotaxi-service-in-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=31540","title":{"rendered":"Tesla to launch robotaxi service in Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=5aefc191-d3de-4e6b-a2eb-08defd0678ee\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>Tesla\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2ad302c6-febe-448f-9980-17d116d9695a\" data-trackable=\"link\">robotaxi service<\/a>, touted by Elon Musk as the future of his flagging electric-car maker, is expected to launch in the company\u2019s home city of Austin on Sunday with only about 10 cars and a human safety driver on board amid regulatory scrutiny on the safety of its self-driving technology.<\/p>\n<p>Shares in Tesla have risen about 50 per cent from this year\u2019s low in early April, with investors hopeful that the autonomous ride-hailing service will help revive a company that has suffered declining sales and a consumer backlash against Musk\u2019s political activism.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite the hype surrounding the service, the launch was low-key and the initial service was open only to a select group of social media influencers. <\/p>\n<p>Shortly before the official launch on Sunday, Musk said on social media that the robotaxi service would begin \u201cwith customers paying a $4.20 flat fee\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>According to<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a1638829-63c7-416a-ab18-ac1839f4afc0\" data-trackable=\"link\"> Musk, who has stepped back from his US government role<\/a> to focus on Tesla and the robotaxi launch, the self-driving Model Y vehicles will only operate in limited areas, avoid challenging intersections, and have teleoperators who can intervene if problems arise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The limited launch comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration continues to carry out multiple investigations into Musk\u2019s claims about the capabilities of its autopilot and \u201cfull self-driving\u201d systems. Despite its name, FSD still requires humans to sit in the driver\u2019s seat and pay full attention \u2014 unlike Google\u2019s Waymo taxis.<\/p>\n<p>The NHTSA wrote a letter in early May seeking additional information about technologies that would be used in Tesla\u2019s robotaxi service. The agency said it had received Tesla\u2019s response and was reviewing its content. <\/p>\n<p>Musk said in a social media post this month that the company was being \u201csuper paranoid\u201d about safety. But he has also claimed there would be 1,000 robotaxis \u201cin a few months\u201d, and that the service would expand to cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Tesla also opened a new website for the public to sign up to get updates on the robotaxis, which can be hailed via an app.<\/p>\n<p>It remains uncertain how fast Tesla will be able to expand its service and catch up with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/4f129ffb-5599-4dc8-bab5-b30ba5657ef7\" data-trackable=\"link\">Waymo<\/a>, the only company with a fully public self-driving ride-hailing service in the US, which rolled out its fleet in San Francisco three years ago.<\/p>\n<p>A group of Democratic lawmakers in Texas wrote to Tesla this week urging the company to delay its robotaxi launch until September when a new law on autonomous vehicles is due to be implemented.\u00a0State governor Greg Abbott signed the rules \u2014 which require a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles \u2014 into law on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla\u2019s technology relies only on a set of cameras mounted on its vehicles, compared with the more expensive set of radar and lidar sensors used by Waymo and other rivals. <\/p>\n<p>Musk claims its approach will allow Tesla to expand the service more quickly and at cheaper prices. Tesla has said its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/78f30967-738a-405d-a468-07fc82b31b30\" data-trackable=\"link\">Cybercab,<\/a> which has no steering wheel or pedals and was unveiled last year, will sell for less than $30,000.<\/p>\n<p>Rivals including Waymo and Amazon-owned Zoox use remote monitoring systems with support staff able to intervene and guide a vehicle that has ground to a halt because of an obstacle or accident. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cTesla has in no way demonstrated that its system is capable of the kind of accuracy and reliability that would be necessary for deployment in a range of driving conditions.\u201d said Bryant Walker Smith, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina. \u201cYou don\u2019t solve that problem with remote drivers alone.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Barclays analyst Dan Levy also cautioned that there was still a huge amount of work to be done in building out the infrastructure to enable fully autonomous vehicles, saying \u201ccatching up to or surpassing Waymo will be no small feat\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/5aefc191-d3de-4e6b-a2eb-08defd0678ee\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":31541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}