The company has begun putting the service through its paces with its employees in the San Francisco Bay Area as the most recent step in its pursuit of autonomous vehicles. During Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk revealed the specifics, noting that employees will be able to request rides using a prototype app.
By 2025, Musk wants to offer paid, driverless rides in California and Texas. This would be a significant step forward for the company’s work on autonomous vehicles. At present, workers who can hail the rides will have the vehicles accompanied security drivers. ” On Wednesday’s earnings call, Musk stated, “We already offer a ride hailing capability for Tesla employees in the Bay Area.” You can request a ride through the development app, and it will take you anywhere in the Bay Area,” he continued.
Regarding the commercial deployment of an autonomous vehicle fleet, Tesla intends to initially deploy modified versions of its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles for the service. The Cybercab, which was demonstrated earlier this month at Tesla’s “We Robot” event, will eventually replace the robotaxi. In the end, Tesla intends to produce 2-4 million Cybercabs annually. This development follows Tesla’s acquisition of a China license to run data centers and provide content distribution networks.
Until further notice, Tesla needs to go quite far before its armada completely changes to independent vehicles – removing the human component from the situation. Musk points out that the business has not yet received approval from regulators, particularly in California, where the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) have strict control over the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles. In contrast, getting regulatory approval is simpler in Texas. And by the end of 2025, Tesla’s robotaxis should be available in additional states if everything goes according to plan.
You are aware, if you have been following us, that Tesla’s robotaxi is dependent on the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which is expected to provide advanced driver assistance. Since the FSD does not have the best track record, autonomous vehicles remain something out of a sci-fi movie for the time being. It is currently the subject of scrutiny from regulators, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the United States. The system has already caused a number of accidents, such as when a Tesla Semi struck a pedestrian on Interstate 80 and caught fire. However, Tesla’s VP of software engineering, David Lau, confirmed that the vehicles used for the trials will have human drivers as a precaution and operate under the most recent version of the FSD software. Musk maintains his optimism regarding the FSD.
This announcement comes a week after the company’s robotaxi event did not gain investors’ trust and was criticized for not having specific business plans or timelines. Still, Tesla was able to recover, securing $25.18 billion in revenue for the third quarter of the year, regaining investor confidence. This grew by 8% annually and exceeded analyst estimates of $25.37 billion. Its profit per share (EPS) added up to 72 pennies/share for a similar period, while its net gain rose to about $2.17 billion.
