Tesla has begun to test the autonomous driving service with Austin employees and the Bay area in front of the company’s scheduled robbery this summer.
“FSD Supervished Ride-Hailing Service is alive for an early series of workers at Austin & San Francisco Bay Area”, The Company Posted Wednesday in x.
The FSD represents the “full self-guidance”, which is the advanced Tesla driver’s help system available to the Tesla owners through a subscription that can perform certain automated driving tasks. The system, which requires the driver to hold his hands on the steering wheel, is not yet capable of driving autonomously. Thousands of Tesla owners are already driving with a supervised FSD. Tesla’s announcement on Wednesday focuses on adding a “robotation” application that will be theoretically used by non-Tesla owners to spoil a vehicle in the fleet.
The transfer of employees before launch is a standard process in the world of autonomous driving. For example, Waymo uses a similar playbook when it enters a new market. In the lead in a commercial launch and after weeks of a guide test, Waymo will open its service to employees before inviting some members of the public.
Tesla plans to launch a Robotaxi service in Austin in June, which the company reiterated on Tuesday during the first quarter profits. The automaker did not share many other details about the call, such as when it expects to start charging for a walk. The most colored chief executive Elon Musk provided was to say that he expects to release 10 to 20 vehicles on “Day 1” of the service in Austin.
And while Tesla made a launch last year, after making the cybercab concept-a futuristic Robotaxi built without a steering wheel or pedal-the company is ready to start its activities with the existing vehicle portfolio.
The Tesla Shared advertising video on Wednesday shows a 3 sedan model equipped with a screen on the back for passengers showing information such as the estimated arrival, climate and musical control time and an emergency stop button.
The disclaimer at the bottom of the video states: “The security driver is present to oversee and interfere only as necessary. The FSD (supervisor) does not make the vehicle autonomous.”
In January, Musk said there would be no drivers in cars for the launch of Tesla’s Austin, which would be based on the FSD “without supervision”. He also said that then that Tesla would develop FSD software without supervision to Tesla owners in California and other markets this year.
It is not clear whether Tesla is still planning to launch a fully autonomous Austin service from day one or whether Tesla adopts a more measured approach while maintaining a safety driver in the front seat for security reasons.
In California, autonomous vehicle companies need a number of licenses for operation. So far, Tesla is only permitted to try autonomously with a security guide.
