Tesla starts sort-of Robotaxi service in San Francisco by invite only
Elon Musk's goal of a fully autonomous car that could serve as a Robotaxi is getting another trial this week, albeit with a human operator behind the wheel.
Five years after Musk predicted that there would be a million self-driving Tesla taxis on the road, they finally launched an invitation-only trial with a handful of modified Model Ys in Austin last month, complete with an in-car safety monitor. Now Tesla is issuing invitations for Robotaxi rides in San Francisco, although with some important caveats.
For example, there's a human in the driver's seat as opposed to the front-passenger seat in the Austin tests. This is most likely because regulators haven't cleared Tesla to run an autonomous driving service in the state as yet, so the cars need someone behind the wheel.
"Tesla’s Bay Area Robotaxi service requires a safety driver to sit at the wheel and take over when Full Self-Driving makes a safety critical error. Calling this a ‘robotaxi’ is utterly farcical," said Dan O'Dowd in a press release. O'Dowd is the self-proclaimed billionaire founder of The Dawn Project, which is on a crusade against Tesla's claimed self-driving capabilities.
