Tesla prepares a taxi service in San Francisco – but not with robotaxis

Tesla has public put his future on his Robotaxis. The company is now planning to start a public car service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tesla Names a “Robotaxi” service, but this car has to be used legally with human drivers.

The plan seems to move the electric car manufacturer in dark right -wing waters in a US state with the most regulated autonomous vehicle industry in the country -and in which Tesla is already being sued for misleading language in terms of its driver aid technology.

On Friday, a spokesman for the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the hail and taxi services in the state, told the agency on Thursday that it was planned to expand a taxi service of employees to friends and employee families and “selected” members of the public. Technically speaking, Tesla is legally clear in order to start this type of service in California: In March it received To take a “transport charter party” license, Tesla employee with a driver behind the steering wheel with prepared trips. But Tesla is not There legally permitted to operate an autonomous vehicle base.

“Tesla may not test or transport the public (paid or unpaid) in an (autonomous vehicle) with or without a driver,” wrote CPUC spokesman Terrie Prosper in an e -mail. “Tesla may transport the public (paid or unpaid) in a non -autonomous vehicle that would of course have a driver.”

Business Insider first reported This Tesla informed the employees that it should start a “Robotaxi” service in the Bay Area on Friday.

Tesla Vice President of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy said Tesla said that Tesla was working with the government on Wednesday for a profit application with investors to receive approval in the Bay Area. “In the meantime, we will start the service with a person on the driver’s seat to accelerate while we are waiting for regulatory approval,” he said.

Legally, Tesla is currently not allowed to start service with autonomous vehicles, which means that “person in the driver’s seat” has to be a driver. Tesla has no permission to enable autonomous vehicle technology himself with a security driver, says Prosper: “Therefore, it cannot be used in passenger service.”

Tesla seems to speak here from both sides of the mouth. The company seems to insist that the supervisory authorities are simply operating a taxi service in California, while it suggests the shareholders and Wall Street that the new taxi service “Robotaxis” is used and autonomous. The car manufacturer seems to have used the technology beforehand. It is Currently in the administrative court With the state of California because of allegations that Tesla has misled consumers for years by using language such as “autopilot” and “full self -driver” to sell technology that cannot drive themselves, but must be supervised by a human driver at any time.

“Tesla couldn’t have it in both directions,” says Philip Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who studies autonomous vehicle security. The car manufacturer “gives California more ammunition for the wrong advertising charge by insisting that it is a robotaxi if you tell the supervisory authorities that it really is not.”