Tesla opens Put its future on robots. Now, the company plans to launch a bus service in the San Francisco Bay Area. Tesla calls it a “robot” service, but legally this will have to use the car with human drivers.
The plan appears to place electric car manufacturers in the vague legal waters of U.S. states in the strictest self-driving car industry, and Tesla has been sued for misleading language for its driver assistance technology.
A spokesman for the California Public Utilities Commission on Friday regulated rides and taxi services in the state, saying Tesla informed the agency Thursday that it plans to expand employee-only taxi services to employees’ friends and employees’ families and “selected” public. Technically, Tesla is legally clear to launch such services in California: In March, it obtained a “Transportation Charter” license to take Tesla employees to pre-arranged trips and drivers behind the steering wheel. But Tesla is no Laws allow operation of autonomous driving-based services there.
“Tesla is not allowed to be [autonomous vehicle] “With or without a driver, Tesla is allowed to transport the public (paid or unpaid) in non-autonomous vehicles, and of course, this will have a driver,” CPUC spokesman Terrie Prosper wrote in an email.
Business Insider first reported that Tesla told employees it plans to launch a “Robotaxi” service in the Bay Area as early as Friday.
Tesla “works with the government to get approval” to launch in the Bay Area, Ashok Elliswamy, vice president of AI software at Tesla, said on a revenue call with investors on Wednesday. “At the same time, we will start the service with one person in the driver’s seat while awaiting regulatory approval,” he said.
However, legally speaking, Tesla currently does not allow self-driving cars to launch any type of service, meaning that “the person in the driver’s seat” must be the driver. Tesla does not have a license, even in the case of a safety driver, even in the case of a safety driver, “So it cannot use a driver-self-driving car in passenger services.”
Tesla seems to be talking here. The company seems to insist that regulators are just opening a taxi service in California, while recommending shareholders and new Wall Street taxi services to use “Robotaxis” and be autonomous. The automaker appears to have used the technology before. Currently, it is in California in Administrative Court, accusing Tesla of selling technology that cannot drive itself by using languages such as “autonomous driving” and “fully autonomous driving” that has misled consumers for years, but must always be supervised by human drivers.
“Tesla can’t both ways,” said Philip Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. The automaker is “providing more ammunition to California to insist that it’s a robot when it comes to talking about regulators, which is really not.”
