Most of the public information about Tesla’s Robotaxi released comes from a small group of influencers the company invited, who were the first to ride in its new technology. Many have financial interests in the company; others have established media careers around the work of electric vehicle companies that promote and cheerleading. Still, some videos posted online show Tesla robots making mistakes.
A video shows a robot briefly crossing the double yellow lines to drive oncoming traffic, which is apparently done for a left turn. Another showed that the human monitor stopped Tesla to avoid using UPS trucks to return to the parking space. Another showed that the car seemed to have “Phantom Brakes” – and suddenly stopped for no obvious reason.
Self-driving cars are regulated primarily at the state level, and current rules in Texas provide companies with extensive berths to test and deploy their public roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (U.S. Federal Road Safety Regulatory Agency) can only intervene after the technology has been on the road and proves unsafe. An NHTSA spokesman wrote in an email statement in response to the recorded incident that the agency “aware of the reference incident and contacted the manufacturer to collect additional information.”
Under the law, self-driving car developers must report some incident data to the NHTSA, although the Trump administration has restricted the information that information developers must share and allowed them to block some of it from public perspectives.
New Texas law, Senate Bill 2807 requires self-driving car companies to obtain operating licenses before landing on public roads. The company must also provide emergency procedures for the state to respond to first responders. The law did not begin until September 1. Wired asked the Texas Department of Public Safety whether it accepted Tesla’s emergency response procedures before the company launched its services on Sunday; the department did not respond.
The state’s new licensing procedures are not as intensive as those used in California, which is the first state in the country to formulate rules for testing and deployment of self-driving cars. However, the license does mean that Texas regulators can intervene to stop companies from operating on their roads if the company is considered to be involved in too many security incidents.
In Austin, three other companies (Waymo, Zoox and AV Ride) are all pairing. Waymo is the only person who can offer public rides in the city, and users can hail through the Uber app.
Eckhardt said she hopes Tesla will experience longer public mapping, testing and data sharing before Austin launches. “We need good local and state communication to make sure we do meet our public safety obligations,” she said.
