- Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a Robotaxi expansion to the San Francisco Bay Area in an earnings call on Wednesday.
- Regulators in the California said Tesla lacks permits to operate a driverless service in the state.
- Tesla notified regulators that it plans to operate a car service for “friends and family” in the area.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk hinted about bringing his company’s nascent robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area and other U.S. regions during an earnings call this week.
With NBC 7, you can watch San Diego News for free, anywhere, at any time.
However, California authorities have made it plain that Tesla is not permitted to transport people on public highways in self-driving cars and that a human driver must always be in control.
According to a Friday email from the California Public Utilities Commission to CNBC, “Tesla is not permitted to test or transport the public (paid or unpaid) in an AV with or without a driver.” “Tesla is allowed to transport the public (paid or unpaid) in a non-AV, which, of course, would have a driver.”
With our News Headlines email, you can receive the best local San Diego stories every morning.
The state’s Tesla service will need to be more like a cab than a robot, to put it another way.
Like limo services or tour firms, Tesla is able to operate a private vehicle service with human drivers thanks to what is known as a charter-party carrier permit in California.
Tesla aims to “extend operations” under its permission to “offer service to friends and family of employees and to select members of the public,” according to a statement the commission received from the business on Thursday. This will affect a large portion of the Bay Area.
Money Report
Luxury shopper recovery faces four key headwinds
Cramer’s week ahead: Fed meeting, nonfarm payrolls, Big Tech earnings
However, the CPUC stated that Tesla’s permission only permits such service to be used with non-AVs.
Since 2014, Tesla has had a “drivered testing permit” that permits the business to operate autonomous vehicles (AVs) with a safety driver present, but not to collect payments, the California Department of Motor Vehicles informed CNBC. According to the DMV, the safety drivers have to be Tesla workers, contractors, or manufacturer designees under that permission.
Using its Model Y SUVs outfitted with the company’s newest automated driving hardware and software, Tesla is now testing out a robotaxi service in Austin, Texas. The limited service runs on highways with a 40 mph speed limit throughout the day and in favorable weather.
Employees of Tesla remotely oversee the Austin robotaxis, which also has a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat. It is now only available to invited users who accept the conditions of Tesla’s “early access program.”
According to an internal Tesla memo obtained by Business Insider on Friday, Tesla informed employees that it intended to extend its robotaxi service to the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. A request for comment on that report was not answered by Tesla.
The DMV also accused Tesla in a different case in California of deceiving customers about the capabilities of its driver assistance systems, which were once sold under the titles Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (or FSD).
The premium driver assistance technologies offered by Tesla are now referred to as “FSD Supervised.” According to Tesla’s owner manuals, FSD Supervised and Autopilot are “hands on” technologies that need a driver at the wheel who is always prepared to steer or brake.
However, in user-generated films posted on X, Tesla depicts users utilizing FSD hands-free while performing other things. Arguments before the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings in Oakland, California, are continuing through Friday as the DMV argues that Tesla’s license to sell cars in the state should be suspended.
Autonomous taxi services are subject to state regulation under California law. On Friday, a few county and city authorities claimed they were unaware of a possible Tesla service in the state.
In a phone interview, Marin County Board of Supervisors member Stephanie Moulton-Peters stated that she had not received any communication from Tesla regarding its intentions. She called for greater transparency from the business.
“I certainly expect they will tell us and I think it’s a good business practice to do that,” she stated.
Moulton-Peters said she was unsure of how Marin County, which is north of San Francisco, would respond to Tesla’s service and was not confident about robotaxis in general.
“The news of change coming always has mixed results in the community,” she stated.
In an interview, Brian Colbert, another member of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, expressed his disappointment with the lack of communication but stated that he is open to the possibility that Tesla’s service could be beneficial.
“They should have done a better job about informing the community about the launch,” he stated.
Before launching its driverless ride-hailing service in the state, Alphabet’s Waymo, which leads Tesla by a significant margin in the robotaxi industry, received a number of permissions from the CPUC and DMV.
Waymo is now able to charge for rides in the state after receiving a CPUC driverless deployment authorization in 2023. As the business grows its service area in the state, it has been requesting changes to its DMV and CPUC driverless deployment permits.
David Ingram of NBC provided coverage from San Francisco.
Watch as Waymo tests autonomous vehicles in Philadelphia and New York alongside human drivers.
Also on CNBC
-
Meta names OpenAI’s Shengjia Zhao as chief scientist of AI Superintelligence Lab
-
Palantir among 20 most valuable U.S. companies, with stock more than doubling in 2025
-
Inside Tesla’s new retro-futuristic Supercharger diner
