Tesla Robo-Taxi Service to Launch Next Month
Starting on the Roads of Austin, Texas
Expansion Planned to Cities Like San Francisco
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has once again expressed confidence in the company's plan to launch its fully autonomous robo (driverless) taxi service next month. However, he added a caveat, stating that geofencing technology, which restricts the operating area of vehicles for safety, will be applied in the early stages of the driverless robo-taxi service.
On May 20 (local time), in an interview with U.S. business cable network CNBC, Musk was asked whether Tesla could launch a fully autonomous robo-taxi service on the roads of Austin, Texas by the end of June. He replied, "Yes," and explained that while the service is currently being tested with a driver on board, "it is operating without any (driver) intervention." He went on to say that thousands of vehicles are currently being used to test autonomous driving in Austin, and added, "It looks like it will go well in Austin next month."
However, he emphasized the need to operate as cautiously as possible in the initial phase, saying, "We could start with 1,000 or even 10,000 vehicles on the first day, but that would not be cautious. So, in the first week, we will start with 10 vehicles, then gradually increase to 20, 30, and 40, and I think we will reach 1,000 within a few months." He added, "After that, we will expand to other cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, and San Antonio in Texas."
He also stressed the need for unified federal regulations for autonomous vehicles, and predicted, "By the end of next year, hundreds of thousands or even more than one million Teslas will be operating autonomously in the United States." When asked if this meant that all Tesla owners would be able to experience 'Level 4' autonomy?where there is no driver intervention at all?through a software update, Musk replied, "Yes," and said, "We will create a model similar to a combination of Uber and Airbnb."
He continued, "If you are a Tesla owner, you can add or remove your vehicle from the pool (of shared vehicles), and like Airbnb, you can lend it to others when you are not using it," explaining, "Instead of leaving your car parked, your car will be able to earn money."
Musk also compared Google's Waymo autonomous driving system, which is based on major sensors, to Tesla's approach, which centers on artificial intelligence (AI), claiming that Tesla's method is safer. He said, "The best fit for the road system is AI, a digital neural network, cameras, and microphones that can hear the sound of emergency vehicles."
However, he reiterated that Tesla plans to apply geofencing in the early stages of the driverless robo-taxi service to restrict the operating area of vehicles for safety. He also said that "extremely paranoid caution" would be exercised during the deployment of robo-taxis, explaining, "We will monitor what the vehicles are doing (remotely) very closely, and as trust grows, such monitoring will gradually decrease."
Regarding criticism that Tesla's vehicle sales were sluggish in the first quarter of this year, Musk cited the replacement of the production line for the main product, the Model Y, as the primary reason. He emphasized, "What is truly important in the long term is autonomous driving and Optimus (the humanoid robot), and these will overwhelmingly determine the company's financial success."
TechCrunch, an information technology (IT) media outlet, evaluated that the introduction of geofencing marked a significant turning point in Musk's strategy. This is because, for years, Musk had claimed that Tesla could create a universal autonomous driving solution that works anywhere without human supervision.
This change in approach has only been observed relatively recently. According to TechCrunch, Musk indirectly hinted at the possibility of adopting geofencing during Tesla's first-quarter earnings conference call in April, but did not specify whether it would be implemented. At the time, he merely stated, "There is an increasing likelihood that a localized parameter set will be used for initial robo-taxi operations."
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