Tesla regains the service of taxi in San Francisco – but not with robotics

Tesla publicly has Its future is immersed on Robotics. The company is now planning to launch public car service in the San Francisco Bay area. Timing It is called “Robotaxi”, but legally, this car will have to use cars with human driver.

The plan appears to be putting the electric car maker in mysterious legal waters in an American state with the most organized self -organized vehicle industry – and Tesla is already prone due to a misleading language about the technique of helping drivers.

On Friday, a spokesman for the California Public Utilities Committee, which organizes horseback services and taxis in the state, said that Tesla informed the agency on Thursday that it had planned to expand the taxi service to the employee only for friends, the family of employees and members of the “selection” of the public. Technically, Tesla legally to launch this type of service in California: In March, it was obtained The “Transport Charter Party” permit to take Tesla on pre -trips with a driver behind the steering wheel. But Tesla no Law allows to run a self -ruling car service.

“Tesla is not allowed to test or transfer the audience (paid or unpaid) in (an independent vehicle) with or without a driver,” CPUC spokeswoman Terry Prosper wrote in an email. “Tesla is allowed to transport the audience (paid or unpaid) in an independent vehicle, which, of course, will have a driver.”

Business Insider I mentioned for the first time Tesla told the employees that it plans to launch the “Robotaxi” service in the Gulf region early Friday.

In Wednesday’s profit call with investors, Vice President of Tesla told Ai Ashok Eluswamy that Tesla “works with the government to obtain approval” to launch it in the Gulf region. “Meanwhile, we will launch service with a person in the driver’s seat only to accelerate while waiting for organizational approval,” he said.

Legally, though, Tesla is not currently allowed to launch any kind of service with independent vehicles, which means that the “person in the driver’s seat” should be a driver. Tesla does not have a permit to experiment with independent vehicle technology even with a safety driver, Prosper says: “Therefore, an independent vehicle reserved in passenger service can be used.”

Tesla seems to talk about both sides of his mouth here. The company appears to insist on the organizers that it simply runs the California taxi service, with the shareholders’ suggestion that the new taxi service uses “robotics” and independent. The automobile company appears to have used this technology before. that it Currently in the administrative court With the state of California about allegations that Tesla has misled consumers for years using a language like “Automated Pilot” and “Full Self -Driving” to sell technology that cannot lead itself, but a human driver must be supervised at all times.

“Tesla could not get this in both directions,” says Philip Kobman, a professor at the University of Carnegie Mellon, who is studying the safety of independent vehicles. The auto company “Gives California more ammunition for the wrong advertising claim by insisting that it is a roboty when they tell the organizers that it is not.”