Tesla set to unveil self-driving car service in Austin

Austin, Texas is set to be the first city worldwide to see Tesla’s self-driving robotaxi service on its roads. Elon Musk, CEO of the electric carmaker, has said he is “tentatively” planning to roll out a small number of these autonomous vehicles on the streets of the Texas state capital on Sunday.

Details about the company’s robotaxi service have been scant since its unveiling in October of last year, and its launch has been delayed. Musk has told reporters that there may be fewer than a dozen cars in Austin on Sunday and that the vehicles will stick to specific neighborhoods. Some analysts believe that the robotaxis will only be available to employees and invitees initially.

For the CEO, Tesla’s rollout is slow. “We could start with 1,000 or 10,000 [robotaxis] on day one, but I don’t think that would be prudent,” he told CNBC in May. “So, we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40.”

The billionaire has said the driverless cars will be monitored remotely, but it is unclear if a safety driver will accompany the vehicles – as is standard practice when other robotaxi companies have launched in new cities.

Musk has been touting the Austin rollout since last summer, but the debut date has been a moving target. Over the past few months, the billionaire indicated the launch would be some time in June.

Then, news reports floated that it would happen on 12 June. Just two days before that supposed launch, Musk reposted a video on X, the social media platform he owns, showing a driverless Tesla passing through an intersection in Austin. In response to questions about the video on X, Musk said the date was “tentatively” 22 June but that this launch date would be “not real self-driving”, which would have to wait nearly another week.

“We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift,” Musk added. “First Tesla that drives itself from factory end of line all the way to a customer house is 28 June.”

Musk said he plans to have one thousand Tesla robotaxis on Austin roads “within a few months” and then he’ll expand to other cities in Texas and California.

Despite a launch that Musk has described as scaled back, Tesla is already facing opposition from Texas lawmakers. A group of Democratic state senators and members of the house sent Tesla a letter last week asking the company to delay the debut until a new autonomous vehicle law takes effect in September.

“We believe this is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla’s operations,” the lawmakers wrote. It is unlikely their objections will throw up lasting roadblocks, though, as Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of the Texas legislature.

Federal authorities have likewise taken note of the robotaxi launch. In May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sent Tesla a list of questions about its robotaxi launch in Austin, which included how the company would intervene if something went wrong, how it would handle crash reporting and how it would deal with adverse weather conditions.

An NHTSA spokesperson told the Guardian that the agency has received a response from Tesla and it is in the process of reviewing it.

Tesla has been the subject of numerous investigations and lawsuits over the safety of the software that allows owners of its vehicles to drive hands-free, which the company calls Full Self-Driving and which is closely related to the technology used in its robotaxis.

There have been at least 17 deaths and five serious injuries involving the technology, according to the Washington Post. The NHTSA is looking into numerous crashes in which the agency says Full Self-Driving software was impeded by weather conditions like sun glare, fog, dust and darkness, including one crash that resulted in the death of a pedestrian.

Tesla will be joining a crowded robotaxi market in the Texas city, which already has services from Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet.

Amazon and Volkswagen are also testing driverless taxis in Austin. These companies have taken a slower approach in developing their autonomous vehicle technology by driving hundreds of thousands of miles to map city streets and working to train their software to avoid pedestrians, cyclists and unexpected happenings on the road.

Tesla did not return a request for comment.