AYears of promising investors that millions of Robotaxis Tesla would soon fill the streets, Elon Musk Begrowed its driver -free car service in a public deployment limited to Austin, Texas. It did not go well.
The launch of June 22 was initially successful, with a flood of videos from pro-Tesla social media influencers, renting the service and sharing images of their rides. Musk celebrated him as a triumph, and the next day, Tesla’s stock increased by almost 10%.
What has quickly become obvious, however, is that the same influence videos that Musk has promoted also represented autonomous cars that seem to break traffic laws or fight to function properly. Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had has opened an investigation into the service And the information asked Tesla on incidents.
If Tesla’s limited deployment of the Robotaxi service was the culmination of more than a decade of work, because Musk has praised X, his difficulties are also emblematic of technical decisions and fixings that the richest person in the world has adopted when he pursues the objective of a fully autonomous autonomous car.
Musk threw the concept of a driverless car as a fundamental part of the company’s future activities and, as sales fell strongly this yearHe promised that his Robotaxie service will develop quickly and considerably. However, the defaulting launch of this week suggests that Tesla is still faced with technological challenges that have attracted the notice of regulators, the delay in Musk’s vision of a Robotaxi at each corner and highlighted the Gulf between him and his driverless rival, Waymo.
The launch of Robotaxi presented approximately 10 cars traveling in a limited area of Austin With safety drivers in the passenger seat. The pilot included other restrictions, such as not working in bad weather or during certain hours of night. The rides, which the company offered to a multitude of component influencers, cost $ 4.20, in accordance with Musk’s propensity for memes of cannabis.
“Tesla self-flout can be deployed wherever it is approved. It does not require expensive specialized equipment or in-depth mapping of service zones”, an official Tesla account published on X on the day of launch. “It works.”
Images of at least 11 rides have shown that the test race did not go as perfectly as Tesla’s tweet suggested it. In a case, a Robotaxi failed to turn left and rather led in a track intended for traffic coming in the opposite direction, then corrected by crossing a double yellow line. Other videos seemed to show the cars exceeding the speed limit, slowing down without perceptible reason and abandoning passengers in the middle of an intersection.
The videos drew the attention of the NHTSA, which said in a statement that it was aware of the incidents and had contacted Tesla to get more information.
Musk, on the other hand, published throughout technical failures and regulatory demand, Retweet pro-Tesla influencers who praised the service. An account that Musk published showed a video of a Robotaxi stopping to avoid running in a peacock crossing the road, and another told subscribers: “Do not listen to the media.”
‘Lidar is lame’
Musk has long insisted that the use of cameras only on driver -free cars is the singular way of reaching the real autonomous capacity. Tesla consumer vehicles are delivered with what it calls “automatic pilot” and “complete” features that allow drivers to navigate the hands -free motorway. They count on several external cameras to navigate, direct and brake. The company’s robotaxis uses similar software and also only depends on cameras.
The dependence on cameras alone contrasts with other autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo and Zoox. These companies use tables that combine cameras and sensors, including radar and Lidar. For example, the latest version of a driver -free waymo uses approximately 40 cameras and external sensors, while Tesla with one of the last versions of full autonomy uses approximately eight external cameras, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Lidar and radar allow autonomous cars to better detect objects in bad weather and bad lighting.
Despite the advantages of Lidar and Radar, Musk was categorical that Tesla remains without Lidar. “Lidar is lame,” said Musk on a day of Tesla autonomy in 2019. “In cars, it’s stupid. It’s expensive and useless.”
The Lidar is much more expensive, costing about $ 12,000 per vehicle, compared to the cameras, which are around $ 400 per car, according to Bloomberg. Musk maintains that technology only of the camera is the most “human” way to approach self-clarification because people use their eyes to sail on the road.
Tesla faces proceedings and surveys in complete autonomous mode
Musk insistence on the technology reserved for the camera has won Tesla in hot water on deadly accidents involving drivers using the total autonomous function. The company is now at the center of government surveys and civil proceedings, which allege that complete self-clarification is hampered by weather conditions such as the dazzling of the sun, fog, dust and obscurity. There were at least 736 accidents and 17 deaths involving technology, according to a Washington Post analysis.
“Tesla continues to have this fetishist opinion according to which she will operate her system only on cameras, despite each intelligent human being in all this space by saying that this cannot be done,” said Brett Schreiber, a lawyer who represents several alleged victims of Tesla’s author’s failures.
“All those who have been following an obvious technology since the 1990s know that the Holy Trinity is radar, Lidar and cameras.”
Schreiber said he was not surprised to see Tesla’s flickering deployment in Austin.
“What you will also see, which is the true tragedy of this thing, it is the people who continue to be injured and killed by this technology,” he said. “And this is where it becomes less a” oh, isn’t it cute? The vehicle cannot be on the left “now we are really at someone’s funeral because of Tesla’s choices.”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comments on proceedings, government surveys and accidents involving complete autonomy.
Tesla’s tactics against Waymo mode
The differences between Waymo And Tesla’s approaches to launch autonomous commercial services in dense cities do not end with the debate on the Lidar against cameras. Waymo is considered the favorite of autonomous race in the United States – a race which was once cluttered with dozens of car manufacturers, startups supported by VC and driving sharing companies and which has since been reduced to a handful of major players.
There are many reasons why Waymo has survived so many of his competitors and why he is ahead of the curve. The Google subsidiary has historically spent months, even years, mapping cities and testing its vehicles before launch. In San Francisco, one of the first cities where Waymo launched its entirely driver -free sales service, the company began to map and test its service in 2021 before launching it to the public in 2024.
Even with a prudent and progressive approach to the city by city, Waymo, which was launched as a project in the Google X Research Laboratory in 2009, encountered problems with its autonomous cars. Earlier this year, Waymo had to reminder More than 1,200 of its vehicles on a software problem that caused collisions with chains, doors and other stationary road barriers. The NHTSA also launched a investigation In the company last year after the agency received 22 Waymo vehicle reports acting irregularly or potentially violating road safety laws.
Contrast Waymo’s approach with Tesla. While Tesla is still in the test phase of its service, its launch of Robotaxi in Austin is the first time that the entirely autonomous technology of the automotive company has been unleashed in the wild. The company has not published information on the question of whether, or how long it has spent mapping or testing driverless technology in the streets of Austin.
The launch recalls Uber’s first foray into an autonomous driving sharing service in 2016. The company launched an autonomous pilot in San Francisco without requesting a license from California Department of Motor Vehicles, as necessary. The first day of the pilot, An Uber vehicle has shot a red light. The company was forced to close the service a week later After the DMV revoked its recording. A Uber self-commission officer at the time had pushed the company’s engineers to rush To launch the San Francisco pilot to attract more attention from investors and the public.
After being prosecuted by Waymo on its autonomous operations and fighting to make up for its competitors, Uber sold its autonomous arm in 2020.
Tesla did not have a license either to operate its Robotaxi service in Austin. Texas currently has no processes to acquire a permit and will not be in place before September.
Although there is for the moment less visibility on what Tesla’s deployment of its Robotaxi service looked behind the scenes, the automaker is No stranger to rush to meet deadlines Located publicly by Musk.
With the launch of Robotaxis, Musk, who promised that Teslas will be fully autonomous since at least 2016Perhaps gets closer to respect the deadline he has set and has postponed several times in the past 10 years.
