Tesla tests robotaxi service with supervision, but only for employees

English Posted on  —by Carro e motos
Tesla tests robotaxi service (Reproduction/Tesla)
Tesla tests robotaxi service (Reproduction/Tesla)

Initiative operates in pilot phase in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area

Tesla has already launched a self-driving taxi service — with one condition: it is only available to company employees.

The news was announced on Wednesday via X (formerly Twitter), where Tesla revealed the start of the “FSD supervised ride-hailing service,” FSD standing for Full Self-Driving. For now, only an initial group of employees in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area has access to the new service.

According to Tesla itself, the system has already recorded over 1,500 trips, totaling more than 15,000 miles driven so far.

This is a testing phase before the official launch, scheduled for June this year — as CEO Elon Musk told investors in January. “This service helps us develop and validate FSD networks, the mobile app, vehicle allocation, mission control, and remote assistance operations,” the company wrote on social media.

After years of promises from Musk, Tesla announced its robotaxi service in October 2024, along with a new autonomous car model named Cybercab. Although the vehicle is not expected to hit the market before 2026, the company stated that the robotaxi service — fully autonomous and without supervision — would be available in Texas and California as early as 2025.

Now, part of that promise is becoming a reality, but with a caveat: the service still requires supervision. A video released with the announcement shows a human driver in the front seat monitoring the ride. A screen message reinforces: “The safety driver is present to supervise and intervene only when necessary. FSD (Supervised) does not make the vehicle autonomous.”

Source and images: Mashable / X @Tesla_Al. This content was created with the help of AI and reviewed by the editorial team.

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