Tesla is shifting into a new era with its self-driving technology. The company is rolling out a beta version of its rideshare service using a newly patented self-driving system.
CEO Elon Musk’s pilot program is now live for a small group of Tesla employees in Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area.
“FSD Supervised ride-hailing service is live for an early set of employees in Austin & San Francisco Bay Area…This service helps us develop & validate FSD networks, the mobile app, vehicle allocation, mission control & remote assistance operations,” Tesla AI posted to X on April 23.
The move to self-driving taxis comes as part of Tesla’s modern car industry push to bring autonomous vehicles to their mainstream consumers. According to the company, early tests have already logged more than 1,500 rides and 15,000 miles on their self-driving system. The service hopes to keep up with the modern times, smoothing out all the tech faults, everything from route planning and vehicle deployment to mobile phone app support for users who order self-driving rideshares.
Musk announced during this week’s earnings call that Tesla would initially rely on their modified Model Y vehicles before launching a new model built specifically for autonomy: the “Cybercab,” which the company reportedly expects to begin production on within the next year.
Musk believes his company’s “robotaxi” project could dramatically boost Tesla’s bottom line by the end of 2026, according to Fox Business. Tesla’s stock jumped more than 3% on Friday following news of the self-driving rollout and growing optimism about the company’s future of autonomous cars.
However, it has been hard to navigate the media attention that Tesla has recently received.
Reuters contrastingly reported that Tesla’s quarterly sales plunged 13% to the weakest in nearly three years, hurt by a backlash against Musk’s politics, rising global competition, and people waiting for a refresh to the company’s highest-selling electric vehicle, Model Y.
Regardless, Tesla has publicly said that its autonomous service will officially launch in Austin by June and expand to more cities as it scales up self-driving operations.
In a slightly ominous post to X, Elon Musk simply said, “Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8.”