Two California agencies that regulate robotaxis said they have not heard from Tesla about its plans for its cars, even though Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk announced last week that he would launch a new robotaxi product in August. .
The California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) said in separate statements to NBC News that Tesla has not yet applied for two licenses needed to operate self-driving car services in the nation’s most populous state.
The lack of a license — or any attempt to get one — raises questions about how quickly Tesla can get its robotaxi service up and running.
“Tesla is still a long way from getting approval,” said Brad Templeton, an autonomous vehicle industry consultant.
Tesla representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
California has been ground zero in rolling out robotaxis, requiring aspiring robo-taxi services to obtain at least two licenses.
The DMV is responsible for permits to deploy self-driving equipment on the road, which Tesla currently has lowest level license, enabling it to test self-driving cars in the presence of a human driver. Only three companies have the highest level of licenses, allowing them to deploy self-driving cars without human drivers.
“Tesla has not yet applied for a deployment permit from the DMV,” the department said in a statement in response to questions.
It added that if Tesla were to deploy self-driving robotaxis, “the DMV will take steps to ensure that Tesla is operating under the appropriate self-driving vehicle license.”
The CPUC handles licenses to operate robotaxis as businesses, including licenses for services provided by technology startup Waymo in: san francisco and angels. The commission said Tesla does not have a CPUC license and has not applied for one.
“If Tesla wants to offer a self-driving taxi service, they will need to follow the same rules as other such companies (i.e. obtain DMV approval for self-driving testing/deployment before seeking a CPUC license). The CPUC has not been contacted to obtain such approval. license,” the commission said in a statement in response to questions.
It took Waymo, a subsidiary of Google, eight months to get preliminary permission from the CPUC to operate a robotaxi business that could charge a fee, rather than just offering free trial rides. it applied December 2022 and Approval in August.
Templeton said Tesla’s approval time could be shorter than eight months, or even longer.
“It could also be that they thought Tesla was too early, so they never approved it,” he said. Templeton is a former member of Google’s self-driving car team that later became Waymo, but he left a decade ago and says he no longer has anything to do with the company.
For example, Tesla approaches the challenges of self-driving technology differently than Waymo.Tesla reduces reliance on expensive hardware sensors For example, lidarThe company has deployed driver-assist systems in phases across the country, while Waymo and General Motors subsidiary Cruise have focused on mastering smaller geographic areas, such as parts of the Phoenix and San Francisco metro areas.
Tesla has yet to publicly release technology to drive its cars without human supervision. Its “fully autonomous” products require a human driver to be present and ready to take over at any time.
Each state regulates robotaxis differently, and Tesla may seek to launch a service without California, even if that means cutting off a major market. Tesla was the state’s second-largest seller of new cars and light trucks last year, with 230,589 new registrations, behind Toyota, according to one company. Report From the California New Car Dealers Association.
Musk hinted at his plans in a brief post on X late Friday afternoon, writing: “Tesla Robotaxi will be unveiled on August 8th.”
He gave few details of his plans, but the post boosted morale among Tesla fans on social media who had watched the company take a beating in the business press and on Wall Street. Three days ago, Tesla’s shares fell after reporting a drop in deliveries, but on Monday, the next trading day after Musk’s tweet, shares rose 4.9%. Reuters reports.
Tesla message boards are abuzz with speculation about the content of Musk’s August announcement. It’s unclear whether Musk plans to launch a car, a service or other products.
Musk has been talking about robotaxi services for years. 2019, he discussed plans Launching a fleet of robotaxis using Tesla cars that people rent and then return.This strategy will have Start-up costs shifted The cost of building a fleet—particularly the cost of depreciation—for lessees, drivers and analysts noticed at the time.
Musk also discussed A robotaxi service with decentralized ownership, Tesla owners can charge fees by renting out their cars.
Tesla may need state or local authorization to operate a fleet of robotaxis across the country.
In Arizona, Waymo and Cruise have Authorize It is operated by the Ministry of Transportation as a “transportation network company”. The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Tesla had applied or was required to apply.
Cruise also received a California robotaxi service license, stopped The company launched a nationwide operation last year after one of its cars in San Francisco failed to detect a pedestrian pinned underneath it and then dragged her 20 feet. California officials also accused Cruise of failing to properly disclose details of the incident and revoked Cruise’s license. Cruise said this week it would resume human driving testing.
Amazon subsidiary Zoox explain It has been authorized by the state of Nevada to operate a robo-taxi service, but has not launched it yet. Nevada has a “self-certification” process for robotaxi operations, and the Nevada DMV says it will issue oneCertificate of conformity“For those who qualify.
Eli Rohl, a spokesman for the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, said the department has not yet received documents from Tesla to begin the certification process, but he said the process should not take long.
“If Tesla is interested in obtaining certification or licensing in Nevada, they will likely be able to do so on short notice,” he said in an email.
Tesla already has a rocky relationship with California regulators. In 2022, the California DMV accused it of deceptive behavior in the marketing of driver assistance systems, including using the product name “fully autonomous driving.” An administrative hearing on the matter is scheduled for September.
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