Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company plans to launch robotaxis in Austin, Texas, by the end of June. Following their Austin debut, Musk stated in a CNBC interview that Tesla intends to expand the robotaxi service to Los Angeles and San Francisco.$SHIB
Initially, Tesla's robotaxi service in Austin will begin with around 10 cars. If all goes well and there are no problems, Musk plans to quickly increase the number of robotaxis to thousands.
For years, since 2016, Musk has been telling investors and customers that Tesla is close to having a self-driving car that can transport people safely without anyone needing to be in control.
These first Tesla robotaxis will be Model Y cars, using a new version of Tesla's self-driving software called FSD Unsupervised.
Meanwhile, Waymo, a company owned by Google's parent company Alphabet, already has commercial driverless taxi services running in several US cities. Waymo recently reported that they complete 250,000 paid rides each week.
Musk also mentioned that Tesla will initially limit where their robotaxis can drive in Austin, a practice called "geofencing." However, he promised that there will be no human safety drivers in these cars.
Musk stated that Tesla employees will keep a close eye on the robotaxi fleet remotely. He added that as they gain more confidence in the cars' performance, less human monitoring will be necessary.
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