The electric car manufacturer Tesla has started testing a series version of its Cybercab in the Texas city of Austin. The two-seater electric vehicle will have no steering wheel or pedals and will drive completely autonomously using Tesla Autopilot. Meanwhile, the test drives are still taking place with a driver in the passenger seat, as can be seen from a short video posted by Tesla on the X platform. The 26-second clip shows Tesla’s Cybercab driving on a country road with oncoming traffic.
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The test comes almost two years after the Cybercab design was unveiled. Around a year ago, Tesla launched a test robotaxi service with restrictions, also in Austin and San Francisco. For safety reasons, the Tesla Model Y vehicles used there had to have a guard in the passenger seat who could intervene if necessary. In the past few weeks, according to the US tech portal TechCrunch, Tesla has tested prototypes of the Cybercab in various US cities, which were still equipped with a steering wheel and pedals.
Regulations for brake pedals could be eliminated
It will soon be decided whether the company will finally launch a robotaxi network on a large scale. Last week, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) presented a proposal that would no longer require a brake pedal for exclusively autonomous vehicles. That proposal is expected to pass later this year, TechCrunch said. This would remove an important hurdle for Tesla’s robotaxi service.
In January, Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised that his company would offer a wide network of driverless robotaxis in the United States by the end of this year. In Austin, Tesla started operating fully autonomous taxis. However, this is limited to a limited number of cars. There are also doubts about how reliably Tesla’s robotaxis can drive, because unlike the autonomous taxis from market leader Waymo, the vehicles used by Tesla only orientate themselves in their surroundings using cameras. There are no more expensive laser radars on board.
However, if Tesla’s plan were to succeed, the group would have a significant cost advantage over Waymo and other providers. Especially since, in contrast to Waymo, which relies on partnerships with brands such as Jaguar and the Chinese Geely subsidiary Zeekr when purchasing vehicles, Tesla develops its vehicles and driving software itself, which should also enable better cost control.
Waymo is expanding
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Tesla’s competitor Waymo is already further ahead and has announced plans to expand into 20 cities in the US and abroad this year, including Dallas, Orlando, Nashville and London. So far, Waymo’s autonomous taxis are operating in half a dozen US cities. In January the network was expanded to include Miami. Waymo also raised more than $16 billion in a financing round at the beginning of the year. The fresh capital will be used to fuel the expansion of its robotaxi service in the USA and entry into global markets. In New York, however, the expansion plans recently suffered a setback.
Last year, Waymo tripled its annual volume to 15 million rides and broke the 20 million ride mark overall. The company now completes more than 400,000 paid rides every week and, according to media reports, is aiming for more than one million paid robotaxi rides per week in the United States by the end of this year. Tesla is still a long way from all of this.
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