Elon Musk says Tesla will offer paid robotaxi rides next year

Tesla offers paid robotaxis service, along with safety driver, to its employees in San Francisco Bay Area
An undated image of Tesla robotaxi. — Tesla
An undated image of Tesla robotaxi. — Tesla

Tesla plans to introduce its paid robotaxi service in specific US states, despite the hurdles it will likely face while securing permits from authorities.

Tesla Robotaxis service coming to California, Texas

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on Wednesday (October 23) that the automotive company will roll out driverless ride-hailing services in California and Texas next year.

"We think that we'll be able to have driverless Teslas doing paid rides next year," said Musk while speaking at the company’s Q3 2024 Financial Results earnings call. 

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With this statement, Musk reaffirmed and built upon his previous commitment made during Tesla's “We Robot” event, where he hinted at introducing "unsupervised" autonomous driving capabilities in select Tesla models by 2025. 

Do Tesla offers robotaxi service to employees?

Currently, Tesla offers paid robotaxis service, along with a safety driver, to its employees in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

However, in California, the company is likely to face hurdles while securing the permits and regulatory approvals to offer fully autonomous rides to paying customers, as it is not officially licensed to operate a commercial ride-hailing platform like Waymo and Cruise.

Notably, Waymo also had to spend years and miles of testing before it received its first permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that regulates ride-hailing services.

Furthermore, Reuters reported that Tesla last reported to CPUC for an autonomous vehicle testing permit in 2019, and since then the company has not applied for a testing permit.