Tesla (TSLA.US) Robotaxi officially announced that it is open to the public! Musk's “cake” has finally landed

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Tesla (TSLA.US) said that its autonomous taxi (Robotaxi) application is open to the public. This move means that the company will soon expand the service from a small group of early experience users in Austin, Texas, to a wider range of people.

On Wednesday evening, Tesla's self-driving taxi project posted a post on the social networking platform X, announcing that the ride-sharing app “is now open to all users.” Until then, the service's users were mostly limited to investors and social media bloggers.

An app download link from Apple's App Store (Apple's App Store) is attached to the post, and users are prompted to join the waiting list by downloading the app. This opening to the public is in line with Tesla CEO Elon Musk's previous predictions — he said the app would launch to the public in September.

Investors have been watching closely whether Tesla can rapidly scale up its much-anticipated autonomous taxi service in Austin and beyond. Currently, Musk and Tesla are increasingly betting on autonomous driving technology and artificial intelligence. In June of this year, Tesla launched the service to a small number of users in Austin. At the time, it invested in about 10 to 20 Model Y sports utility vehicles (SUVs); since then, the company also launched a ride-sharing service under the same name in the San Francisco Bay Area, but this version does not yet have an autonomous driving function.

It's unclear whether users can use the service in both Austin and the San Francisco Bay Area, but the app's terms of service include special terms for California users.

Tesla also introduced a rule called the “Good Conduct Policy” (Good Conduct Policy), which requires users to agree to a series of terms, including “behaving as supervised by a mother” and “keeping clean and tidy.” The terms also added that users over 18 can ride alone, while children under 13 are not allowed to ride in this type of vehicle.

Regulatory barriers need to be broken through

Currently in Austin, Tesla is the second company to provide autonomous driving shared travel services. Previously, Waymo had partnered with Uber Technologies (UBER.US) to develop related services locally. Austin has become a testing base for autonomous vehicles for many companies. In addition to Tesla, companies such as ADMT, Avride, and Zoox under the Volkswagen Group are all testing here.

In a Tesla investor conference call in July of this year, Musk said that the company plans to expand autonomous taxi services to Arizona, Florida, and Nevada in the future. Currently, Tesla has applied for permission to test and deploy autonomous vehicles from Arizona, and has had initial communication with Nevada officials. However, Tesla still faces varying degrees of regulatory hurdles in different states; in addition, to launch its “Cybercab” model, which is specifically designed for autonomous driving, has no pedals and no steering wheel, the company still needs to obtain a special license from the US federal government.

In June of this year, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it had begun investigating a number of accident videos filmed and exposed by early experienced users. The video shows that as early as the first day of operation of Tesla's autonomous taxi service, such vehicles speeding and violating traffic regulations occurred in the Austin area.

In Austin, Tesla's autonomous vehicles are currently supervised by a safety supervisor sitting in the passenger seat. The supervisor can operate a special button to stop or lean the vehicle. Recently, the service has been extended to motorway sections; Tesla said that to ensure safety, safety supervisors will move to the driver's seat when driving on the highway.

Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Tesla's current ride-sharing service uses a supervised version of “Full Self Driving Software” (Full Self Driving Software) — the software is still essentially an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS), not fully autonomous driving technology. To launch a true autonomous ride-sharing service in California, Tesla also needs to obtain relevant permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (California Department of Motor Vehicles) and the California Public Utilities Commission (California Public Utilities Commission).