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Tesla Robotaxi Plans for Post-Federal Investigation for Safety and Regulatory Concerns

Prime Highlights:

  • The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is investigating the Full Self-Driving (FSD) system of Tesla, particularly for its behavior during low-visibility conditions.
  • Tesla will roll out an autonomous ride-hailing service based on its own autonomous vehicle fleet in Austin, Texas, by June 2025.

Key Facts:

  • NHTSA asked Tesla to provide specific data on its robotaxi fleet size, the models that it possesses, test safety protocols, and how its planned robotaxi system is compatible with its existing FSD Supervised software.
  • The petition comes after four Tesla crashes allegedly attributed to FSD-operating vehicles in low-visibility environments, one of which led to a fatal crash with a pedestrian in Arizona (2023) and another that collided with a motorcyclist in Seattle (2024).
  • Tesla has been ignoring NHTSA’s inquiries and has not sought approval to test autonomous vehicles in California.

Key Background:

Tesla’s bold plan of putting out an extensive number of robotaxis has alerted federal regulators, led by the NHTSA. The regulator fears for the reliability and safety of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) mode, particularly under conditions of poor visibility such as dust, fog, or rain. This study comes on the heels of a series of crashes, including one in Arizona in 2023 that killed a pedestrian and another in Seattle in 2024 that involved a motorcyclist and both were blamed on the fault of the Tesla FSD system.

Tesla in December recalled over 2 million vehicles to repair driver-attention issues with its Autopilot.

NHTSA is now considering the success of that recall campaign. Tesla is continuing to sell its robotaxi program and announced last month by CEO Elon Musk to provide an autonomous ride-hailing business in Austin, Texas, by June 2025. The new business would run on a new iteration of the FSD software that would be capable of operating completely unaided by humans. But regulatory hurdles exist. Tesla has not been issued even a transportation charter-party carrier permit in California, and it’s not a public permit to make autonomous ride-hailing available to the public. It did not utilize the permitted permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to test or provide autonomous cars without a safety driver. Others such as Waymo have waited years and logged millions of miles to achieve such certifications.

Public opinion on Tesla’s robotaxi concept is mixed. In a survey, 55% of Americans would ride in a Tesla robotaxi, and future generations would be even more positive. Safety is still the concerns that dominate, though, as 42% of the respondents did not want relatives to use such a service.

Tesla’s path towards becoming a robotaxi company is hindered by regulatory and safety challenges. If and as long as the company succeeds in breaking through federal obstacles and securing required permits, this will be the key to its future as an autonomous auto company. 

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