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Tesla has finally been granted permission to offer robotaxis to the general public throughout the state of Texas. That means you could soon hail one of Elon Musk’s driverless cars to ferry you from the airport to your hotel in Dallas and maybe many other cities.
Tesla has plans to expand its diner service across the world.
The Lone Star state has given Tesla Robotaxi LLC a license to run a “transportation network company” until August 6, 2026 starting last week, reports CNBC. Similar licenses have been granted to Uber and Lyft.
What we know for sure is the limited nature of the robotaxi service in Austin should expand. Instead of just a select few being invited to test out the service, the general public in the city likely will have access to the fleet of Model Ys soon.
But we’d be surprised if the human sitting in the driver’s seat goes away anytime soon. After all, other new robotaxi services have had such a provision for some time after first launching.
Then again, Elon Musk doesn’t always follow industry conventions.
Musk has made it clear that he intends to aggressively expand his service throughout the country as quickly as possible. In other words, he’s not content to just keep Tesla Robotaxi running in Texas and California.
We would expect him to go where other autonomous ride services are already being offered first. That means places like Phoenix, Arizona and Houston, Texas are likely high on the expansion list.
But we expect quite a bit of opposition to anything Musk wants to do these days. Not only will people be concerned about more robot cars on public roads, something we’ve witnessed firsthand for years now, there’s the political wrinkle.
After aiding President Trump is his reelection campaign, Musk has become persona non grata in certain circles. The quest to put him out of business and defame his name has been intense, so we expect some states will resist the expansion of his robotaxi service.
Sadly, we also expect some people to harass anyone who uses it. These are truly wild times to be alive.
Image via Tesla
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