Flashspoter - Tesla marked one more significant milestone in the rollout of ride-hailing services and the robotaxi evolution after being given formal permission to operate in the state of Arizona. The endorsement was given by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) on November 17, only four days after Tesla filed its application to the Transportation Network Company (TNC) on November 13. With this license, the firm is authorized to operate Uber-like services in the area and receive money from passengers.
This authorization doesn't allow Tesla to operate driverless vehicles yet. A safety driver or a supervisor who will watch the trip should be present in the front seat according to Arizona regulations. Thus, the running services are still far from the vision of a high level of autonomy that Tesla has often mentioned in recent years.
Arizona has so far been known to have looser autonomous vehicle testing rules than states like California. To operate its autonomous fleet, Tesla is required to include a Law Enforcement Interaction Plan document, containing procedures for handling emergency conditions or scenarios when vehicles stop on the highway. Companies also need to file a declaration of compliance with federal regulations related to vehicle safety.
Prior to Arizona, Tesla already operated a limited-scale robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area. However, both services still require the presence of a supervisor in front to meet local requirements. In September, Tesla also received certification to test its autonomous vehicles in Arizona, with rules that the test must still be accompanied by driver safety.
The expansion into Arizona is part of Tesla's strategy to accelerate the implementation of its robotaxi network. In its previous quarterly performance report, the company targeted robotaxi operations in eight to ten metro areas by the end of 2025. The Target uses the still loose definition of “robotaxi”, given that vehicles remain controlled with driver assistance via Full Self-Driving Software (FSD) that has long been in the spotlight of regulators due to various safety reports.
In addition to the development of permits in Arizona, Tesla is also expanding access to its ride-hailing app to all iOS users in the United States and Canada. However, this increase in access has not ensured an increase in the number of vehicles in its fleet. According to the different user reports, the service continues to depict fluctuating demand, also, the waiting times that can vary significantly within a few minutes are changing.
Tesla's ride-hailing service is spreading while the competition in the robotaxi industry is getting tougher. The industry, which was affected by high costs, strict regulations, and federal investigations and hence was slowing down, is now apparently bouncing back. Companies such as Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon's Zoox are also accelerating the development and expansion of their operations in several major U.S. cities.
Although Tesla now has a license to operate, the company remains in the early stages of realizing a fully autonomous robotaxi. At this moment, the main emphasis of the operations is on paid transport services that are still under human control, but the drivers are using FSD features. To put it differently, a fully driverless vehicle operating in a random environment still requires technological maturity and a wider regulatory green light before it can be realized.
After comparative advantage of going to test on the streets of different cities has been lost, big players such as Waymo have located their activity in Arizona where they have turned it into a major area of their long-range testing and where the autonomous vehicle ecosystem has developed as a result of their presence of competitors themselves. With the entry of Tesla, the autonomous transportation market in the state is expected to become increasingly competitive while providing important data for the electric carmaker in the refinement of their technology.
As Tesla continues its expansion into more cities in the coming years, the effectiveness of implementing the service in Arizona will be an important benchmark of whether the company can move closer to its autonomous ambitions, or remain operating within regulatory constraints that still require human intervention.
Source Reuters, Engadget, Business Insider
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