Tesla has begun validation testing of its autonomous robotaxi vehicles outside Dallas, Texas, as the company aims to continue expanding its self-driving service across more cities and states.
The testing comes days after the Arizona Department of Transportation approved Tesla to begin autonomous robotaxi trials, making it the fourth US state after California, Texas and Nevada to give the company the green light.
Images shared on X by the user ‘InnovatingCoin’ showed two Tesla vehicles equipped with roof-mounted sensors driving in Plano, Texas.
Separately, Tesla this week listed job openings for vehicle operators in California, including in Oakland, Burlingame, Colma, Berkeley and Hayward, signaling an expansion of its supervised testing program.
At Tesla’s “We Robot” event in October 2024, Chief Executive Elon Musk described the robotaxi network as “a combination of Airbnb and Uber.”
“Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi will be like a combination of Airbnb and Uber,” Musk stated. “Tesla car owners will be able to make money by adding their car to the fleet.”
Earlier this week, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives reiterated an Outperform rating on Tesla with a $500 price target, writing that “countless people are skeptical of Tesla’s Robotaxi vision” but that Musk was now in “wartime CEO” mode to accelerate development.
Reuters reported earlier this week that Tesla has caused concerns among national and California regulators after not fully informing them about its driverless ride-hailing rollout in the Bay Area.
After some people compared the service to regular ride-hailing with a human driver using Tesla‘s Full Self-Driving (FSD), Elon Musk said this month that the safety driver will likely be removed by year-end.
“The safety driver is only needed for the first few months to be extra safe,” he wrote on X. “There should be no safety driver by the end of the year.”
Politico recently reported that Tesla has started requesting approval from several California airports to allow its driverless ride-hailing service to pick up and drop off passengers there.
The public launch of the service is planned for later this month, with Tesla having launched the Robotaxi app on Apple Store already, as it aims for half of the US population to be able to use the service by the end of 2025.