Tesla‘s CEO Elon Musk said late Wednesday that the geofenced area where the company’s first robotaxis have been providing rides will be expanding.
In Austin, the city chosen by Tesla to start its driverless service in late June, the area will expand to a “larger” one “this weekend,” Musk said without providing details about the expansion.
Asked about the expansion of the service to the bay area, Tesla’s chief executive wrote on X that the company is still waiting on regulatory approvals.
“Waiting on regulatory approvals, but probably in a month or two,” he stated.
The company started offering paid fully driverless rides in Austin late last month, by offering invitations to a select group of influencers.
The pilot program allowed early riders to book trips in driverless Model Y vehicles using a new standalone mobile app and a safety operator was present in the passenger seat of each vehicle.
The initial fleet included about 10 Model Ys covering a five-mile radius service area.
The EV maker aims to have “hundreds of thousands, if not over a million Teslas doing self-driving in the US” by the end of next year, according to Musk.
Although Tesla hasn’t launched the service to the public yet, it has begun sending invitations to regular customers who signed up for the service on its website, according to several users on X.
Texas has a friendly regulation on autonomous driving, making it easier for Tesla to test its Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology, which powers the robotaxi.
In contrast, California’s stricter rules have drawn criticism from Elon Musk for years and ultimately contributed to Tesla relocating its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
To launch its paid ride-hailing service in San Francisco, Tesla must obtain several permits from both the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
So far, according to Reuters, the company has secured only the first of several required approvals from the CPUC.
The only company currently running a full self-driving robotaxi in the Bay Area is Waymo, which has a fleet of about 1,500 vehicles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
The autonomous vehicle from the Google subsidiary is on the road since October of 2020 and has served over 10 million paid trips since then, according to the company.
It plans to expand its ride-hailing services in Miami and Washington D.C. next year.
While Tesla‘s unsupervised Full Self Driving (FSD) is nearing release in the United States, the company is still battling for regulatory approval for the supervised version in Europe.
Last month, Elon Musk urged Tesla drivers to pressure national authorities to approve the system. The chief executive stated on X that the U.S. brand is “waiting for Dutch authorities and then the EU to approve” the system.
