Your Robotaxi Is (almost) Here

Elon Musk chose early October to reveal what he said was a key element of the future of his car company Tesla — electric driverless cars. They're designed to chauffeur passengers to their destination.

On display (and available for rides by attendees at the event) were two-passenger vehicles with no steering wheel or pedals. A surprise at the event was a larger bus-like model dubbed the Robovan, capable of carrying up to 20 people.

Musk said the robotaxis — Cybercabs in Tesla parlance —  would be in production in 2027 and sell for less than $30,000. He predicted customers would own and run fleets of them. Details that weren’t offered included any updates on Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) software, which is currently under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because of at least one incident where a pedestrian was killed by a car driving on FSD.

That brings up the two most significant issues standing between you and your robotaxi (while we know some are already operating in limited service) — technology and trust.

Technology

While the Tesla announcement about its coming autonomous cars drew some positive focus on the robotaxi world, other companies are already actively offering driverless cars for hire. Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, has cars and minivans taking customers for rides in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin, Texas. It has plans to expand to other cities soon. While there have been some issues, such as unmanned cars honking at each other and some cars seemingly losing their way, the popularity of the cars has grown exponentially, and is now up to more than 100,000 rides a week.

The other early mover in robotaxis is Cruise, which is majority-controlled by General Motors. It lost its permit to run a driverless taxi service after one of its cars dragged a woman after she had been hit by a human-driven car. Other companies, including Zoox, a subsidiary of Amazon, and Wayve, a well-funded British startup, are working on autonomous technology and plan to field their own robotaxis soon. Of course, several Chinese companies also have driverless cars running in several cities. Ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft have also shown interest in adopting robotaxis to help lower their costs.

Autonomous technology is complicated and expensive (Waymo says its current cars cost about $150,000 each), so most of the successful companies in the field need to have deep pockets. That, combined with stringent regulations that push for minimal incidents, appear to be pushing full-scale deployment of robotaxis into the future.

Trust

Technology is advancing quickly using networked super computers, artificial intelligence and high-speed processors, but not all companies are deploying the same sets of sensors or technology. The diversity of approaches is one more cause of regulatory caution and reluctance to move more quickly until there is more real-world experience with the technology.

The other area of trust is from consumers who are expected to use robotaxis. While the growing acceptance of current offerings is encouraging for companies in this field, the initial cities include tech-savvy places like San Francisco and Austin. Widely reported incidents like the Cruise accident and viral videos of driverless cars blocking emergency vehicles or driving the wrong way on a street serve to undercut public trust.

The trust and technology hurdles are not insurmountable, but they are real and pose a threat to the near-term widespread deployment of robotaxis. They are out there now — in some limited places — and they work very well most of the time. All indications, though, are that many teenagers today will have a chance to use a robotaxi in their lifetime, if they trust them.

About the author

Michael Coates is an international recognized expert on automotive environmental issues. He publishes the Clean Fleet Report (https://cleanfleetreport.com/), writes for a variety of publications and also consults in the automotive industry.