We’re less than two months away from Tesla’s Robotaxi unveiling, but we’re already getting an early glimpse at the ride-hailing platform on which the autonomous vehicles are expected to operate.
Rosalie Nathans, whose LinkedIn profile says she’s a senior manager for used cars and online sales at Tesla, shared a video of the ride-sharing experience that’s “Coming soon” in a Saturday post.
Still pinching myself that I got to demo Tesla’s ride-hailing platform!” she wrote.
The video shows Nathans requesting the service by pressing a black-and-white circle with the word “Summon” within an app. Within a few seconds, the app shows a map of a car three minutes from her pickup location along with the vehicle’s seating capacity and temperature. The video shows Nathans adjusting her preferred temperature before the car arrives.
Once she’s inside, the video shows a central screen display with a map of the route at the top and what seems to be her arrival time, the number of minutes until her arrival, and the number of miles to the destination below. The display also seems to allow passengers options to personalize their experience by listing the current car temperature, audio volume, and song playing on the display.
At first glance, it looks a lot like Uber or Lyft — although there’s not a human driver visible in the video.
Nathans did not respond to a request for comment.
Nathans’s video gives us our best look yet at Elon Musk’s vision for an autonomous Robotaxi service that may one day offer Tesla owners the ability to earn money on the side by adding their vehicles to the fleet. The Tesla CEO has said in the past that they could earn around $30,000 a year from doing so.
The EV giant previously teased what the ride-hailing service could look like in a longer video posted on X in late May about Tesla’s goals for the future. That video was posted with a caption asking shareholders to vote on proposals at the annual shareholder meeting, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $55 billion pay package and moving the company’s headquarters to Texas. Both were approved at the meeting last week.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software, which is still in beta, is the underlying software technology that the company is working on to power a stand-alone Tesla Robotaxi service.
The software, which costs Tesla owners $15,000 or a monthly fee of $99 to $199, currently requires drivers’ constant supervision and has drawn regulator scrutiny and lawsuits. It can currently switch lanes, recognize stop signs and traffic lights, self-park, and enter a highway without a driver’s direct input.
The Robotaxi has become a main priority for the EV giant. Reuters reported the carmaker had pivoted away from a cheaper $25,000 to focus on Robotaxis — which Musk denied. The Tesla CEO has hyped up the potential for FSD as a key pillar of Tesla’s valuation for years, and said in 2021 that “the day FSD goes to wide release will be one of the biggest asset value increases in history.”
Tesla hasn’t revealed too many other details about what the Robotaxi will look like. Musk has previously voiced the desire to have it forgo mirrors, pedals, and steering wheels, according to his biographer Walter Isaacson.
Musk has said there will be a Tesla RoboTaxi unveiling on August 8.
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