Tesla is jostling with Waymo and Uber to shape California’s robotaxi rules as it races to hit Elon Musk’s ambitious year-end target.
In comments filed with a California regulator and published on Monday, Tesla pushed back against a proposal backed by Waymo that could require Musk’s company to disclose more data about its ride-hailing service.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is drafting new rules governing robotaxi passenger services and has invited companies — including Tesla, Uber, and Waymo — to comment.
All three companies are racing to deploy autonomous vehicles in California, but are taking very different approaches.
Tesla launched a ride-hailing service in San Francisco in July, following the introduction of a driverless taxi service in Austin a month earlier.
The EV giant lacks the necessary permits to offer fully driverless rides in California, however, so its Bay Area vehicles have safety drivers who monitor Tesla’s assisted driving system, called Full Self-Driving. Tesla also has human safety drivers sitting in the passenger seat for its Austin service.
Waymo, by contrast, offers fully driverless ride-hailing in San Francisco and Los Angeles, while Uber is planning to launch a robotaxi service with autonomous vehicle companies Nuro and Lucid in the city next year.
In its filing, Tesla disputed Waymo’s suggestion that operators who offer ride-hailing services with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) — which can handle some actions autonomously but require human supervision — should be required to submit quarterly reports detailing the number of miles traveled, passenger trip time, and information about collisions and other incidents.
Under current regulations, Tesla’s ride-hailing service in California does not have to report this information, while robotaxi operators like Waymo do.
Tesla argued that vehicles equipped with driver-assist technology, such as its Full Self-Driving system, are “wholly distinct” from autonomous vehicles because they require human supervision, and that requiring additional reporting would overwhelm the regulator with data and confuse consumers.
Separately, Tesla hit back at comments filed by Uber with the regulator in October. The ride-hailer argued that the regulator should ensure that ADAS-equipped vehicles are not marketed as fully autonomous and avoid “misleading” phrases such as “self-driving” or “robotaxis.”
In a follow-up filing published on Monday, Uber said that the regulator should not extend its autonomous vehicle rules to vehicles with driver-assist systems, arguing it would conflate different technologies and cause confusion.
An Uber spokesperson told Business Insider that the company’s original comments emphasized that California’s Department of Motor Vehicles should be responsible for determining what is and isn’t an autonomous vehicle.
Tesla, Waymo, and the CPUC did not respond to a request for comment.
Robotaxi race heats up
Tesla has faced criticism in the past over its marketing of Full Self-Driving, with lawsuits accusing the manufacturer of misleading customers by portraying the system as fully autonomous.
The company’s rollout of a ride-hailing service in San Francisco also sparked confusion. Musk has previously referred to Tesla’s service in California as “self-driving” and “autonomous,” and Reuters reported that regulators reached out to Tesla to clarify that it would not be a “robotaxi” service like the one the company operates in Austin.
Tesla argued that Uber’s suggested tweaks were unnecessary, as misleading advertisements were covered by the existing rules. In a separate filing published on Monday, Waymo said there was “no reason” that existing regulations shouldn’t be extended to ride-hailing services that use driver-assist systems like FSD.
Both Waymo and Uber have agreed in previous filings submitted this year that ride-hailers should be allowed to offer vehicles with driver-assist systems under the new rules, and Waymo joined Tesla in recommending that CPUC loosen rules barring unaccompanied minors from riding in driverless cars.
It comes as Tesla races to hit Musk’s ambitious goals for its robotaxi rollout.
The billionaire has said that Tesla plans to have its robotaxi service up and running in eight to 10 metropolitan areas by the end of the year. On Tuesday, the automaker received the green light to launch a ride-hailing service in Arizona.
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